Arin Arbus ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Simon Godwin ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE
Robert E. Buckholz CHAIR
Jeffrey Horowitz FOUNDING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
SHAKESPEARE THEATRE COMPANY
Dorothy Ryan EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Angela Lee Gieras EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR &
Present
by HENRIK IBSEN
in a new version by DAVID ELDRIDGE directed by SIMON GODWIN
On the Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage Featuring
KATIE BROAD, MELANIE FIELD, ALEXANDER HURT, MAHIRA KAKKAR, DAVID PATRICK KELLY, MAAIKE LAANSTRA-CORN, BOBBY PLASENCIA, MATTHEW SALD Í VAR, ALEXANDER SOVRONSKY, ROBERT STANTON, NICK WESTRATE
Scenic Designer ANDREW BOYCE
Costume Designer HEATHER C. FREEDMAN
Hair & Wig Designer SATELLITE WIGS
Lighting Designer STACEY DEROSIER
Movement and Fight Director JACOB GRIGOLIA-ROSENBAUM
Production Stage Manager SHANE SCHNETZLER
Casting JACK DOULIN
Sound Designer DARRON L WEST Properties Supervisor JON KNUST
Voice Director ANDREW WADE
Press Representative BLAKE ZIDELL & ASSOCIATES
First preview September 2, 2025 | Opening night September 14, 2025
Production Dramaturg JONATHAN KALB
General Manager CHLOE KNIGHT
World premiere commissioned by and first presented at the Donmar Warehouse on December 8, 2005. Theatre for a New Audience dedicates this season to the memory of Dr. Leonard S. Polonsky CBE
Additional generous support for this production has been provided by The Arete Foundation, The Brandt Jackson Foundation, Monica Gerard-Sharp and Dominica Wambold, and the Norwegian Consulate General in New York.
2025-2026 Season Sponsors
Principal support for Theatre for a New Audience’s season and programs is provided by Alan Beller and Stephanie Neville, The Jerome and Marlène Brody Foundation, Robert E. Buckholz and Lizanne Fontaine, The Charina Endowment Fund, Constance Christensen, The Hearst Foundations, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Jerome L. Greene Foundation Fund at the New York Community Trust, The Polonsky Foundation, The SHS Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and The Thompson Family Foundation. Major season support is provided by The Achelis and Bodman Foundation, Sally Brody, Agnes Gund, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, The Hearst Corporation, The DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP, Audrey Heffernan Meyer and Danny Meyer, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Marcia Riklis, The Starry Night Fund, Stockel Family Foundation, Anne and William Tatlock, The Tow Foundation, Kathleen Walsh and Gene Bernstein, and The White Cedar Fund.
Theatre for a New Audience’s season and programs are also made possible, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities; Shakespeare in American Communities, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
(in alphabetical order)
Miss Pettersen.................................................................................................................................................. KATIE BROAD
Gina Ekdal...................................................................................................................................................MELANIE FIELD
Gregers Werle.........................................................................................................................................ALEXANDER HURT
Mrs Sørby..................................................................................................................................................MAHIRA KAKKAR
Old Ekdal........................................................................................................................................DAVID PATRICK KELLY
Hedvig.......................................................................................................................................MAAIKE LAANSTRA-CORN
Mr Flor....................................................................................................................................................BOBBY PLASENCIA
Relling/Captain Balle..........................................................................................................................MATTHEW SALDÍVAR
Jensen.........................................................................................................................................ALEXANDER SOVRONSKY
Håkon Werle...........................................................................................................................................ROBERT STANTON
Hjalmar Ekdal............................................................................................................................................NICK WESTRATE
Understudies never substitute for the listed players unless a specific announcement is made at the time of the appearance. For Miss Pettersen Tracie Lane
Production Stage Manager...................................................................................................................SHANE SCHNETZLER
Assistant Stage Manager.............................................................................................................MICHELLE LAUREN TUITE
Fight Captain...............................................................................................................................................MELANIE FIELD
Time and Place: 1880s, a city in Norway.
Part I
Act I: Håkon Werle’s House, evening.
Act II: Hjalmar Ekdal’s studio, later that evening.
Act III: Hjalmar Ekdal’s studio, the following morning.
Part II
Act IV: Hjalmar Ekdal’s studio, late that afternoon.
Act V: Hjalmar Ekdal’s studio, the following morning.
Part I is approximately 70 minutes, and Part II is 60 minutes. There will be a 15-minute intermission between Parts I and II.
Music in our production of Ibsen's The Wild Duck.
Sound Designer Darron West and Music Director Alexander Sovronsky have pulled from 19th century Norwegian music to create the soundscape you're hearing today. Among the composers whose music is being utilized is Ole Bull, a celebrated Norwegian violinist and composer who was instrumental in the creation of Norway's National Theatre where many of Ibsen's works were premiered, including The Wild Duck in 1885. Ole Bull wrote music that drew on the Romantic Classical style at the time as well as Norwegian folk songs. He wrote works for violin that tried to emulate the Hardinger Fiddle, a traditional 9-stringed instrument of his homeland. Onstage you will see and hear Alexander Sovronsky's arrangements of some of this music performed on an Octave Violin, a Hardinger Fiddle, and a Langeleik, a Norwegian instrument similar to a Lap Dulcimer.
This Theatre operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
The stage managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.
The scenic, costume, lighting, and sound designers in LORT Theatres are represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE.
The Director is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Inc., an independent national labor union.
5 Biography: Henrik Ibsen by Jonathan Kalb
6 Interview: "Living at the Speed of Life" with Simon Godwin by Jonathan Kalb
11 Bios: Cast and Creative Team
17 About Theatre For a New Audience
Notes
Front Cover: Design by Paul Davis Studio / Paige Restaino. This Viewfinder will be periodically updated with additional information. Last updated September 11, 2025.
Credits
The Wild Duck 360° | Edited by Zoe Donovan Resident Dramaturg: Jonathan Kalb | Council of Scholars Chair: Tanya Pollard | Designed by: Milton Glaser, Inc. Publisher: Theatre for a New Audience, Arin Arbus, Artistic Director
The Wild Duck 360° Copyright 2025 by Theatre for a New Audience. All rights reserve d.
With the exception of classroom use by teachers and individual personal use, no part of this Viewfinder may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electr onic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Some materials herein are written especially for our guide. Others are reprinted with permission of their authors or publishers.
Maaike Laanstra-Corn as Hedvig, Melanie Field as Gina Ekdal, Alexander Hurt as Gregers Werle. Photo by Hollis King.
JONATHAN KALB
The scion of an impoverished family from an out-of-the-way corner of a peripheral country devoid of strong cultural institutions, Ibsen rose to become one of the prime generative forces of modern drama. His father, a prosperous merchant in the small Norwegian port town of Skien, descended into bitterness and alcoholism after his business collapsed in 1834 and his eldest son Henrik’s formal education ceased at age 15 when he was sent to become a pharmacist’s assistant. Miserable and lonely, he became a voracious reader and a keen observer of people. He also, at age 18, impregnated a servant in the shop, 10 years older, and was forced to pay child support for the next 16 years for a son he probably never met. Both these calamities would deeply inform his 1884 play The Wild Duck, whose characters include a bankrupt old man who brought shame to his family and a former servant possibly impregnated by her employer.
The young Ibsen had strong radical sympathies. He wrote his first play Catiline flush with enthusiasm for revolutionary romanticism after the 1848 European uprisings. After failing his university entrance exams, he took a job at a theater in Bergen, which broadened his horizons by sending him on foreign theatergoing trips. Over the next decade he acquired extensive practical theater experience—writing, producing and directing many different types of plays. In 1858 he married Suzannah Thoresen who gave birth in 1859 to their only child, Sigurd (later a prominent Norwegian politician). The family’s finances were precarious, and Ibsen was threatened with debtor’s prison. With help from friends and a small government grant, he left Norway in 1864 and lived abroad for the next 27 years.
All the plays that established Ibsen’s career were written in exile. He lived aloof from all but the most intimate friends and family in Rome, Dresden and Munich. His epic verse dramas Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867)—both dazzlingly imaginative blends of folklore and psychological observation—won recognition and respect throughout Scandinavia. It was his series of prose dramas written between 1877 and 1899, however, set in middle-class Norwegian homes—including A Doll’s House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, Hedda Gabler, and Rosmersholm —that made him a household name in Europe, selling out large editions, receiving prominent productions, and sparking passionate debates.
