The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles will end its 1999-2000 season with Peter Falk and Jason Alexander in the world premiere of Lee Kalcheim's Defiled, a drama about the dangers of modern technology, May 23-July 2.

Barnet Kellman (TV's "Murphy Brown") will stage the production, which officially opens May 31.

In the play, a young librarian's world is turned upside down when a computer threatens to replace the institution's idiosyncratic card catalogue filing system. He threatens to blow up the library if its filing system becomes computerized.

Alexander will be the librarian and Falk is the police negotiator sent in. A Los Angeles reading of the play took place in June 1999 with Falk and Woody Harrelson.

Playwright Lee Kalcheim penned Breakfast with Les and Bess (Broadway, 1985), Friends (Manhattan Theatre Club), Big Men/Small Rooms (Williamstown Theatre Festival), among others. He has written extensively for TV and film, including an Emmy Award winning script for "All in the Family," "The Class of '63" and the series "Something Wilder." Kelman is a theatre and TV director perhaps best known direction of TV series including "Designing Women," "ER," "Mad About You," and the recent Mary Tyler Moore-Valerie Harper reunion, "Mary & Rhoda." Alexander is known for the TV series, "Seinfeld," but also made Broadway appearances in Merrily We Roll Along, The Rink and Jerome Robbins' Broadway.

The Geffen Playhouse is located at 10886 Le Conte Avenue in Westwood. For information call (310) 208-5454 or (213) 365-3500.

-- By Kenneth Jones