Every day is opening night.

Press Contact:
Rick Miramontez / Michael Jorgensen / Pete Sanders
rick@omdkc.com / michael@omdkc.com / pete@omdkc.com
212 695 7400

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

MCC THEATER
SETS DATE FOR
20^TH ANNUAL GALA
MISCAST 2020

MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2020
AT THE MANHATTAN CENTER’S HAMMERSTEIN BALLROOM

HONORING

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD WINNER & MCC THEATER ALUM
OSCAR ISAAC

MCC BOARD CHAIR
SUSAN RAANAN

CESAR ROSADO & ALEXANDER LAMBIE TO RECEIVE MCC THEATER YOUTH COMPANY ALUMNI AWARDS

GALA TICKETS AND TABLES NOW ON SALE

SHOW-ONLY TICKETS ON SALE EARLY 2020

New York, NY (December 3, 2019) – MCC Theater (Bob LuPone, Bernie Telsey and Will Cantler, Artistic Directors; Blake West, Executive Director) is excited to announce that this year’s Miscast gala, an annual showstopper of the theater season, is set for Monday, April 6, 2020, at The Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center (311 West 34^th Street), and will honor Golden Globe award winner and MCC Theater alum, Oscar Isaac.

“Vanity Fair called Oscar ‘the best dang actor of his generation,’ and we couldn’t agree more here at MCC. He’s a powerhouse on screen and on stage, as we learned firsthand back in 2008 when he was in Grace at MCC. We’re thrilled to be honoring his commitment to the craft and the theater community on the whole,” said Bernie Telsey, Co-Artistic Director of MCC Theater.

In addition, MCC Theater will honor Board Chair Susan Raanan for her years of leadership at the organization.

“Susan has been a great leader, friend, confidant, and mentor to all of us at MCC. We would not be here in this beautiful new space if it wasn’t for her faith in us, her generous support, and her commitment to our mission. Her strength is exhibited by her ability to listen and then interpret what she’s heard into actionable wisdom. It’s a profound gift and MCC is the better for it. I for one am eternally grateful as she has made me a better Artistic Director & human being,” said Bob LuPone, Co-Artistic Director of MCC Theater.

Finally, MCC Theater will honor Alexander Lambie & Cesar Rosado with 2020 MCC Theater Youth Company Alumni Awards. Former members of the Youth Company, both Lambie & Rosado remain singularly active in MCC’s education programming as educators, artists, and mentors for current Youth Company programs.

“Every single one of our education programs, from our Playwriting Lab to our Performance Lab to our Ambassadors program, to our alumni programming, has been made better in one way or another by Cesar or Lambie. They are amazing connectors, generous volunteers, and we’re so glad we get to highlight both of them and their achievements this year at Miscast,” said Will Cantler, Co-Artistic Director of MCC Theater.

MCC Theater’s annual Miscast gala is one of the most exciting and unique theater events in town. Broadway’s hottest stars perform songs from roles in which they would never be cast.

All 2019/20 MCC subscribers will have early access to Miscast 2020 show-only tickets, 2 tickets per subscription. Show-only mezzanine level tickets will be on sale to the general public in early 2020. To purchase gala tickets, please contact Nick Vermane at (212) 727-7722, ext. 232 or via email at nvername@mcctheater.org.

Proceeds from Miscast 2020 will support MCC Theater’s mission to develop and produce exciting work Off-Broadway, as well as its Youth Company and partnerships with New York City public high schools, and MCC’s literary development work with emerging playwrights.

Additional information, including cast, to follow.

Last year, Miscast 2019 honored Laura Linney.

Performers from past years include: Uzo Aduba, Sara Bareilles, Beth Behrs, Megan Hilty, Cynthia Erivo, Raúl Esparza, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan, Laura Benanti, Jesse L. Martin, Zosia Mamet, Kelli O’Hara, Aaron Tveit, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jane Krakowski, Jennifer Nettles, and many others. Special guests have included, Andy Cohen, Charles Busch, Helen Mirren, Lewis Black, Chris Noth, Edward Albee, Kathleen Turner, Jerry Stiller, Mo Rocca, Isaac Mizrahi, and many more.

“The year’s funniest revue!”

– The Huffington Post

“One of The Year’s Most Galvanizing Theater Moments!”

– The New York Times

BIOGRAPHIES

Oscar Isaac gained critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination, and an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his portrayal of the title character in the Coen Brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davis. The film premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Grand Prix award and also garnered him the Toronto Film Critics Award for Best Actor. In 2015, Isaac starred as the Resistance pilot, Poe Dameron, in the highly awaited Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the seventh installment in the main Star Wars film series, and the highest grossing domestic film of all-time. Isaac returned as Poe Dameron in Star Wars: Episode VIII released December 2017, and is set to make a reprise as Poe in the third and final installment in Stars Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, due out December 20^th, 2019. Off-Broadway, Isaac appeared in Zoe Kazan’s play We Live Here at Manhattan Theatre Club, as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, and in Two Gentlemen of Verona, the latter productions for the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park. Oscar also appeared in Beauty of the Father at Manhattan Theatre Club and in MCC Theater’s Grace. Isaac is set to return to the stage to star in an adaptation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, opposite Greta Gerwig in spring 2020.