In the mid 1880s, Ibsen became uneasy about his public idolatry. After A Doll’s House (1879) made him a cause célèbre for women’s rights advocates, Ghosts (1881) and An Enemy of the Peopl e (1882) spurred other social reformers to claim him as a champion as well. He therefore deliberately set out in his next play, The Wild Duck (1884), to relegate social criticism to the background. The Wild Duck brought a new tone into Ibsenian drama—tragicomedy—that not only provided strange new pleasures but also prevented him from being pigeonholed with easy labels and theses. George Bernard Shaw called this unique work a satire of “sham Ibsenism.”
Ibsen would go on to write much more pathbreaking drama, including several plays after his 1891 return to Norway that stretched beyond realism. Through his career, the skewering of moribund idealisms would be central to his spirit .
This is an edited version of an interview on August 20, 2025 with director Simon Godwin and TFANA’s Resident Dramaturg Jonathan Kalb
JONATHAN KALB Let’s start with the origin question. Jeffrey Horowitz and I discussed several possible plays with you for production this year and you settled on Ibsen’s The Wild Duck. Why?
SIMON GODWIN The Wild Duck’s been in the back of my mind for over two decades. I heard about David Eldridge’s version when it was produced at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2005, directed by Michael Grandage. Interestingly, I never saw that production, but I read about it. There was a huge amount of interest and debate around the play and David’s version. The memory haunted me in a very, dare I say, Ibsen-like way, so when Jeffrey asked me for ideas for a third collaboration with TFANA—after Measure for Measure (2017) and Timon of Athens (2020)—I ordered a copy of David’s version and
actually sat down and read it. I was struck immediately by the power of the story, the intensity of the characters, and how the theme of parenting affected me. I’m a father of three children, and this is a very intense study of fathers and sons, fathers and daughters. The play is known for locating the political within the personal, but the prism of the family is what I found so fascinating.
KALB Have you directed Ibsen before?
GODWIN No, I haven’t. I’ve directed quite a bit of Shakespeare, Chekhov, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, but Ibsen is, perhaps, the thirteenth man at the table, whom I’ve never dined with until now.
KALB What do you mean by that?
GODWIN The symbol of the thirteenth man at the table comes up three times in The Wild Duck . Ibsen asks us to think about what it invokes. Is this man Judas? Or Jesus? Is he a figure of disruption or redemption?
KALB You’re making it sound like you were avoiding Ibsen.
GODWIN I think I hadn’t found my way to Ibsen. I found him daunting, perhaps a little heavy, or schematic. I couldn’t find a personal way in. But, then, the story of children and parents offered me a way to the play’s heart. I finally found access to the emotionalism of Ibsen’s writing.
KALB The Wild Duck will run at your theater, Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC, after its Brooklyn run. Do you see a connection between Ibsen and Shakespeare?
GODWIN They’re both dramatists of big ideas—of outsize ambition and huge emotion. Shakespeare, however, is principally invested in the now; his characters make as many decisions in the present as they possibly can. Ibsen is fascinated by how the past catches up with us. This makes the machinations of an Ibsen text different from the teeming vitality of one by Shakespeare. In the rehearsal room with The Wild Duck I feel more like a detective looking for clues from the past, or a psychoanalyst.
KALB The Wild Duck is a deeply admired canonical work, but it isn’t produced very often. Why do you think that is?
GODWIN The play is twisty and provocative. Unlike A Doll’s House, it has no clear, single protagonist. There’s an ensemble of characters jostling for our attention and our sympathies. The play asks us to shift our loyalties a great deal. It has some light, even witty moments, and then some extremely dark moments. The play contains audacious contrasts which are exhilarating and daunting to direct.
KALB The play’s detractors have called it dark and depressing. What’s your response to that?
GODWIN With plays that have a reputation for heft, I try to discover, if I can, a kind of contrasting effervescence. Human beings, as someone wise once said to me, move away from pain. Very few people are ever consciously trying to make their life worse. We are all trying to make our lives better. Sadly, in doing that, we occasionally unwittingly invite catastrophe. My job, whether it’s Shakespeare or Ibsen, Macbeth or The Wild Duck , is to find the radiance, to find the light that’s motivating the characters, for good or ill.
KALB What do you think is the central conflict in this play? Is it whatever is going on between Gregers and Hjalmar? Or between Gregers and Relling? Something else?
GODWIN The question of how much truth we all can take is central to this play. I think of this every time I walk past an advertisement asking whether I want to have some medical scan to check whether I might have some inherent condition or illness. I fluctuate between “I want to know” and “I don’t want to know.” Right now, I’d rather live in blissful ignorance than in painful knowledge. But the same information might save my life. I would suggest that each of us every day is negotiating how much truth we can take, how much truth we want, how much truth we can bear.
Ibsen coins the term “life-lie” in this play, and you might think that he’s talking about something corrosive or nefarious. Arguably, however, this is our salvation; the lifelie is a story, a fiction we tell to survive. In the play Gregers comes along and says, effectively, to live with integrity, to live with freedom, we need to know everything about ourselves. We need to embrace the truth at whatever price, because the truth has its own luminosity. And we watch this very debate play out throughout the show.
David Eldridge, Writer.
KALB Gregers is an extreme case, though, someone often seen as hateful. Ibsen’s previous play, Enemy of the People, also featured a committed truth-teller, Thomas Stockmann, but he was presented as a kind of hero, even though he too had complications. Gregers is like Stockmann on steroids, Stockmann intensified to the nth degree, to where he’s a kind of purist, or ideological monster. What’s Ibsen’s reason for introducing such a person into a home that is perfectly happy before he arrives?
GODWIN The play asks how much we can or should intervene in other people’s lives. It also asks, what is happiness? Gregers believes that his best friend has deeply compromised himself. He feels Hjalmar is suffering from a series of delusions that are inhibiting his potential. So, for the benefit of his friend, and indeed for his whole family, he gives him the chance to know the truth about his life. Yes, Gregers has been viewed as a fanatic. But any psychoanalyst would, in some sense, identify with his mission to facilitate the discovery of truth. The tragic outcome of that mission
is accidental. Catastrophe was never his intention.
KALB The play contains another character who also thinks he knows better what’s good for the Ekdals: Dr. Relling. Relling looks at the same man, Hjalmar Ekdal, and says, “I know what he needs. Not more truth, but a reinforced life-lie—a life-lie I will keep inflating as long as I can.” Gregers and Relling reach opposite conclusions about what Hjalmar needs, and vie with each other to have their way. What do you make of that confrontation?
GODWIN That’s the collision we’re left with in the end. And it reminds me of Shakespeare and of his love of antithesis and paradox. Here again we have two truths that are opposite yet coexistent. To be or not to be; to dream or not to dream; to live in painful truths or enabling lies? As the play concludes, we move into archetypal territory where we’re invited to see the action as a metaphor for two forces grappling inside each of our souls: the wish to know and the wish not to know.
KALB How do you see Hjalmar, the object of their grappling? Is he a fool?
GODWIN As a director, one’s job is to try to identify with as many of the characters on the stage as possible. I must bring empathy and sympathy, not judgement. Hjalmar, like many of us, has big dreams and is sustained by a belief that one day he’s going to do something extraordinary. The play is exploring whether that might be rather a good thing—to have a certain degree of delusion. I know I have them. The absence of this feeling can lead people to feel very unhappy. A healthy ego has a happy and effectively delusionary component. Hjalmar has undergone suffering but has constructed a mechanism he can live by. And it’s a delicate mechanism. The play is partly advocating for care around the structures we’ve carefully built to live by.
KALB Fair enough. But does Ibsen really allow us to buy into his self-importance? Can we believe in the reality of his invention, that he’s seriously working on it, or that it will ever see the light of day?
GODWIN The play has a satiric edge, which asks, “Oh, yeah, is this invention real?” Ibsen is consciously articulating a sense that just because the invention may not be real, that doesn’t mean it is not needed. The invention Hjalmar says he is working on is essentially a metaphor for the fictions we must and do tell ourselves.
