The Los Angeles premiere of Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking, which first took London by storm in 1997, begins previews March 1 at Hollywood’s Celebration Theatre.

Celebration Theatre artistic director Richard Israel announced that Michael Donald Edwards, who directed Shopping at San Francisco’s Theatre Rhinoceros last year, will helm this upcoming Los Angeles run. The show was presented in New York by the New York Theatre Workshop in 1998.

The limited engagement opens March 3 and runs through April 9.

The cast will feature Andrew Ableson, Steven Klein, Melik Malkasian, Mariam Parris and Michael James Reed.

The production team comprises set designer Seanne Farmer, lighting designer Frank McKown, costume designer Michael Moser and sound designer Robby MacLean. Described as a "controversial look at London’s lost boys and girls," Shopping received the New York Outer Critic’s Circle Best Play Award in 1998. Black humor, graphic sex and stark Gen-X emotionality inform this story about addiction, dependency and the playwright's conviction that everything in life has been reduced to a commodity.

Tickets range $12 (previews)-$20. The Celebration Theatre is located at 7051 Santa Monica Boulevard, just East of La Brea Boulevard, in Hollywood. Tickets may be purchased by calling (310) 289-2999 or by visiting the Tiffany Theater box office at 8532 Sunset Boulevard, just West of La Cienega, in West Hollywood. For group sales [10 or more], call (323) 957-1884.

-- By Murdoch McBride