A lifelong New Yorker and lover of theater, Susan Raanan joined MCC Theater’s Board of Directors in 2007 and in her words, “MCC has been the center of my life ever since.” She became Chair in 2008 and has spent the last twelve years working tirelessly to shepherd the organization into its new home in Hell’s Kitchen, the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, which opened in January 2019. In addition to MCC Theater, she has served on the Boards of The Dalton School, the NYC Ombudsman Review, the Citizens’ Committee for Children, and the Hunter College Theater Advisory Board. She holds a PhD in Counselor Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Alexander Lambie was a properly part of the youth company between 2006 and 2009. Lambie’s passion for developing communities around artists and the work they create is rooted in his own experience in the youth company. Since he graduated from the acting lab, he’s read for a number of plays for the annual Freshplay festival, assistant directed Uncensored ’19, and lead acting workshops for the newer members of the youth company alongside other alumni. Lambie’s career so far can be characterized by a dedication to new play development and observations of the ways in which nuanced intersectionality impacts the artist, their process, and their work.

Cesar J. Rosado is an actor, teaching artist, and Bronx native. Cesar is a Teaching Artist for Drama Club, teaching incarcerated and court-involved young people in juvenile facilities throughout the city and Rikers Island. Cesar is an Alumni of the Atlantic Theater Conservatory, Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and Shakespeare’s Globe in London. He is a member of the Middle Voice at Rattlestick and Rising Pheonix Rep. Works include: PLANO (Clubbed Thumb); NYLON (Blockchain); The Things That Were There by David Greenspan (The Bushwick Starr/Abingdon theater); Dolphins and Sharks (LAByrinth Theater); The Workshop (Soft Focus/HB Playwrights); Seven Spots on the Sun (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); El Coqui Espectacular And The Bottle Of Doom (Two River Theater). Film/TV: “Manifest”; “Law & Order: SVU”; and “Guap”.

ABOUT MCC THEATER

MCC Theater is one of New York’s leading nonprofit Off-Broadway companies, driven by a mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would. Founded in 1986 as a collective of artists leading peer-based classes to support their own development as actors, writers, and directors, the tenets of collaboration, education, and community are at the core of MCC Theater’s programming. One of the only theaters in the country led continuously by its founders, Artistic Directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, and William Cantler, MCC fulfills its mission through the production of world, American, and New York premiere plays and musicals that challenge artists and audiences to confront contemporary personal and social issues and robust playwright development and education initiatives that foster the next generation of theater artists and students.

MCC Theater’s celebrated productions include Theresa Rebeck’s Seared, Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play; Penelope Skinner’s The Village Bike; Robert Askins’ Hand to God (Broadway transfer; five 2015 Tony Award^® nominations including Best Play); John Pollono’s Small Engine Repair; Paul Downs Colaizzo’s Really Really; Sharr White’s The Other Place (Broadway transfer); Jeff Talbott’s The Submission (Laurents/Hatcher Award); Neil LaBute’s Reasons to Be Happy, reasons to be pretty (Broadway transfer, three 2009 Tony Award^® nominations, including Best Play), Some Girl(s), Fat Pig, The Mercy Seat, and All The Ways To Say I Love You; Michael Weller’s Fifty Words; Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride; Bryony Lavery’s Frozen (Broadway transfer; four 2004 Tony Award^® nominations including Best Play, Tony Award^® for Best Featured Actor); Tim Blake Nelson’s The Grey Zone; Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living (2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist); Margaret Edson’s Wit (1999 Pulitzer Prize); and the musicals Coraline, Carrie, Ride the Cyclone, Alice By Heart, and The Wrong Man. Many plays developed and produced by MCC have gone on to productions throughout the country and around the world.

Blake West joined the company in 2006 as Executive Director. MCC opened the doors to its new home in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, on January 9, 2019, unifying the company’s activities under one roof for the first time and expanding its producing, artist development, and education programming.

ABOUT THE ROBERT W. WILSON CHARITABLE TRUST

A successful investor from the 1960s through the 1980s, Robert W. Wilson devoted his life to philanthropy after his retirement, focusing on supporting organizations on preservation and conservation initiatives worldwide. An avid New Yorker, Wilson was also deeply engaged with a number of New York’s cultural institutions. He was a major supporter of, and held leadership roles with, the Whitney Museum and the Metropolitan Opera, where he was a board member for many years. In addition, the Trust continues to support the New York Public Library, Central Park Conservancy, BAM, Wildlife Conservation Society, EDF, Nature Conservancy, WMF, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, organizations he championed during his lifetime. He played a leading role in transforming many of these institutions.

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