KALB Maybe that can bring us back to parenting, and Shakespeare. In her well-known book on Ibsen, the critic Toril Moi compared The Wild Duck to King Lear. She said both plays were not only about how much truth people can bear but also about the tragic avoidance of love. Lear and Hjalmar both avoid the love of a loyal and adoring child, with tragic consequences. Hjalmar’s rebuff of his daughter Hedwig triggers The Wild Duck ’s climax. Does this comparison ring true for you?
GODWIN I’m reluctant to embrace it insofar as Hjalmar absolutely loves his daughter. The scene you’re referring to is poignant and heartbreaking, and it evokes the heartbreak of parenting. As parents, we are in a space of emotion and reaction, and tragically, sometimes we take things out on our children. We don’t wish to, and we suffer enormous regret when we do—whether it’s shouting or lack of compassion or impatience—but parents all know what this feels like. Hjalmar undergoes a crisis in the play, and for a short time blames his child, and that has terrible consequences. But has he
been a consistently bad parent, or somebody who has consistently not loved his child? You must decide.
KALB Do you entirely reject the comparison to Lear ?
GODWIN Lear summons a storm, figuratively and literally, at the beginning of the play through his closed sightedness to love and must go on a journey of illumination. The Wild Duck asks if such illumination is even possible.
KALB I’d like to ask you about the play’s theatricality. Some critics have called The Wild Duck a tragicomedy, and pointed out that it has a different kind of theatricality from the prose plays written before it. A Doll’s House has a tarantella dance and there’s a riot in Enemy of the People, but none of those earlier plays have the comic dimension this one does. Do you have thoughts about this?
GODWIN Well, first of all, I would refute that it’s a tragicomedy. Comedy has connotations, in a Shakespearean sense, of a happy ending, which this
Matthew Saldívar as Relling, Maaike Laanstra-Corn as Hedvig. Photo by Hollis King.
does not have. This is a satiric study of the human condition that has dives between contrasting tones. I’m still learning what genre it belongs to!
KALB Well, let me push back just a little bit, because yesterday, watching you rehearse Act Three, I felt that the energy was indeed creeping toward the farcical. Everything was moving so fast, and you observed yourself that the action was asking us to look here, and then there, and then over there. The play was constantly redirecting our attention, throwing a lot of different things at us. To me, that’s what’s meant by the play’s explicit theatricality. Are you saying that this requires no special attention from you?
GODWIN I’m encouraging the actors to play at what I call the speed of life. And the speed of life is quick, “as swift as meditation”, as Hamlet says. No one has any time to think. And any life viewed close up is intrinsically strange and sometimes funny. But these characters do not for a second feel like they are in a comedy, they are not doing anything to consciously generate laughter from anybody. I’m encouraging the actors to stay in their character’s reality, even though those watching may react in all sorts of rich and complex ways. And this is where I agree with Ibsen—the more complex the responses are in the audience, the better.
KALB Can I ask you about the play’s ending? What do you think the audience should take away from it?
GODWIN Peter Brook once told me that when it comes to Q&As, he prefers the Qs to the As. That’s my feeling around the ending. Ibsen organizes it around a tragic event and then gives us two people debating what the meaning of that event is. That’s quite a radical gesture. The rest is not silence. The rest, in this case, is urgent, ongoing debate about what we are here for.
KALB The two people in question are Gregers and Relling. Can the audience accept characters like them as agents of debate they should listen to? Both are so compromised by then.
GODWIN Gregers, who is inadvertently responsible for a terrible event, maintains at the end that the tragedy will come to mean something. The trauma will, in some painful way, forge a new maturity in those suffering it. Relling rejects this—they won’t be changed by it, he claims. It was a terrible event and no new wisdom will ensue. This point certainly connects
to Lear. We feel that Lear sees better after the horrors he has witnessed. He’s grown because of what he’s faced. But in The Wild Duck , this idea is challenged. It’s as if someone in the audience has risen at the end of Lear and called back to the stage, “No, he hasn’t grown. He was a damaged and broken man at the beginning, and the idea that these horrors have made him a better or nicer person is sentimental cant.” Look at our world. See all the suffering. How can we insist that it necessarily yields wisdom ?
JONATHAN KALB is TFANA’s resident dramaturg and professor of theatre at Hunter College, CUNY. The author of five books on theatre, he has worked for more than three decades as a theatre scholar, critic, journalist, and dramaturg. He has twice won the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and has also won the George Freedley Award for an outstanding theatre book from the Theatre Library Association. He often writes about theatre on his TheaterMatters blog at www.jonathankalb.com.
KATIE BROAD (Miss Pettersen). Broadway: TFANA debut! Credits include: Tony-nominated An Enemy of the People (Circle in the Square), Strategic Love Play (Audible Theater), Oblivion (Westport Country Playhouse), Karen O’s Stop the Virgens (St. Ann’s Warehouse, Sydney Opera House), Complicity (New Ohio Theater), Animals & Plants (NY Premiere). Proud alum of Circle in the Square Theatre School and repped by WEG Talent. Massive love and gratitude to their family and Jamesworth. www.katiebroad.com
MELANIE FIELD (Gina Ekdal). TV: “A League of Their Own” (Amazon), “American Horror Stories” (Hulu), “Heathers” (Paramount), “Florida Girls” (POP TV), “The Angel of Darkness” (TNT), “Shrill” (Hulu), “You” (Netflix), “Killing It” (Peacock). Theater: Sonya in Uncle Vanya (Berkeley Repertory Theatre & Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington DC); Significant Other (Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles). Broadway: The Phantom of the Opera, Evita . National Tour: Wicked . Proud graduate of NYU and Yale School of Drama. For my Kitty Girl and Mr. Wells.
ALEXANDER HURT (Gregers Werle) recently starred in the lead role in Larry Fessenden’s film Blackout and was also recently seen in Maria Schrader’s film She Said. In television, he was a regular in the hit Netflix series “Bonding.” Other TV credits include “Homeland,” “Super Pumped,” “Billions,” “Law & Order: SVU,” and “The Good Fight.” He was nominated for an Emmy for Lead Actor in a Digital Drama Series for “The Rehearsal.” Alexander has been a mainstay on the NY stage. Most recently, he played Alexander Litvinenko on Broadway in Peter Morgan’s Patriots opposite Michael Stuhlbarg and starred off-Broadway in Scenes from a Marriage directed by Ivo Van Hove, Hamish Linklater’s The Whirligig, Placebo directed by Daniel Aukin, Mike Bartlett’s Love, Love, Love directed by Michael Mayer, and Continuity directed by Rachel Chavkin.
Katie Broad as Miss Pettersen and Mahira Kakkar as Mrs Sørby. Photos by Hollis King.
MAHIRA KAKKAR (Mrs Sørby) is thrilled to be back at TFANA, where she was previously in The Winter’s Tale. Mahira is an award-winning actor and a writer. A recent recipient of a NYSCA grant, Mahira has written for publications in India and the US. As an actor: Broadway: Life of Pi. Off Broadway: Waterwell, LCT3, Primary Stages, Atlantic, NYSF, Ripe Time, Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick, NAATCO. Regional: Huntington Theatre, Old Globe, Denver Center, OSF, Baltimore Center Stage, Hartford Stage, McCarter and others. Film and TV: “Manifest,” “A Suitable Boy,” Hank and Asha, (Slamdance Best Actress award), Sweet Refuge, “Law and Order: CI,” “New Amsterdam,” and others. www.mahirakakkar.com
DAVID PATRICK KELLY (Old Ekdal) has appeared in films by Walter Hill, David Lynch, Spike Lee, Wim Wenders and Clint Eastwood. Onstage he has appeared in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Gogol, Euripides, Buchner, Pirandello, Moliere, Brecht and Ibsen, directed by Richard Foreman, Nicholas Hytner and Karin Coonrod. He was awarded an Obie for Sustained Excellence.
