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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, PLEASE

“SLAVE PLAY”
ANNOUNCES COMPLETE CASTING
FOR ACCLAIMED PRODUCTION’S RETURN TO BROADWAY

FIRST “BLACK OUT” PERFORMANCE OF THE RETURN ENGAGEMENT
TO BE HELD ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3

FURTHERING THE PRODUCTION’S “RADICAL ACCESSIBILITY” INITIATIVES
CONCEIVED DURING THE ORIGINAL BROADWAY RUN

EXCLUSIVE PHOTO OF NEW ENSEMBLE CAST AVAILABLE HERE

New York, NY (Tuesday, November 9) – Today, producers of Slave Play, the ground-breaking play by Tony Award^®  nominee Jeremy O. Harris under the direction of Tony Award nominee Robert O’Hara, announced complete casting for the production’s return Broadway engagement at the August Wilson Theatre (245 West 52^nd Street).

Joining the production are Devin Kawaoka as Dustin and Jonathan Chad Higginbotham as Phillip. They join returning original Broadway and NYTW cast members; Tony Award nominee Ato Blankson-Wood, Tony Award nominee Chalia La Tour, Irene Sofia Lucio, Tony Award nominee Annie McNamara, and Paul Alexander Nolan. Antoinette Crowe-Legacy will play Kaneisha, a role Harris wrote for the actress when he was a student at Yale School of Drama and which she originated in Slave Play’s first developmental production in 2017 as part of Yale’s Langston Hughes Festival.

Slave Play features understudies Eboni Flowers, Blake Russell, Luigi Sottile, Elizabeth Stahlmann, and Galen J. Williams.

A photo of the full principal cast of Slave Play taken by Menelik Puryear (IG: @mr_puryear)  is available for download here with full permission granted for use.

The strictly limited return engagement of Slave Play will begin performances Tuesday, November 23 ahead of an official opening night of Thursday, December 2 for a strictly limited eight-week engagement through Sunday, January 23, 2022. Tickets for the eight-week engagement are on sale now at www.seatgeek.com/slave-play-tickets or by visiting the August Wilson box office.

Additionally, the production announced that the first Black Out performance for the Broadway return will be Friday, December 3. This private, invitation-only performance will allow the Black-identifying audience to experience and discuss the play free from the white gaze. Harris birthed the idea of Black Out performances in the original Broadway run, in recognition of Broadway’s rich, diverse, and fraught history with Black work.

Tickets for the December 3 Black Out performance are priced at $100 or $45. For additional information and an invitation to this Black Out performance, please email rsvp@seaviewprods.com.

Slave Play has furthered its guiding principle of “radical accessibility” by doubling its ticketing initiative’s weekly commitment from the initial Broadway run. For the run at the August Wilson Theatre, 10,400 tickets have been made available for just $39.

Following the run at the August Wilson Theatre, the Broadway production, under the direction of O’Hara, will travel to Los Angeles as part of Center Theatre Group’s upcoming Mark Taper Forum season. Casting for the CTG run of Slave Play will be announced shortly.

The creative team for the production includes Tony Award winner Clint Ramos (scenic design), two-time Tony Award nominee Dede Ayite (costume design), Tony Award nominee Jiyoun Chang (lighting design), two-time Tony Award nominee Lindsay Jones (sound design and original music), Cookie Jordan (hair and wig design), Byron Easley (movement), Drama Desk Award winner Claire Warden and Teniece Divya Johnson (intimacy and fight directors), Amauta Marston-Firmino (dramaturg), Doug Nevin (production counsel), and Taylor Williams (casting director).

Slave Play at the August Wilson Theatre is produced by Seaview, Troy Carter, Level Forward, and Nine Stories, founded by Jake Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker, Sing Out, Louise! Productions, Shooting Star Productions, Roth-Manella Productions, Carlin Katler Productions, Cohen Hopkins Productions, Thomas Laub, Blair Russell, WEB Productions, Salman Al-Rashid, Jeremy O. Harris, and New York Theatre Workshop. Mark Shacket serves as Executive Producer.

Slave Play received 12 Tony Award nominations, the most for any play in Broadway history and the 2019 production was the best reviewed play of the year. Jesse Green of the New York Times called it, “one of the best and most provocative new works to show up on Broadway in years,” Aisha Harris in the Times said the play “reimagines the possibilities of what theater can give us.” David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter said it is a “ballsy, often ferociously funny original work.” Leah Greenblatt, in her rave review for Entertainment Weekly, exclaimed, “Slave Play feels like a piece of lightning: a work that aims to strike hot, illuminate and, if it has to, burn the whole thing down.” And Soraya Nadia McDonald of The Undefeated said, “Wisdom and timelines ripple through Slave Play. This play is lit.”

It was included in over 20 Best of the Year lists including: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Time Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Time Out New York, EW, Out, Paper Magazine, The Guardian, Mic.com, and Vox.

Slave Play is also the recipient of the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, The Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences, and the 2018 Paula Vogel Award. The play was nominated for the Outer Critics Circle’s John Gassner Playwrighting Award and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play.

Over one explosive weekend, three interracial couples inhabit the confines of a sprawling Southern plantation. As the heat is turned up on their volatile relationships, the line between fantasy and reality blurs and history begins to repeat itself.

The 2019 production of Slave Play began previews at Broadway’s Golden Theatre (252 West 45th Street) on Tuesday, September 10, 2019, opened to rave reviews on Sunday, October 6, 2019, and played the final performance of its hit engagement on Sunday, January 19, 2020.

BIOGRAPHIES

Jeremy O. Harris (Playwright. Producer. he/him) is a Tony-nominated writer, performer, and producer from Virginia. Plays: Slave Play, Daddy, Water Sports; or insignificant white boys, and Black Exhibition. Harris co-wrote A24’s critically acclaimed 2021 film Zola with director Janicza Bravo. He has an overall deal with HBO where he is co-creating an adaptation of “The Vanishing Half” with Aziza Barnes. Additional credits include HBO’s “Euphoria and” upcoming Warner Bros. sci-fi epic The New World. In 2020, he produced the premiere of Fake Friend’s Pulitzer Prize finalist Circle Jerk, created NYTW’s Golden & Ruth Harris commission for Black female playwrights, and funded Bushwick Starr’s pet project grants which funded over 175 artists. He is the recipient of the Vineyard Theatre’s Paula Vogel Playwrighting Award, a MacDowell Colony Fellow, and is under commission from Lincoln Center Theatre and The Public Theater. Jeremy is a graduate of Yale’s MFA playwrighting program. Upcoming: Slave Play (CTG), Daddy (Almeida).

Robert O’Hara (Director. he/him) has received the NAACP Best Play and Best Director Award, the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play, two Obies, and the Herb Alpert Award. Broadway: Slave Play (Tony nomination). Off-Broadway, he directed the world premieres of Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play, Nikkole Salter and Dania Guiria’s In the Continuum, Tarell McCraney’s The Brother/ Sister Plays (Part 2), Colman Domingo’s Wild with Happy, