Off Broadway Revival Of Blacklist Drama To Feature Starry Rotating Cast
Eric Bentley’s 1972 play Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been will be revived for a summer-long Off Broadway run at New York City Center Stage I, and will featuring a starry rotating cast that will include at various points David Krumholtz, Billy Eugene Jones, Andrew McCarthy, Sally Murphy, Jay O. Sanders, Brooks Ashmanskas, Jason Babinsky, Steven Boyer, Adam Kantor, Frederick Weller, Michael McKean, Santino Fontana, T.R. Knight, Harry Lennix, Bob Odenkirk, Steven Pasquale, Molly Ringwald and Thomas Sadoski.
Anna D. Shapiro (Eureka Day, The Minutes, August: Osage County) will direct. The limited 15-week engagement begins performances on Tuesday, June 2.
The docudrama is set in the tense world of the 1940s House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings, “where fame offered no protection and political pressure could end a career.”
Using only the original transcripts, the play features the words of artists including Arthur Miller, Jerome Robbins, Paul Robeson, Elia Kazan, Lillian Hellman, Abe Burrows, and Lionel Stander as they defend their integrity, protect their careers, or betray their peers. The probing questions posed by the committee reveal a climate of intimidation and moral conflict.
Other figures portrayed in the play are film actor Larry Parks; director Sam G. Wood; filmmakers and Hollywood Ten members Edward Dmytryk and Ring Lardner, Jr.; screen star Sterling Hayden; stage and screen actor José Ferrer; screenwriter Martin Berkeley; Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter Robert Rossen; labor organizer Tony Kraber; film director Frank Tuttle; actor and radio performer Nicholas Bela; stage and screen actor Elliott Sullivan; and character actor Marc Lawrence.
Guest starring in the production from June 2 through June 21 are Krumholtz (Leopoldstadt), Jones (Purlie Victorious), McCarthy (Pretty in Pink), Murphy (August: Osage County), and Sanders (Purlie Victorious).
The design team for this production includes Andrew Boyce (Scenic Designer), Johanna Pan (Costume Designer), Donald Holder (Lighting Designer), Milbo Music (Sound Designer), and Brittany Bland (Projections Designer).
The lead producers are Jeffrey Richards, Rebecca Gold, and Ira Pittelman.
Following select performances, the production will host a series of post-show talkbacks featuring artists, directors, playwrights, and cultural leaders. Scheduled guests include J. T. Rogers (6/2), Trip Cullman (6/4 evening), Judy Kuhn and John Weidman (6/11 evening), Christopher Ashley (6/16), Arian Moayed (6/17 matinee), Joanna Samuels (6/17 evening), Heidi Schreck (6/18), Moisés Kaufman (6/23), David Henry Hwang (6/25), Matthew Libby (6/30), Bill Rauch (7/14), Oskar Eustis (7/23), Robert O’Hara (8/29 matinee), Pam MacKinnon (9/2 evening), and Michael Roth (9/9 evening).