MAAIKE LAANSTRA-CORN (Hedvig) is a New York City-based actor. Recent credits include: Grief Camp (Atlantic Theater), Homofermenters (ARS NOVA ANTfest), When The Other Mary Celeste Sank (WP Theater), Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California (The Tank), Button Lake Band Camp (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks), and Ms. Lily (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks). BA: Brown University, @_mcorn
TRACIE LANE (Understudy for Miss Pettersen) . TFANA debut. Regional : Peterborough Players (Margot in D ial M for Murder , Gretchen in B oeing B oeing ). Utah Shakespeare Festival: 3 Seasons (Hermione in T he Winter’s Tale , Annabella/ Pamela/Margaret in T he 39 Steps , Joan la Pucelle in Henry VI Pt. 1 ). Asolo Repertory Theatre (Milady de Winter in T he T hree Musketeers ). Orlando Shakes (Vanda in Venus in Fur ). A number of seasons at the American Shakespeare Center and Houston Shakespeare Festival. Off-Broadway: Play On! Festival at Classic Stage Company (Elizabeth/Exeter/Rutland in Henry VI Pt. 3 ). Film /TV: "The Good Fight." Juilliard MFA. Proud member of AEA.
Robert Stanton as Håkon Werle and Bobby Plasencia as Mr Flor. Photos by Hollis King.
BOBBY PLASENCIA (Mr Flor) is making his Theatre for a New Audience debut. Stage: La Ruta (Working Theater), American Jornalero (INTAR), Luz (LaMama), Julius Caesar (Drilling Company), In her Bones (FACCS), Somewhere Over The Border (Syracuse Stage, Geva Theater, City Theatre, People’s Light), American Mariachi (Goodman Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Denver Center, Old Globe, Alabama Shakes, Cleveland Playhouse, Two River Theater), Recent Alien Abductions (Humana Fest), Water & Power (San Diego Rep, Craig Noel Award), Vesuvius (South Coast Rep), Blood Wedding (La Jolla Playhouse), Down Past Passyunk (Interact Theater), The Tempest , Twelfth Night , and A Midsummer Night's Dream (ISCLA, Los Angeles), Water & Power (Understudy, Mark Taper Forum). Film & TV: “House of Cards,” “General Hospital,” Fidel , Maria Full of Grace. MFA NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
MATTHEW SALDÍVAR (Relling/Captain Balle). TFANA: The Merchant of Venice (Edinburgh, Scotland), Julius Caesar. BROADWAY: Junk, Act One (LCT), Peter and the Starcatcher, A Streetcar Named Desire, Saint Joan, Bernhardt/Hamlet, Honeymoon in Vegas, Grease, The Wedding Singer. Other productions include: MTC, Classic Stage Company, Long Wharf, The Public Theater, Williamstown, NY Shakespeare Festival, Blue Light, Atlantic, NYTW, Shakespeare Theater Company, New World Stages, Primary Stages, Hartford Stage, Kennedy Center, Pittsburgh CLO, Bay Street, 2nd Stage, Chautauqua, City Center, Signature Theater NYC, Mark Taper Forum, 1st National tour LCT’s South Pacific , 6 productions for The Guthrie Theater. Recent TV: “Dying for Sex.” MA/BA Middlebury College, MFA NYU.
ALEXANDER SOVRONSKY (Jensen /Music Director) A NYC based actor/multi-instrumentalist and composer, Alexander last appeared in TFANA's 2009 production of Othello directed by Arin Arbus. Other NYC theatre credits include Cyrano de Bergerac (Broadway starring Kevin Kline); Romeo & Juliet, Mother of the Maid (The Public starring Glenn Close); Women Beware Women, Volpone (Red Bull); Bottom of the World (Atlantic); Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Marat/Sade, King Lear (Classical Theatre of Harlem). Regional credits include Arena Stage, Barrington Stage, Seattle Rep, Hartford Stage, KC Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Shakespeare & Co, Denver Center, Milwaukee Rep, American Shakespeare Center, and many others. For a good time, check out @Alexander.Sovronsky and www.AlexanderSovronsky.com
ROBERT STANTON (Håkon Werle). TFANA: The Killer. Broadway: includes Uncle Vanya, Ink, Saint Joan, A Free Man of Color, Mary Stuart, The Coast of Utopia. Off-Broadway: two-dozen credits include Love Child (written/performed with Daniel Jenkins), All in the Timing (Obie Award). Off-Off-Broadway: The Gold Room . Extensive regional credits include this year’s world premieres, Millions (Alliance) and The Thing About Jellyfish (Berkeley Rep); STC: The Critic & The Real Inspector Hound (Emery Battis Award), Strange Interlude. Films: many, from A League of Their Own to Jason Bourne. Recent television: “Your Friends and Neighbors,” “Blue Bloods,” “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin,” “Mr. Mercedes.”
NICK WESTRATE (Hjalmar Ekdal). Broadway: Bernhardt/Hamlet, Casa Valentina, A Moon for the Misbegotten. OffBroadway: Barrow Street, Public, NYTW, Transport Group, CSC. Recently: Frankenstein in FRANKENSTEIN (STC) and Prior Walter in Angels in America for Jánosz Száz (Arena: Helen Hayes Best Ensemble, Nom. Best Actor). Select TV: Robert Townsend on "Turn: Washington’s Spies” (AMC), Todd Haynes’ “Mildred Pierce” (HBO), Bruno Barreto’s “The American Guest” (HBO), and “Manhunt” (AppleTV). Film: American Insurrection and Jonathan Demme’s Ricki & the Flash opposite Meryl Streep. He's a Drama Desk Award Winner, NYTW Usual Suspect, a graduate of Juilliard, and the co-founder, director, and designer of The Streetcar Project. www.thestreetcarproject.com
DAVID ELDRIDGE (Writer). New York: Broadway: Festen (Music Box Theatre). International: Beginning, Middle, End, Market Boy (National Theatre); Holy Warriors (Shakespeare’s Globe); In Basildon, Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness (Royal Court); Under the Blue Sky (Royal Court & Duke of York’s Theatre, West End); The Stock Da’wa, Falling (Hampstead Theatre); The Knot of the Heart (Almeida Theatre); Summer Begins (Donmar Warehouse). Adaptations: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre); Miss Julie, The Lady from the Sea (Royal Exchange, Manchester); John Gabriel Borkman, The Wild Duck (Donmar Warehouse); Festen (Almeida, Lyric Theatre West End). TV: “The Scandalous Lady W” (BBC2), “Our Hidden Lives" and "Killers” (BBC4). Awards: Time Out Live Award for Best New Play in West End; Theatregoers Choice Award for Best New Play; Prix Europa for Best European Radio Drama; Off West End Theatre Award for Best New Play.
SIMON GODWIN (Director). Artistic Director of Shakespeare Theatre Company. STC: Uncle Vanya with Hugh Bonneville ; Comedy of Errors; Much Ado About Nothing; Timon of Athens with Kathryn Hunter (co-production, TFANA); King Lear with Patrick Page; Macbeth with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, which also played in Liverpool, Edinburgh, and London. Upcoming: Othello with Wendell Pierce. Associate Director at the National Theatre in London: Man and Superman with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, Antony and Cleopatra with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo, and the film of Romeo and Juliet with Jessie Buckley and Josh O'Connor. Royal Shakespeare Company: Hamlet with Paapa Essiedu. TFANA: Measure for Measure.
ANDREW BOYCE (Scenic Designer). Recent: Legacy of Light (McCarter); Light in the Piazza (Huntington); You Will Get Sick (Steppenwolf). NY credits with New York Theater Workshop, Primary Stages, Lincoln Center, Atlantic Theater Company, Civilians, Roundabout, Vineyard, Julliard, Manhattan Theater Club, among others. Broadway: Dana H. Regional credits with most major regional and LORT theaters across the U.S. Opera and Dance credits with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Cincinnati Opera, Opera Omaha, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Boston Lyric Opera, Curtis Opera, among others. Yale School of Drama. Associate Professor of Design at Northwestern. www.andrewboycedesign.com
HEATHER C. FREEDMAN (Costume Designer) is a visual artist and designer for theater, opera, and film. Recent costume design work includes: Uncle Vanya directed by Simon Godwin and co-designed with Susan Hilferty, Berkeley Rep & Shakespeare Theatre Company; Tina Howe’s Where Women Go , world premiere, HERE Arts Center (Henry Hewes nomination: Best Costume Design); Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi , NYU Steinhardt; Newtown Odyssey , a floating opera on and for Newtown Creek co-created by composer Kurt Rohde, writer Dana Spiotta, and artist Marie Lorenz. Broadway credits include Assistant Costume Design for Swept Away and Funny Girl (designer: Susan Hilferty) and Caroline, or Change (designer: Fly Davis). Heather is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and NYU Tisch Design for Stage and Film, where she teaches drawing. She lives in New York City.
STACEY DEROSIER (Lighting Designer). The Last Five Years (Broadway), Well I’ll Let You Go (Regular People), Grangeville (Signature Theatre), Teeth (Playwrights Horizons/NWS), The Counter , The Refuge Plays (Roundabout Theatre), The Welkin (Atlantic Theater), The Animal Kingdom (The Connelly Theater Upstairs), All the Devils Are Here (DR2), The Half-God of Rainfall (NYTW), Uncle Vanya (O’Henry), On Set with Theda Bara (Exponential Festival), Drama Desk Design Award 2025, Audelco Award Obie Design Award 2023, 2018 Lilly Award Daryl Roth Prize.
DARRON L WEST (Sound Designer) is a Tony and Obie award-winning sound designer specializing in new work. Of his 700 career productions spanning theater, dance, and art installations, 220 have been world premieres. His soundscapes have been heard throughout the US and internationally in 15 countries. Additional honors include the Drama Desk, Lortel, Audelco, and Princess Grace Foundation Statue Award among many others. Thirty-year company member designing the productions of Anne Bogart and the SITI company.
JON KNUST (Properties Supervisor) Selected credits include: Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (Broadway); Prosperous Fools, Henry IV, We Are Your Robots, Waiting for Godot, Des Moines, The Merchant of Venice, Gnit, The Winter's Tale, The Skin of Our Teeth, About Alice, The Father, and A Doll’s House (TFANA); We Live In Cairo (NYTW); A Bright New Boise, Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek, Big Love, and Appropriate (Signature); and Peter and the Starcatcher (tour). Jon got his start in props at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and graduated from Eastern Connecticut State University.
SATELLITE WIGS (Hair & Wig Designers) Satellite Wigs, Inc. is a tale of two Sara(h)s with over 20 individual Broadway credits between them. Sara Donovan and Sarah Levine met as hair and makeup apprentices at The Juilliard School. While working together in television, they formed a wig-making company focused on creating high end wigs, facial hair, and custom pieces for personal, professional theatrical, and cinematic needs.
JACOB GRIGOLIA-ROSENBAUM (Movement and Fight Director) (he/him) (SDC, AEA, SAG/AFTRA) Credits include: Theater: Here Lies Love (Broadway, etc.), Peter and the Starcatcher (Broadway, etc.), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Broadway, etc.), Cyrano (Broadway), Ghost of John McCain (Soho Playhouse), Robber Bridegroom (Roundabout), Sailor Man (co-creator; NYFringe; Outstanding Play), Old Globe (San Diego): Henry6, Noises Off, Last Goodbye, Huzzah!, Robin Hood!, As You Like It, Othello, R&J, Hamlet . Other Fight Direction for: Disney Cruises, The Public, Williamstown, Asolo, Ogunquit, Les Freres, Prospect Musicals, Mercury Store, the Tank and many others. Film/TV: Peter Pan Live! (NBC/Universal), Dark Was the Night (also creature performer; Caliber/ Image) Education: Yale College (Fencing NCAA Div1).
ANDREW WADE (Resident Voice Director). Broadway: Harry Potter and The Cursed Child Parts One and Two (U.S. Head of Voice and Dialect), King Lear with Glenda Jackson (Voice Coach), Matilda the Musical (Director of Voice) and national tour. Royal Shakespeare Company: Head of Voice (1990-2003). The Public Theater: Director of Voice. NYTW: Othello with Daniel Craig. The Guthrie Theater: since 2002. Teaching: Juilliard (Adjunct Faculty Drama Division), Stella Adler Studio (Master Teacher Voice and Speech). Film: Shakespeare in Love . Workshops and Lectures: Worldwide. Fellow: Rose Bruford College.
JONATHAN KALB (Dramaturg) is professor of theatre at Hunter College, CUNY and is TFANA’s resident dramaturg. The author of five books on theatre, he has worked for more than three decades as a theatre scholar, critic, journalist and dramaturg. He has twice won The George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and has also won the George Freedley Award for an outstanding theatre book from the Theatre Library Association. He often writes about theatre on his TheaterMatters blog at jonathankalb.com
SHANE SCHNETZLER (Production Stage Manager)(he/him). TFANA: Soho Rep’s Fairview, Prosperous Fools, Macbeth (An Undoing), Waiting for Godot, Orpheus Descending, Des Moines, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, Why?, Julius Caesar, The Emperor, Heart/Box, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Tamburlaine, Fiasco’s Cymbeline. Off-Broadway: All the World’s a Stage, Fish, Crumbs from the Table of Joy (Keen Company); Fatherland (City Center); Seven Deadly Sins (Tectonic) ; Noura, This Flat Earth, The Profane, Rancho Viejo, Familiar (Playwrights Horizons); Napoli, Brooklyn, Look Back in Anger (Roundabout); The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, The Comedy of Errors (NYSF).
MICHELLE LAUREN TUITE (Assistant Stage Manager). Broadway/NYC: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Borderline: A New Musical With Personality; #DateMe: An OkCupid Experiment. Regional: Dancing in the Street (Transcendence Theatre Company); Next to Normal, Doubt, Man of La Mancha, Grounded (Westport Country Playhouse); BeautifulStar (Triad Stage); Our Town (Long Wharf Theatre); Memphis and La Cage Aux Folles (Ivoryton Playhouse).
BLAKE ZIDELL & ASSOCIATES (Press Representative) is a Brooklyn-based public relations firm representing arts organizations and cultural institutions. Clients include St. Ann’s Warehouse, Playwrights Horizons, Signature Theatre, Soho Rep, National Sawdust, The Kitchen, Performance Space New York, PEN America, StoryCorps, Symphony Space, the Fisher Center at Bard, Peak Performances, Irish Arts Center, the Merce Cunningham Trust, the Onassis Foundation, Taylor Mac, Page 73, The Playwrights Realm, PlayCo and more.
ACTORS' EQUITY ASSOCIATION (“Equity”) , founded in 1913, is the U.S. labor union that represents more than 50,000 actors and stage managers. Equity seeks to foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of society and advances the careers of its members by negotiating wages and working conditions and providing a wide range of benefits including health and pension plans. Actors’ Equity is a member of the AFL-CIO and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions. #EquityWorks
Associate Director............................................Britt Berke
Music Director..................................Alexander Sovronsky
Intimacy Coordinator..............Jacob Grigolia-Rosenbaum
Associate Scenic Designer..............................Alayna Klein
Associate Lighting Designer...........................Tyler Dubuc
Associate Sound Designer............................Ryan M. Hall
Assistant Costume Designer...........................Jack Wallace
Assistant Technical Director......................Cory Asinofsky
Casting Assistants...........Emma Paoletti and Will DeVary
Ibsen Consultant.............................................Paul Walsh
Photography Consultants....Mark Scully and France Osterman
Sound Board Operator....................................Maggie Schlusser
Production Audio.............................................Hayden Bearden
Audio Support.................................................Geoff Grimwood
Deck/Props Carpenter.......................Tristan Viner-Brown
Carpetners...........................Kevin Bickwermert, Jules Conlon, Mark D'Agostino, Helen Hylton, Frann Mccrann, Maria Ossino, Tobias Segal, Mavis Wesley, Jesse Mattes
Lightboard Programmer & Operator.......Paul T. Kennedy
Production Assistant....................Genevieve Dornemann, Jack Meister-Lopez, Colleen Rooney
Production Assistant for Techs.......Kelley Lynne Moncrief
Five OHM Production Support....Hayden Bearden, Rudy Bearden, Ryan Hall, Pedro Lima, Daniel Santamaria
Production Electrician..................................Michael Cahill
Electricians........................Behnam Ardebili, Erin Bulman, Elizabeth Camacho, Rhylke Caputo, Robert Cott, Elianna Kruskal, Ciara McAloon, Tony Mulanix, Rodney Perez, Aaliyah Stewart, Omar Swaray, Kiva Wise
Costume Supervisor...............................Amanda Roberge
Wardrobe Supervisor.................................Clara Gumbart
Costume Support.................................Adrianne Williams
Dresser.............................................................Maia Soltis
Hair & Wig Supervisor..............................Kristi D’Arrigo
Stitchers...........................Michelle Sesco, Emma Bizzack, Delaney Johnston, Candida Nichols
Scenery Provided by Daedalus Design & Production. Lighting gear provided by Christie Lites, audio gear provided by Five OHM Productions. Costumes by Bethany Joy Costumes, Lisa Logan, Alexander Zeek, Siam Costumes. Dyeing and distressing by Lindsey Eifert, Brynne OsterBainnson. Custom millinery by Crown Jules. Custom craft work by Aura Meyers. Additional costumes provided by TDF Costume Collection, OSF Costume Rentals, NYU Tisch Design for Stage and Film, Shakespeare Theatre Company. Special thanks to Susan Hilferty, Mark Koss, Maggie Raywood.
