Company member Celia Keenan-Bolger has been nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Martha in the world premiere of Paula Vogel’s Mother Play. The production was also nominated for Best New Play. This is Celia’s fifth Tony nomination, having won in 2019 for portraying Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, featuring company members Maechi Aharanwa and Rachel Christopher, was nominated for Best New Play, while Purlie Victorious, featuring company member Heather Alicia Simms, was nominated for Best Play Revival, and Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, featuring company member Ato Blankson-Wood, was nominated for Best Musical Revival. This year’s awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, June 16. Congratulations to all!
Company member Elizabeth Stahlmann is in Here There are Blueberries at New York Theatre Workshop, co-produced with Tectonic Theater Project. Conceived and directed by Moisés Kaufman and co-written by Amanda Gronich, the play begins as a mysterious album of Nazi-era photographs arrives at the desk of a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum archivist in 2007. As curators unravel the shocking truth behind the images, the album soon makes headlines and ignites a debate that reverberates far beyond the museum walls. Based on real events, the play tells the story of these historical photographs—what they reveal about the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and our own humanity. The production runs through June 16.
Alexander teacher, interdisciplinary artist, and Yale faculty member, Fabio Tavares, and Michael Chekhov teacher and artistic director of the Chekhov Studio NYC, Bethany Caputo, join The Actors Center’s Resident Company in May for a series of artist development workshops focusing on movement, psychophysical approaches to acting, and freeing the body.
Company member Maulik Pancholy has written a short story “Out in the Open” for the new book edited by Hena Kahn, The Door is Open. The book features stories showcasing a diverse array of talented authors with heritage from the Indian subcontinent, who each highlight the beauty and necessity of a community center that everyone calls home. Maulik has also published his own acclaimed novels The Best At It in 2019 and Nikhil Out Loud in 2022.
Maulik was scheduled to give a talk on anti-bullying at a Pennsylvania school next month, but school board members scrapped it, citing concerns about his activism and “lifestyle.” Amid a national uproar, Maulik responded, “As a middle schooler, I never saw myself represented in the stories around me. I couldn’t find books that featured South Asian-American or LGBTQ+ characters.” He continued to say that his award-winning books “are stories that reflect the full, complicated, and wonderful lives of middle school students. When I visit schools, my ‘activism’ is to let all young people know that they’re seen. To let them know that they matter. When I talk about the characters in my books feeling ‘different,’ I’m always surprised by how many young people raise their hands—regardless of their identities and backgrounds—wanting to share about the ways in which they, too, feel different. That’s the power of books. They build empathy. I wonder why a school board is so afraid of that?”
The school board has since narrowly voted to allow Maulik’s speech to go ahead after residents and students spoke out. Read coverage in The New York Times and Washington Post, as well as Maulik’s statement following the reversal of the decision.
Company member MaYaa Boateng is in Molière in the Park’s re-imagined version of The Miser, translated and adapted by David Chambers, and directed by Lucie Tiberghien. Step into a world of biting absurdity and timeless truths as Harpagon, a newly widowed geezer consumed by fear of losing his wealth, will do anything to save his fortune. When he announces that he has found love again and is ready to wed, the ultimate rebellion begins. Through a series of outlandish events and misunderstandings, the entire household is forced to face the true cost of Harpagon’s folly before they see the light again. The production runs at Prospect Park’s LeFrak Center in Brooklyn through May 19, with opening night on May 3.
Santino Fontana and Celia Keenan-Bolger received Drama Desk Award nominations this week, while Celia, Jeb Brown, and Judy Kuhn each received nominations for Outer Critics Circle Awards. Santino and Judy were nominated for their performances in the Off-Broadway musical revival I Can Get It For You Wholesale. Jeb was nominated for his performance in the Off-Broadway musical Dead Outlaw, while Celia was nominated for her performance in Mother Play on Broadway.
Six productions featuring company members were nominated for both Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards including: Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (with Maechi Aharanwa and Rachel Christopher), Dead Outlaw (with Jeb Brown and Ken Marks), Mother Play (with Celia Keenan-Bolger), Purlie Victorious (with Heather Alicia Simms), Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club (with Ato Blankson-Wood), and I Can Get It For You Wholesale (with Santino Fontana and Judy Kuhn).
Five additional productions received nominations for Outer Critics Circle Awards: Days of Wine and Roses (with David Manis), Dig (with Andrea Syglowski and Mary Bacon), King James (with Chris Perfetti), The Apiary (with Taylor Schilling), and Wet Brain (with Arturo Luíz Soria).
Company member Maggie Bofill is in the world premiere of Judgment Day at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Jason Alexander plays Sammy Campo, a staggeringly corrupt, morally bankrupt lawyer who’s threatened with eternal damnation by a terrifying angel after a near-death experience. In a desperate attempt to redeem himself, Sammy forms an unlikely bond with a Catholic priest who is having his own crisis of faith. Filled with razor-sharp wit, this deliciously devious comedy rollicks through the timeless questions of Western philosophy—morality, faith, and are people any damn good? Written by Rob Ulin and directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, the production runs through May 26 in Chicago, IL.
