Public Theater

Elevator Repair Service is best known for Gatz, its brilliant micro-epic eight-hour dramatization of the entire text of The Great Gatsby. The experimental company now returns to the Public Theater, under the aegis of the festival Under the Radar, with another literary-minded adaptation—this time, heavily condensed—of James Joyce's densely witty and allusive 1922 modernist novel, Ulysses, an odyssey through a single day in 1904 Dublin and into the minds of several of its denizens. ERS's John Collins directs an cast of seven: Maggie Hoffman, Vin Knight, Stephanie Weeks, Kate Benson, Christopher-Rashee Stevenson, Dee Beasnael and principal Gatz man Scott Shepherd (who is also this production's dramaturg and co-director).

As questions of public protest dominate the zeitgeist, the Off Broadway season offers not one but two adaptations of Sophocles's tragic tale of of political resistance in ancient Thebes. One is Alexander Zeldin's The Other Place; the other, by the rather similarly named Anna Ziegler, places the action in a less literally modern setting. Tyne Rafaeli (of this spring's Data) directs the world premiere at the Public, which stars Susannah Perkins as Antigone, Tony Shalhoub as Creon and Celia Keenan-Bolger as the Chorus.

Old secrets and resentments get dug up as four squabbling Korean-American sisters—played by Tina Chilip, Christine Heesun Hwang, Laura Sohn and Shannon Tyo—meet up in Orange County to perform a ritual in honor of their late father. Mei Ann Teo directs the world premiere of Jeena Yi's debut play for Ma-Yi Theater Company, which is currently in residence at the Public.  

During the Obama Adminstration, Julissa Reynoso served as a key advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Caribbean and Central Americas issues; she went on to serve as Ambassador to Uruguay and, under Biden, to Spain. Her experience forms the basis of this autobiographical drama, co-written with Michael J. Chepiga, which makes a case for the value of diplomacy, foreign aid and public service. The highly experienced Doug Hughes (Translations) directs the Public Theater's world premiere production. Zabryna Guevara, as Reynoso, leads a cast of eight that also includes Dan Domingues and Marinda Anderson as oither real-life State Department figures and Barbara Walsh as the wife of an American man imprisoned in Cuba. 

Russian expat Alexander Molochnikov, who moved to New York in 2022 after speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine, directs Eli Rarey's dark comedy—inspired by real events—about a Russian director who moves to New York in 2022 after speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine, only to find that America is not quite as welcoming as he'd hoped. Molochnikov is also billed as the creator of the piece, which was part of the Under the Radar festival last year and returns now for as a Public offering.