The Wild Duck was rehearsed at MARK MORRIS DANCE CENTER.
ARIN ARBUS (Artistic Director). Arbus served as Associate Artistic Director at TFANA for a decade, during which time she directed: Othello, Measure for Measure, Macbeth, Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear, A Doll’s House, The Father, The Skin of Our Teeth (Obie). Upon leaving this post, Arbus served as TFANA’s Resident Director, directing Des Moines, Waiting for Godot, The Merchant of Venice , starring John Douglas Thompson as Shylock, also playing at Shakespeare Theatre Company in DC and Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh. Outside TFANA: Deep Blue Sound by Abe Koogler for Clubbed Thumb; The Lehman Trilogy , at Shakespeare Theatre Company and the Guthrie; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune , (Tony Nom for Best Revival) starring Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon; and Verdi’s La Traviata for Canadian Opera Company (8 Dora nominations), Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Houston Grand Opera.
DOROTHY RYAN (Executive Director) joined Theatre for a New Audience in 2003 after a ten-year fundraising career with the 92nd Street Y and Brooklyn Museum. Ryan began her career in classical music artist management and also served as company manager and managing leader for several regional opera companies. She is a Brooklyn Women of Distinction honoree and was a founding member of the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance.
CHLOE KNIGHT (General Manager) is a graduate of the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale’s Theater Management program, and recipient of Yale’s 2024 Morris J. Kaplan Prize in Theater Management. Knight has served as Associate Managing Director of the Yale Repertory Theatre, assistant to the president of LORT, Co-Managing Director of the Yale Summer Cabaret, Company Manager at Yale Rep, and Management Fellow at Lincoln Center Theater. Before earning her MFA, she held myriad fundraising positions at Page 73, consulting firm Advance NYC, and The Lark.
JEFFREY HOROWITZ (Founding Artistic Director) began his career in theatre as an actor and appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in regional theatre. In 1979, he founded Theatre for a New Audience. Horowitz has served on the panel of the New York State Council on the Arts, on the board of directors of Theatre Communications Group, the advisory board of the Shakespeare Society and the artistic directorate of London’s Globe Theatre. Awards: 2003 John Houseman Award from The Acting Company, 2004 Gaudium Award from Breukelein Institute, 2019 Obie Lifetime Achievement and TFANA’s 2020 Samuel H. Scripps.
Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz and led by Horowitz until 2025 as Founding Artistic Director, Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) is a New York home for Shakespeare and other contemporary playwrights. It nurtures artists, culture, and community. On September 1, 2025, Arin Arbus succeeded Jeffrey Horowitz as Artistic Director, with Dorothy Ryan appointed as Executive Director.
Artistic Director Arin Arbus
Executive Director Dorothy Ryan
Founding Artistic Director
Jeffrey Horowitz
General Manager Chloe Knight
Director of Institutional Advancement
James J. Lynes
Finance Director Mary Sormeley
Education Director Lindsay Tanner
Director of Marketing & Communications
Eddie Carlson
Facilities Director Rashawn Caldwell
Director of Production Jeff Harris
Technical Director Ellie Engstrom
Associate Director of Development
Sara Billeaux
Artistic Associate Peter Cook
Associate Producer Allison Benko
Company Manager Molly Burdick
Theatre Manager Lawrence Dial
Box Office Manager Allison Byrum
Marketing Manager Angela Renzi
Education Manager Emma Griffone
Coordinator, Administration & Humanities/Studio Programs
Zoe Donovan
New Deal Program Coordinator Zhe Pan
Institutional Giving Associate Madison Wetzell
Finance Associate Harmony Fiori
Development Associate Suzanne Lenz
Development Associate Gavin McKenzie
Facilities Associate Tim Tyson
Archivist Shannon Resser
TFANA Teaching Artists
Matthew Dunivan, Melanie Goodreaux, Albert Iturregui-Elias, Margaret Ivey, Elizabeth London, Erin McCready, Marissa Stewart, Kea Trevett
House Managers
Denise Ivanoff, Jasmine Louis, Regina Pearsall, Nancy Gill Sanchez
Press Representative
Blake Zidell & Associates
Resident Casting Director Jack Doulin
Resident Dramaturg Jonathan Kalb
Resident Voice and Text Director
Andrew Wade
TFANA Council of Scholars
Tanya Pollard, Chair
Jonathan Kalb, Alisa Solomon, Ayanna Thompson
Concessions Sweet Hospitality Group
Legal Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton
Accounting: Sax LLP
With Shakespeare as its guide, TFANA explores the ever-changing forms of world theatre. TFANA has produced 35 of Shakespeare’s 38-play canon and builds a dialogue spanning centuries between the language and ideas of Shakespeare and diverse authors, past and present. TFANA is committed to building long-term associations with artists from around the world and supporting the development of plays, translations, and productions through residences, workshops, and commissions through the Merle Debuskey Studio Program. TFANA performs for an audience of all ages and backgrounds; and promotes a vibrant exchange of ideas through its humanities and education programs.
TFANA’s productions have been played nationally, internationally, and on Broadway. In 2001, it became the first American theatre company invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company. TFANA has also partnered with Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre for The Shakespeare Exchange in a transatlantic partnership: In spring of 2024, TFANA presented the Lyceum’s Macbeth (An Undoing). In January 2025, the Lyceum presented TFANA’s The Merchant of Venice, featuring John Douglas Thompson as Shylock and directed by Arin Arbus.
TFANA created and runs the largest in-depth program to introduce Shakespeare and classic drama in New York City’s public schools. Since its inception in 1984, the program has served more than 140,000 students. TFANA is committed to economic access. In addition to offering selected Pay What You Can Performances, its New Deal Ticket Initiative offers $20 tickets to those age 30 and under and fulltime students of any age for all dates of all its productions.
In 2013, TFANA opened its first permanent home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center (PSC), in the Brooklyn Cultural District. The heart of PSC is its performance space: the 299-seat Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage, a uniquely flexible space capable of multiple configurations between stage and audience; as well as the 50-seat Theodore C. Rogers Studio.
TFANA honors the Lenape and Canarsie people, on whose ancestral homeland Polonsky Shakespeare Center is built.
Theatre for a New Audience Education Programs
TFANA’s education programs introduce students to Shakespeare and playwriting with the same artistic integrity that we apply to our productions. Through our unique and exciting methodology, students engage in hands-on learning that involves all aspects of literacy and creative development.
A Home in Brooklyn: Polonsky
Theatre for a New Audience’s home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center (PSC), is a centerpiece of the Brooklyn Cultural District and a contributor to the continued renaissance of Downtown Brooklyn.
Designed by celebrated architect Hugh Hardy, Polonsky Shakespeare Center is the first New York City theatre built for classic drama since Lincoln Center’s 1965 Vivian Beaumont. The 27,500-square-foot facility is a uniquely flexible performance space. In addition, Polonsky Shakespeare Center is a sustainable (green) theatre, with a LEED-NC Silver rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. When not in use by the Theatre, its new facility is available for rental, bringing much needed affordable performing and rehearsal space to the community.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Board Chair
Robert E. Buckholz
Vice Chair
Kathleen C. Walsh
Executive Committee
Alan Beller
Robert E. Buckholz
Constance Christensen
Seymour H. Lesser
Larry M. Loeb
Philip R. Rotner
Kathleen C. Walsh
Josh Weisberg
Members
Arin Arbus
John Berendt*
Bianca Vivion Brooks*
Ben Campbell
Robert Caro*
Jonathan R. Donnellan
Sharon Dunn*
Matthew E. Fishbein
Riccardo Hernandez*
Kathryn Hunter*
Dana Ivey*
Tom Kirdahy*
John Lahr*
Harry J. Lennix*
Catherine Maciariello*
Marie Maignan*
Lindsay H. Mantell*
Audrey Heffernan Meyer*
Alan Polonsky
J.T. Rogers*
Dorothy Ryan
Joseph Samulski*
Doug Steiner
Michael Stranahan
John Douglas Thompson*
John Turturro*
Frederick Wiseman*
*Artistic Council
Emeritus
Francine Ballan
Sally Brody
William H. Burgess III
Caroline Niemczyk
Janet C. Olshansky
Theodore C. Rogers
Mark Rylance*
Daryl D. Smith
Susan Stockel
Monica G.S. Wambold
Jane Wells
CONTRIBUTORS TO THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE’S ANNUAL FUND
May 1,2024 – September 4, 2025
Even with capacity audiences, ticket sales account for a small portion of our operating costs. Theatre for a New Audience thanks the following donors for their generous support toward our Annual Campaign. For a list of donors $250 and above, go to www.tfana.org/annualdonors.
