Terry Kinney thrilled to be directing Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July" at Bay Street"

Terry Kinney is an actor with dozens of TV and stage credits on his resume. But audiences will not see him in “Fifth of July,” opening this week at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, because he is exercising another well-toned career muscle, that of director.

“There have been times when I’ve thought that I should focus on acting alone, to put all my energies in that occupation,” Mr. Kinney said in a recent interview. “But an opportunity like this comes along and I realize that I love directing, too.”

In this case, the “opportunity” is to direct a play by Lanford Wilson in Mr. Wilson’s hometown. While the playwright has not been directly involved in the Bay Street production, Mr. Kinney said that he had been present during auditions and that he had been sending the director notes and other thoughts about the play.

“He’ll be here when we officially open,” the director said. “Normally, that can be nerve-wracking, but I’ve been fortunate to work with Lanford before.”

“Fifth of July” is set in a farmhouse in Missouri (Mr. Wilson’s native state), where there is a reunion of a group of friends and former activists who have gathered to scatter the ashes of a relative and friend. Though the play is now 30 years old, Mr. Kinney believes it has not lost any of its relevance.

“It addresses issues like disillusionment, loss, friendship, and what the future will be,” he explained. “Those are universal issues that don’t go out of fashion. And the ghost of the Vietnam War hovers over these characters. I think the audience will be surprised by how references to that war are similar to what we’re hearing every day about Afghanistan.”

Mr. Kinney has had the good fortune to work with many fine playwrights, actors, and directors in the course of an especially active career

that can be attributed in some measure to a chance meeting 36 years ago.

He was born and raised in Illinois and attended Illinois State University. A school friend, Jeff Perry, took him to see a performance of “Grease,” and in the cast was Gary Sinise. After the show, the three men got into a conversation about theater and what turned out to be mutual ambitions.

“Jeff and Gary and I clicked right away, as though we’d known each other forever,” Mr. Kinney recalled. “There was no hesitation about trying to do something together. And that level of agreement and friendship has continued to today.”

That “something” was founding the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in 1974. It not only offered a venue for the founders to produce, act in, and direct plays, but it was a training ground for young actors and new works by emerging and established playwrights. The roster includes Mr. Wilson, Sam Shepard, Richard Greenberg, and Neil LaBute.

In the 1980s, opportunities came along to branch out to film and television work. As an actor, Mr. Sinise has had the more visible roles, especially his Oscar-nominated turn as Lt. Dan in “Forrest Gump,” as one of the astronauts in “Apollo 13,” and more recently, the star of the television series “CSI: New York.”

Mr. Kinney has been busy too: He made his first TV appearance in 1985 on the show “Miami Vice.” Other shows include “Law and Order,” “Thirtysomething,” “The Mentalist,” and most recently, a recurring role in the CBS drama “The Good Wife.” He is probably best known to cable television audiences for playing Tim McManus, the Emerald City unit manager, on the HBO prison series “Oz” for six seasons. Among the feature films he has acted in are “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Devil In a Blue Dress,” “House of Mirth,” and “The Laramie Project.”

Even with such a full acting resume, Mr. Kinney keeps returning to directing. While on “Oz,” he directed a couple of episodes. “That was a great experience,” he recalled. “I learned better than ever before how to shoot fast on a limited budget. Being able to do that makes you a lot more appealing as a director for TV shows and independent films.”

He directed Mr. Sinise in the highly-praised Steppenwolf production of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” Mr. Kinney’s production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” with Mr. Sinise in the role of Randall McMurphy, originated at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company but wound up on Broadway, where it received the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.

Mr. Kinney’s first involvement professionally with Mr. Wilson’s work was in 1985 when he performed in “Balm in Gilead,” which won the Drama Desk Award for Best Play. For 25 years he has hoped for an opportunity to direct a Wilson work, and that hope is being fulfilled thanks to the Talley family and the desire on the part of the Bay Street Theatre to host a production of the work of a local writer.

Mr. Wilson has lived in Sag Harbor since 1970, a year after he and others founded the Circle Repertory Company in Manhattan. “Talley’s Folly,” the third play in a trilogy about a Missouri family—he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the second installment, “Talley’s Folly”—debuted on Broadway in 1980. Its last revival was in 2002. A New York Times review said about the work that it was “the wisest and funniest play of its generation.”

Mr. Kinney is enthusiastic about the cast he has assembled, which includes the veteran stage actress Elizabeth Franz, who co-starred with Brian Dennehy in the Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman”; David Wilson Barnes, who appeared in the recent HBO film “You Don’t Know Jack” with Al Pacino as Dr. Jack Kevorkian; and Kellie Overby, who appeared in the New York production of Tom Stoppard’s “Coast of Utopia.” That it is summer does not mean vacation time for the troupe.

“These actors were ready for rehearsals the moment I arrived,” Mr. Kinney said. “To be in a great Lanford Wilson play is not something to be taken casually. That he will be sitting in the audience ups the ante. The cast’s excitement is very clear. I can’t say it has rubbed off on me because I was already thrilled to be given this project, and at just the right theater.”

Lanford Wilson’s “Fifth of July” is in previews this week at Bay Street Theatre on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor, with opening night set for Saturday. The show runs Tuesdays through Saturday at 8 p.m., at 7 on Sundays, and in matinees on Wednesdays at 2 p.m. and Saturdays at 4. After next Tuesday’s performance, there will be a “talkback” with the actors. For tickets, go to baystreet.org or call 725-9500.

After the production at Bay Street closes on August 1, the cast will move the show north to the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts.