The Welsh actor Michael Sheen, currently starring as the bow-tied sexologist William Masters on Showtime’s “Masters of Sex,” will be stepping into the shoes of a less buttoned down midcentury figure: Dylan Thomas.
On Oct. 26, Mr. Sheen will direct a performance of Thomas’s “Under Milk Wood” at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, on the same stage where the work — described by Thomas as “a play for voices” — had its premiere in May 1953. Mr. Sheen will also read the part of “First Voice,” a narrator, one of the parts originally read by Thomas.
The performance, which will be broadcast live on BBC Radio Wales, will also feature the actress Kate Burton, whose father, Richard Burton, helped popularize “Under Milk Wood” through a 1954 BBC radio broadcast and 1972 film adaptation. It is part of a week of events in New York and elsewhere celebrating Thomas’s 100th birthday, including “Dylan Thomas in America,” an exhibition about the poet’s star-making trips to the United States in the 1950s that will be on view at the 92nd Street Y.
Thomas died in November 1953, a few months after the “Milk Wood” premiere. Mr. Sheen, who was born near Thomas’s hometown, Swansea, Wales, said in a statement that the performance and live broadcast would be “an opportunity to celebrate him and his work in both New York — a city that became so important to Dylan — and, at the same time, in Wales, his inspiration and home.”
Tickets to the performance, which are free, can be reserved starting at noon on Sept. 9 at http://www.92y.org/dylanthomas.