PRINCIPAL BENEFACTORS
($100,000 and up)
The Bay and Paul Foundations
Alan Beller
Robert E. Buckholz and Lizanne Fontaine
City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs
Constance Christensen
The Ford Foundation
The Hearst Foundations
Jerome L. Greene Foundation Fund at The New York Community Trust
The Jerome and Marlène Brody Foundation
The Polonsky Foundation
National Endowment for the Humanities
The SHS Foundation
The Shubert Foundation, Inc.
The Thompson Family Foundation, Inc.
LEADING BENEFACTORS
($50,000 and up)
Bloomberg Philanthropies
The Charina Endowment Fund
Deloitte & Touche LLP
The DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund
The Howard Gilman Foundation, Inc.
Kathleen Walsh and Gene Bernstein
The Whiting Foundation
MAJOR BENEFACTORS
($20,000 and up)
The Achelis and Bodman Foundation
Arete Foundation
Sally Brody
Ben Campbell and Yiba Ng
The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Matt Fishbein and Gail Stone
The George Link Jr. Foundation
Agnes Gund
The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust
The Hearst Corporation
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP
Latham & Watkins LLP
K. Ann McDonald
Audrey Heffernan Meyer and Danny Meyer
National Endowment for the Arts/Arts Midwest
New York State Council on the Arts
Caroline Niemczyk
Marcia Riklis
The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation
Robert and Cynthia Schaffner
The Starry Night Fund
Douglas C. Steiner
The Stockel Family Foundation
Anne and William Tatlock
The White Cedar Fund
SUSTAINING BENEFACTORS
($10,000 and up)
Anonymous (1)
The Arnow Family Fund
Arts Consulting Group
Peggy and Keith Anderson
The Claire Friedlander
Family Foundation
The Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation
Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundation
Jill and Jay Bernstein
Natalie and Matthew Bernstein
Elaine and Norman Brodsky
Michele and Martin Cohen
M. Salome Galib and Duane McLaughlin
Ashley Garrett and Alan Jones
Penny Brandt Jackson and Thomas Campbell Jackson
The Gladys Krieble
Delmas Foundation
Monica Gerard-Sharp / The GerardSharp Wambold Foundation
The Howard Bayne Fund
JKW Foundation
The J.M. Kaplan Fund
Michael M. Kaiser and John S. Roberts
King & Spalding LLP
Seymour H. Lesser
Larry and Maria-Luisa Loeb
McDermott Will & Emery
Michael Tuch Foundation, Inc.
Janet C. Olshansky
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Anne Prost and Olivier Robert
The Roy Cockrum Foundation
Sarah I. Schieffelin Residuary Trust
Kerri Scharlin and Peter Klosowicz
Select Equity Group, Inc
Sidley Austin LLP
The Speyer Family Foundation
Susan Stockel
Tarter Krinsky & Drogin LLP
Julie Taymor and Elliot Goldenthal
Josh and Jackie Weisberg
PRODUCERS CIRCLE—
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR’S SOCIETY
($5,000 and up)
Anonymous (2)
Axe-Houghton Foundation
Dominique Bravo and Eric Sloan
The Bulova Stetson Fund
Janel Callon
Charney Companies
Jane Cooney
Katharine and Peter Darrow
Jodie and Jonathan Donnellan
Aileen Dresner and Frank R. Drury
Sharon Dunn and Harvey Zirofsky
Jennifer and Steven Eisenstadt
Therese Esperdy and Robert Neborak
Wendy Ettinger
Debra Fine and Martin I. Schneider
Jenny and Jeff Fleishhacker
Roberta Garza
Cynthia Crossen and James Gleick
Debra Goldsmith Robb
Kathy and Steven Guttman
Michael Haggiag
Russ Heldman
Vanderbilt University OLLI Instructor
Nora Wren Kerr and John J. Kerr
Andrea Knutson
Sandy and Eric Krasnoff
Anna and Peter Levin
Litowitz Foundation, Inc.
Diane and William F. Lloyd
Nancy Meyer and Marc N. Weiss
New York City Council
New York City Tourism Foundation
The Norwegian Consulate General in New York
Estelle Parsons
Richenthal Foundation
Philip and Janet Rotner
Joseph Samulski and Cynthia Hammond
Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles
Susan Schultz and Thomas Faust
Daryl and Joy Smith
Theatre Development Fund
Ayanna Thompson
Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund
The Venable Foundation
Margo and Anthony Viscusi
Anna L. Weissberger Foundation
PRODUCERS CIRCLE—EXECUTIVE
($2,500 and up)
Anonymous (2)
Elizabeth Beller-Dee and Michael Dee
Nancy Blachman and David desJardins
Lani and Dave Bonifacic
Hilary Brown and Charles Read
Walter Cain and Paulo Ribeiro
Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc
Dennis M. Corrado / The Breukelein Institute
The Barbara Bell Cumming
Charitable Trust
Christine Cumming
DeLaCour Family Foundation
Suzan and Fred Ehrman
Steven Feinsilver
Foley Hoag LLP
Jeffrey Horowitz
Stuart Freedman
Linda Genereux and Timur Galen
Pamela Givner
Lauren Glant and Michael Gillespie
Marion and Daniel Goldberg
Katherine Goldsmith
Karoly and Henry Gutman
Grace Harvey
Thomas Healy and Fred P. Hochberg
Sophia Hughes
The Irwin S. Scherzer Foundation
Maxine Isaacs
Flora and Christoph Kimmich
Kirkland & Ellis Foundation
Cathy and Christopher Lawrence
Lucille Lortel Foundation
Rebecca and Stephen Madsen
Susan Martin and Alan Belzer
Marta Heflin Foundation
Barbara Forster Moore and
Richard Wraxall Moore
Catherine Nyarady and Gabriel Riopel
Ellen Petrino
Riva and Stephen Rosenfield
Dorothy Ryan and John Leitch
Sandra and Steven Schoenbart
Jeremy T. Smith
Laura Speyer and Josef Goodman
Barbara Stimmel
PRODUCERS CIRCLE—ASSOCIATE
($1,000 and up)
Anonymous (4)
Actors’ Equity Foundation
Karim Aoun
Jackie and Jacob Baskin
Elizabeth Bass
Deborah Berke and Peter McCann
Nadia Bernstein
Cece and Lee Black
Mary Bockelmann Norris and Floyd Norris
William H. Burgess, III
Deborah Buell and Charles Henry
Joan and Robert Catell
Bonnie and David Covey
Susan Cowie
Jeff Cronin
Robert Currie
Ian Dickson and Reg Holloway
Ev and Lee
Ryan Fanek
Grace Freedman
Mara Goldstein and Ben Saltzman
Anne and Paul Grand
Alba Greco-Garcia and Roger Garcia
Kathleen and Harvey Guion
Laura and Robert Hoguet
The Holiman Hackney Family Fund
Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP
Elizabeth Humes
Denise and Al Hurley
Sally and Alfred Jones
Miriam Katowitz and Arthur Radin
Kirsten Kern
Fran Kumin
Jessie McClintock Kelly
Susan Kurz Snyder
Michael Lasky
Miyoung Lee and Neil Simpkins
Marion Leydier and Brooks Perlin
Margaret Lundin
Kathleen Maurer
Jeffrey and Wendy Maurer
John Mauriello
Leslie and Jordan Mayer
Scott C. McDonald and Michael Heyward
Marlene Marko and Loren Skeist
Carol Murray
Mimi Oka and Jun Makihara
Lori and Lee Parks
Annie Paulsen and Albert Garner
Margaret and Carl Pfeiffer
Ponce Bank
Rajika and Anupam Puri
Carol and Michael Reimers
Susan and Peter Restler
David A.J. Richards
Susan and William Rifkin
Paul Rosenberg
Joan H. Ross
Eliza and James Rossman
Cynthia and Thomas Sculco
Susan Sommer and Stephen A. Warnke
The Bernard and Anne Spitzer
Charitable Trust
Lauren and Jay Springer
Wendy and Tom Stephenson
Danna and Harvey Stone
Kathleen and Michael Stringer
Margaret Sullivan
Sweet Hospitality Group
Brianna Van Kan
Giulia and Marc Weisman
Fran and Barry Weissler
Elena and Louis Werner
Tappan Wilder
Debra Winger and Arliss Howard
