HARTFORD, CT — August 9, 2018
— Hartford
Stage Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak and Managing
Director Michael Stotts today announced the cast and creative
team for Make Believe, written by
Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle award-winning playwright Bess Wohl. The world premiere play will perform Thursday, September 6, through
Sunday, September 30, to open the Tony Award-winning regional theatre’s 55th
season. Jackson Gay will direct.
Bess Wohl’s uncanny, gently funny
and touching play, set in the 1980s, follows four young siblings as their
childhood is upended by the mysterious problems of the adults in their lives
and tracks how moments from our childhood resonate with us forever. The talented cast features four adult and four
youth actors.
“I had the pleasure of meeting Bess Wohl and Jackson Gay two decades ago at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Since then, Bess has evolved into one of our most innovative playwrights and Jackson one of our finest directors. It is a pleasure to be reacquainted with them and to welcome them to Hartford Stage for the world premiere of Make Believe,” Tresnjak said.
“I
couldn’t be happier to be opening our season with Bess Wohl’s Hartford Stage
commission, Make Believe,” Hartford Stage Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth
Williamson said. “I’ve worked with Bess for almost a decade, beginning with
premiering her plays Touch(ed) and In at Pioneer Theatre Company.
As with all of Bess’ work, Make Believe is surprising and funny, but
it’s also a serious play about childhood, performed by children. It’s exciting,
theatrical, and deeply moving. We’re very grateful to the Toulmin Foundation
for making this commission possible and delighted to have Jackson Gay on board
to direct.”
Wohl's most recent work, Small Mouth
Sounds, was hailed as a critic’s pick by The New
York Times, New York Magazine, and Time Out New York.
Wohl was also honored with the 2017 Outer Critics Circle’s John Gassner Award
for American plays by new playwrights for Small Mouth Sounds, which completed
a national tour last April. She received the 2015 Drama Desk Sam Norkin
Off-Broadway Award for establishing herself as an important voice in New York
theatre. Wohl’s other plays include American Hero, Barcelona (Ovation award nominee), and the
original musical Pretty Filthy (2015 Lucille
Lortel and Drama Desk nominations for Outstanding Musical). Wohl also writes
for film and television. Her film, Irreplaceable
You, premiered on Netflix last February. Wohl won an Athena Award for her original screenplay, Virginia; and In was included on the 2007 Hollywood Black List. Wohl has also
developed film and television projects for HBO, ABC, USA, Disney and Paramount.
The company of Make Believe includes Megan
Byrne (The Wolves, TheaterWorks; The Hatmaker’s Wife, The Playwrights
Realm) as Adult Kate; Chris Ghaffari
(Romeo & Juliet, Hartford Stage; Sex with Strangers, Westport Country
Playhouse) as Adult Chris; Brad Heberlee
(Small Mouth Sounds, Ars Nova/Signature
and Philadelphia Theatre Company; These
Paper Bullets, Atlantic Theatre Company and Yale Repertory Theatre) as Adult
Carl; Roman Malenda (History Mystery, TADA! Youth Theater; All My Sons, French Woods Festival of
the Performing Arts) as Chris; Alexa Skye Swinton (Billions,
Showtime; The Department Party,
Playwrights Horizons) as Addie; RJ
Vercellone (A Christmas Carol–A
Ghost Story of Christmas, Hartford Stage; The Who’s Tommy, Curtain Call) as Carl; Molly Ward (Othello, Hartford Stage; Bathsheba Dorin’s Kin, Playwrights Horizons) as Adult Addie; and Sloane Wolfe (Annie,
Paper Mill Playhouse; Samson-original cast,
Sight & Sound Theatres) as Kate.
Director Jackson Gay’s credits include Lucy Thurber's Transfers at MCC Theater; The Cake
and the world premiere of Suzanne Vega’s Lover,
Beloved: An Evening with Carson McCullers, with music by Vega and Duncan
Sheik, at the Alley Theatre; These Paper Bullets! – an adaptation of
William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About
Nothing by Rolin Jones with music by Green Day’s Billie Joe
Armstrong – at
Atlantic Theatre Company, The Geffen and Yale Repertory Theatre; and The
Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow at Atlantic Theatre
Company and Yale Repertory Theatre. Gay is a founding member of the theatre-television-music
company New Neighborhood. She is the Director of Artistic Programs for Fuller
Road Artist Residency and has taught directing and acting at Columbia University, Yale University, Primary Stages’ Marvin and Anne Einhorn School of
Performing Arts (ESPA), Sarah Lawrence College and Fordham University.
In addition to Gay, the
creative team is comprised of Set Designer Antje Ellermann (An Opening
in Time, Hartford Stage; Stuffed,
Women’s Project Theater; The Broken Heart,
Theatre for a New Audience); Costume Designer Jonghyun Georgia Lee (The
Cake, PlayMakers Repertory Company; Caught,
The Play Company; Sense and Sensibility, Guthrie Theater); Lighting Designer Paul Whitaker (Lover, Beloved:
An Evening with Carson McCullers,
Alley Theatre; These Paper Bullets, Geffen Playhouse and Atlantic
Theatre Company; Rigoletto, Minnesota Opera); and Sound Designers Broken
Chord Collective (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hartford
Stage; Eclipsed and The Parisian Woman, Broadway).
Hartford Stage Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth
Williamson (The Inheritance,
Young Vic and West End; Anastasia and
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,
Hartford Stage and Broadway) will serve as Dramaturg.
Rob Chikar (These Paper Bullets, Yale Repertory Theatre; Kill Local,
La Jolla Playhouse) will serve as Production Stage Manager, with Kelly Hardy (A Christmas Carol–A Ghost Story of Christmas, Anastasia, Hartford Stage) as Assistant
Stage Manager.
