Fans of the classic American writer Mark Twain will have the chance to experience his work in a whole new art form --- on a Utah stage, in a farcical comedy.

Twain is remembered for his novels, including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but he also wrote a few plays. "Is He Dead?" -- a play from 1898 that was never produced in the writer's lifetime -- will open at Pioneer Theatre Company on Oct. 30.

Twain knew he had something in the material, according to Elizabeth Williamson, PTC's literary manager. "He once said, 'I think there is a really good play in there, but I wish someone else would re-dramatize it for me,' " Williamson said. "He realized the structural limitations he had. Dramatic structure was not Twain's strong point."

A professor found the forgotten script in Twain's archive at the University of California-Berkeley's Bancroft Library, and it was turned over to playwright David Ives, who wrote the farce "All in the Timing" and "Polish Joke." He did what Twain had hoped for decades before, adapting the script in 2003. The new-old work opened at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre in 2007.

"Everything that Twain set up, Ives has organized the payoff," Williamson said of the collaboration.

"Is He Dead?" tells the story of Jean-Francois Millet, a brilliant but unappreciated artist living outside Paris in 1846. With the support of his friends, he concocts a plan to fake his death to benefit from fame, riches and love he hopes will follow. But the plan sparks a whole set of other problems that the "deceased" artist will have to resolve.

Twain wrote the play while experiencing financial difficulties, basing it roughly on Jean-Francois Millet, an American artist who was considered the epitome of the starving artist and became famous only after his death. Perhaps Twain was imagining the millions of dollars that would be made off his work in the centuries after he died, Williamson said.

New York-based actor Michael Keyloun plays Millet, returning to the Utah stage after his 2008 starring performance as Leo Bloom, the wimpy accountant, in "The Producers." He described the play as "interesting because it almost doesn't feel like Twain." It has the author's language, characters and plot, Keyloun said, but it feels as Ives brought the script full circle and completed it.

"Twain on his own has all the humor but [not] the structure," Williamson said. "Twain plus David Ives get five stars. They make a winning team."

It's not every day that one gets to produce a new play by Mark Twin, said director Charles Morey, PTC's artistic director. "It's a new, old play by one of the great American writers. Nobody has ever seen it and it's very funny."