Jesse’s turn

Original text from NEW YORK POST

They say that in Hollywood, everybody wants to direct. Apparently, in the theater, what everybody wants to do is write.

Exhibit A: Jesse Eisenberg, whose play, “Asuncion,” previews Oct. 12 at the Cherry Lane.

The Oscar-nominated star of “The Social Network” started writing back in high school. But while he’s written several screenplays, he says, none were ever made.

“I wasn’t very good at rewriting them, or I guess even writing them initially,” says the 27-year-old, whose occasional stutter is in marked contrast to his fierce, fast-talking turn as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. “I feel a lot more comfortable writing stage plays.”

In “Asuncion,” his debut comedy, he and Justin Bartha play friends whose self-professed open-mindedness is tested by their new roommate, the young Filipina of the title.

“My character thinks of himself as being worldly and very aware geopolitically and socially,” he says, “but he’s really masking his own insecurities. It’s an exaggeration of me.”

Another actor-turned-playwright is the ubiquitous Zoe Kazan. Her debut effort, the family drama “We Live Here” (Sept. 22, City Center Stage I), stars Amy Irving and Mark Blum.

There are also plenty of new works by playwrights whose names, if not their faces, are familiar. Nicky Silver’s comedy “The Lyons” (Sept. 22, Vineyard) stars Linda Lavin. Jonathan Groff plays a wannabe playwright who invents a black female nom de plume to get ahead in Jeff Talbott’s “The Submission” (Sept. 27, Lucille Lortel). Stephen Karam, whose “Speech and Debate” played the Roundabout Underground, advances to the theater’s upper level with his “Sons of the Prophet” (Sept. 28, Laura Pels), with Joanna Gleason.

And since no season’s complete without a new effort by the prolific Adam Rapp, there’s “Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling” (opens Oct. 3, Classic Stage).