NEW YORK: Oscar-winning Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway is to star in a New York play about an ace fighter pilot tasked with flying US drones in Afghanistan from an Air Force trailer.

The Public Theater in Manhattan's trendy East Village said the production of Grounded would run from April 7 to May 17, and be directed by the award-winning Julie Taymor.

Written by US playwright George Brant, the one-woman drama tells the story of a fighter pilot reassigned to 12-hour shifts flying remote-controlled drones after she gets pregnant.

The Public Theater said it explores "the complicated consequences of waging war without leaving home."

The play was named one of the top 10 plays in London in 2013 by British newspapers the Evening Standard and the Guardian.

Brooklyn-born Hathaway won an Oscar in 2013 as best supporting actress in the 2012 movie Les Miserables.

She last trod the boards as Viola in a 2009 production of Twelfth Night at the open-air Delacorte Theater in New York's Central Park.