Carol Yorke and Gerard Conn
Barbara and Michael Zimmerman
Audrey Zucker
IN HONOR OF
In honor of Robert E. Buckholz
Steven and Jennifer Eisenstadt
Susan and William Rifkin
Barbara and Michael Zimmerman
In honor of Matt Fishbein
Michael Lasky
In honor of Jeffrey Horowitz
Maxine Isaacs
In memory of Barbara Faye
Peavy Howard
Debra Winger and Arliss Howard
In honor of Audrey Meyer
Peggy and Keth Anderson
Deborah Berke and Peter McCann
Pamela Givner
Shauna Holiman and Robert Hackney
Mimi Oka and Jun Makihara
Stacy Schiff and Marc de la Bruyere
Laurie Tisch
In memory of Leonard Polonsky
Marion and Daniel Goldberg
Daniel Polonsky
Marcia Riklis
In memory of Steven Jackson Popkin
Susan Kurz
In honor of Gene Bernstein and Kathleen Walsh
Natalie and Matthew Bernstein
In honor of Kathleen Walsh
Jill and Jay Bernstein
Michele and Martin Cohen
Denise And Al Hurley
Wendy and Jeff Maurer
Leslie and Jordan Mayer
In memory of Ruth Winger
Debra Winger
In honor of Simon Godwin
The Arete Foundation and The Brandt Jackson Foundation
The following companies have contributed through their Matching Gift Programs: If your employer has a matching gift program, please consider making a contribution to Theatre for a New Audience and making your gift go further by participating in your employer’s matching gift program.
Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation
Bank of America
The Hearst Corporation
International Business Machines
JP Morgan Chase
Theatre for a New Audience’s season and programs are also made possible, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom; Shakespeare in American Communities, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
May 1,2024 – August 18, 2025
After 46 years of visionary leadership and singular accomplishments in American Theatre—and especially in American productions of Shakespeare— Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director of Theatre for a New Audience, stepped down on August 31, 2025. The Jeffrey Horowitz Legacy Fund was established to celebrate him as well as well as provide support for Arin Arbus, who took up the mantle as TFANA’s new Artistic Director on September 1, 2025. The resources of Jeffrey Horowitz Legacy Fund will allow Arin to maximize special opportunities and implement her artistic vision. For more information, or to make a gift, please contact James Lynes, Director of Institutional Advancement, at jlynes@tfana.org.
Alan Beller
Robert E. Buckholz and Lizanne Fontaine
Katherine and Gary Bartholomaus
The Jerome and Marlène Brody Foundation
Sally Brody
Marc de la Bruyere
Ben Campbell and Yiba Ng
The Charina Endowment
Constance Christensen
Charles Cunningham
Peter and Katharine Darrow
Jonathan and Jodie Donnellan
Richard Feldman
Matt Fishbein and Gail Stone
Marion and Daniel Goldberg
Norman Green
Gail Hochman
Jeffrey Horowitz
Steven Horowitz
Penny and Thomas Jackson
Michael M. Kaiser and John S. Roberts
Larry and Maria-Luisa Loeb
Catherine Maciariello
Danielle Mowery
Nancy Meyer and Marc N. Weiss
Mary Beth Peil
Ellen Petrino
The Polonsky Foundation
Anne Prost and Olivier Robert
Dorothy Ryan
Joseph Samulski and Cynthia Hammond
The SHS Foundation
Miriam Schneider
Katherine and Bill Schubart
Eugene Skowronski
Susan Stockel*
Anne and William Tatlock
Julie Taymor and Elliot Goldenthal
Margo and Anthony Viscusi
Kathleen Walsh and Gene Bernstein
Debra Winger and Arliss Howard
Theatre for a New Audience recognizes with gratitude the following donors to Theatre for a New Audience’s Capital Campaign to support ambitious programming, access to affordable tickets and financial resiliency.
Named funds within the Capital Campaign include the Henry Christensen III Artistic Opportunity Fund, the Audrey H. Meyer New Deal Fund and the Merle Debuskey Studio Fund . Other opportunities include the Completing Shakespeare’s Canon Fund, Capital Reserves funds and support for the design and construction of New Office and Studio Spaces.
To learn more, or to make a gift to the Capital Campaign, please contact James Lynes at jlynes@tfana.org or by calling 646-553-3886.
$1,000,000 AND ABOVE
Mr.◊ and Mrs. Henry Christensen III
Ford Foundation
The Howard Gilman Foundation
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
The Thompson Family Foundation
$250,000-$999,999
Booth Ferris Foundation
Robert E. Buckholz and Lizanne Fontaine
Merle Debuskey◊
Irving Harris Foundation
The Stairway Fund, Audrey Heffernan Meyer and Danny Meyer
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Kathleen Walsh and Gene Bernstein
◊deceased
$100,000–$249,999
Alan Jones and Ashley Garrett
Carol Sutton Lewis and William M. Lewis, Jr.
Seymour H. Lesser
The Polonsky Foundation
Charlene Magen Weinstein◊
$50,000–$99,999
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Aileen and Frank Drury
Agnes Gund
The Dubose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund
New York State Council on the Arts
Abby Pogrebin and David Shapiro
John and Regina Scully Foundation
Marcia T. Thompson◊
$20,000–$49,999
Peggy and Keith Anderson
Elaine and Norman Brodsky
Kathy and Steve Guttman
Rita & Alex Hillman Foundation
Cynthia and Robert Schaffner
Kerri Scharlin and Peter Klosowicz
Daryl and Joy Smith
Susan Stockel
Anne and William Tatlock
Earl D. Weiner
$10,000–$19,999
Diana Bergquist
Sally R. Brody
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority
Linda and Jay Lapin
Janet Wallach and Robert Menschel◊
Alessandra and Alan Mnuchin
Anne Prost and Robert Olivier
Allison and Neil Rubler
Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch
Michael Tuch Foundation
Jackie and Josh Weisberg
$5,000–$9,999
Alan Beller
Katharine and Peter Darrow
Bipin and Linda Doshi
Marcus Doshi
Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
Susan Schultz and Thomas Faust
Barbara G. Fleischman
Jane Garnett and David Booth
Penny Brandt Jackson and Thomas Jackson
Miriam Katowitz and Arthur Radin
Mary and Howard Kelberg
Kirsten and Peter Kern
Susan Litowitz
Ronay and Richard Menschel
Ann and Conrad Plimpton
Priham Trust/The Green Family
Alejandro Santo Domingo
Marie and Mark Schwartz
Cynthia and Thomas Sculco
Nancy Meyer and Marc N. Weiss
A 2011 Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) established a Humanities endowment fund at Theatre for a New Audience to support in perpetuity the 360° Series: Viewfinders as well as the TFANA Council of Scholars and the free TFANA Talks series. Leading matching gifts to the NEH grant were provided by Joan and Robert Arnow, Norman and Elaine Brodsky, The Durst Organization, Perry and Marty Granoff, Stephanie and Tim Ingrassia, John J. Kerr & Nora Wren Kerr, Litowitz Foundation, Inc., Robert and Wendy MacDonald, Sandy and Stephen Perlbinder, The Prospect Hill Foundation, Inc., Theodore C. Rogers, and from purchasers in the Theatre’s Seat for Shakespeare Campaign, 2013-2015. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this Viewfinder or the Theatre’s Humanities programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.