Myra Lucretia Taylor appears on Blue Bloods, Season 14, Episode 7, “On the Ropes” on CBS/Paramount+
Kate Abbruzzese appears on The Equalizer, Season 4, Episode 6, “DOA” on CBS/Paramount+
Michael Mastro appears on FBI, Season 6, Episode 9, “Best Laid Plans” on CBS/Paramount+
Kevin Kilner appears on FBI: Most Wanted, Season 5, Episode 9, “The Return” on CBS/Paramount+
Bhavesh Patel appears on FBI: Most Wanted, Season 5, Episode 9, “The Return” on CBS/Paramount+
Christopher Michael McFarland appears on Debut Season of Elsbeth in Episode 4 “Love Knocked Off” on CBS/Paramount+
Kelly AuCoin appears on Debut Season of Elsbeth in Episode 4 “Love Knocked Off” on CBS/Paramount+
Emma Ramos and Maggie Bofill write for Nickelodeon’s reboot of the animated series Dora, available to stream on Paramount+
Company member Jason Butler Harner stars in The Big Bend, a new film from director Brett Wagner now in theaters. The film plays through May 1 in New York at Look Cinemas, and May 17-23 at Laemmle in Santa Monica. Two families, the Prices and the Talbotts, meet for a long overdue reunion in the remote West Texas desert, where events quickly don’t go as planned. Harboring secrets and facing private crises, they explore one of the wildest places in America, testing the boundaries of marriage, friendship, and parenthood, and doing their best to survive the experience.
Company member Nathan Darrow plays King Leontes in The Winter’s Tale at Southern Shakespeare Company’s Free Shakespeare in the Park Festival in Tallahassee, FL. Jealous King Leontes upends his kingdom when he falsely accuses his wife Hermione of infidelity and exiles their newborn daughter, Perdita, to Bohemia. After many years, long journeys, and hard-won forgiveness, the family is reunited and reconciled. Shanara Gabrielle directs the Shakespearean classic, which runs from May 9-12.
Company member John-Andrew Morrison is in A Strange Loop at A.C.T., reprising his Tony-nominated Broadway role. Michael R. Jackson’s musical introduces us to Usher: a Black, queer writer writing a musical about a Black, queer writer writing a musical about a Black, queer writer. The blisteringly funny work of art exposes the heart and soul of a young artist grappling with desires, identity, and instincts he both loves and loathes. Hell-bent on breaking free of his own self-perception, Usher wrestles with the thoughts in his head, brought to life on stage by a hilarious, straight-shooting ensemble. This co-production with Center Theatre Group runs through May 12 in San Francisco, before moving to Los Angeles June 5-30.
Company member Lynnette R. Freeman is in Cell, presented by Keen Company in collaboration with The Drama League as part of DirectorFest. Written by Cassandra Medley and directed by Nadia Guevara, the production runs May 3-11. When a jaded guard arranges jobs for her sister and her niece Gwen at an immigrant detention center, the family erupts into a battle over home and homeland security. As time ticks down for Gwen to save a detained child, the play paints a searing picture of the secrets we keep in order to survive. Through an evening of contemporary one-acts, DirectorFest showcases rising talent in the theater industry and gives audiences a first look at the future of the field.
Company member Kate Abbruzzese is in the world premiere of Newtown at Geva Theatre. Written by Dan O’Brien and directed by Elizabeth Williamson, the play imagines the early morning of December 14, 2012 prior to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, and dramatizes a real-life meeting in January 2013 between the father of the shooter and the parents of one of the victims. This lyrical and unflinchingly realistic work is a heartbreaking and powerful interrogation of the complex causes of gun violence in American culture. While derived closely from documentary source material, Newtown is a fictional response to the tragic event, which focuses on the personal stories of the families impacted right before and five-weeks following the shooting, their search for healing and hope, and the possibility of forgiveness. The production runs through May 12 in Rochester, NY.
Company member Dee Pelletier is in Twelfth Night with Axis Company. Director Randall Sharp brings a stark and musical touch to Shakespeare’s most painful comedy, in a streamlined adaptation by Marc Palmieri. Even in a season of the darkest calamities, does the human will to be happy ever surrender? Shall there be cakes, ale, dancing and love, as the darkness ever looms? This radical interpretation strips away much of the jovial excess of Shakespeare’s most-beloved play and places focus on the yearning for human connection. The production runs through May 25.
Company member Tina Chilip is in The Far Country at Yale Repertory Theater. In the wake of the Chinese Exclusion Act, an unlikely family carries invented biographies and poems of longing on an arduous journey from rural Taishan to Angel Island Detention Center in hopes of landing in San Francisco. Intimate and epic, Lloyd Suh’s play—a pulitzer prize finalist in 2023—weighs the true cost of selling the past for the hope of a brighter future. The production, directed Ralph B. Peña, runs through May 18.