Thomas McCarthy, The Visitor

A Yale Drama School grad whose acting career was steady if not celebrated, Thomas McCarthy finally came into prominence writing and directing the 2003 The Station Agent, a wry, rueful comedy that won many awards. Now McCarthy is back with The Visitor, another original, that was inspired by a State Department tour he took to Dubai and the Middle East for The Station Agent. In The Visitor, a retiring widowed Connecticut professor (Richard Jenkins of Six Feet Under) visits his often empty Manhattan apartment and finds two illegal tenants, a Syrian drummer and Sengalese woman whom he lets stay. Their friendship becomes complicated when the man is arrested and put in the Queens detention center.

•