New Plays from Gurney and SpongeBob SquarePants Scribe Banks Set for Flea

New plays from A.R. Gurney and Steven Banks will be presented at off-Broadway's The Flea theater this fall, according to Variety.

Gurney's Office Hours will begin performances September 21 ahead of a September 30 opening. The play, which Gurney wrote specifically for Flea's acting troupe the Bats, takes place on a college campus in 1974 and will run through November 7.

Banks' Looking at Christmas will run from November 20 through December 31 and follows a recently fired author and who crosses paths with a young actress will taking in the holiday department store window displays on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. Casting for both productions will be announced at a later date.

Gurney is currently represented off-Broadway at Lincoln Center with The Grand Manner. His many other plays include Buffalo Gal, Crazy Mary, Big Bill, The Fourth Wall, Far East, Silvia, The Cocktail Hour, What I Did Last Summer and The David Show.

Banks is best known as a writer for popular TV cartoons such as SpongeBob SquarePants, CatDog and The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. He toured the country in 1989 with his one man show Home Entertainment Center which was turned into the short lived TV series The Steven Banks Show. He is now often seen performing as his silent but vulgar alter-ego "Billy the Mime."