Albee’s New Play, ‘Laying an Egg,’ Postponed Again

Edward Albee’s “Laying an Egg,” announced six weeks ago as a centerpiece of the Signature Theater’s 2013-14 season, has been postponed for the second time, the company announced on Thursday. Mr. Albee’s work was originally to have had its world premiere as part of the Off Broadway company’s 2011-12 season - its first at the Signature Center, its new Midtown space - but was postponed when the famously self-critical playwright, now 85, decided that it needed revamping.

In place of Mr. Albee’s work, the company will present the world premiere of “The Old Friends,” a new work by Horton Foote. The play, about two Texas farming families who find themselves at odds, will be directed by Michael Wilson, and will have Betty Buckley, Hallie Foote and Lois Smith in its cast. Previews begin on Aug. 20; the opening is scheduled for Sept. 2.

Neither Mr. Albee nor James Houghton, the artistic director of the Signature Theater, responded to email and telephone messages on Thursday. The first time Mr. Albee withdrew the play, which is about a middle-aged woman who is determined to become pregnant despite complications, he said that it was taking him longer to complete than he had expected. “I was over-complicating things,” he said in an interview in The New York Times. That season, the work was replaced with one of Mr. Albee’s earlier plays, “The Lady From Dubuque.”

In announcing the postponement, the Signature Theater said that it “remains committed to premiering” the work “in a future season.”