Source:The Hollywood Reporter

January 18, 2008

Zac Efron ("High School Musical" films) will star in Me and Orson Welles, an adaptation of the period coming-of-age novel by Robert Kaplow that Richard Linklater will direct, says The Hollywood Reporter.

Set in 1937, the story centers on a high school student (Efron) who, while strolling the streets of New York, happens upon the yet-to-open Mercury Theatre and is noticed by its mercurial founder, Orson Welles. The man lands a bit part in "Julius Caesar," the production that catapulted Welles to the top, and spends the next week learning about life and love.

Newcomer Christian McKay will play Welles. Ben Chaplin (The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep) has been cast as English film and stage actor George Coulouris.

The script was written by Holly Gent Palmo, who was a production coordinator on Linklater's Dazed and Confused, and Vince Palmo, who was first assistant director on several of the helmer's films.

Efron then will shoot "Welles" in mid-February and March in such locales as New York, London and the Isle of Man, whose Gaiety Theatre is being booked for the production.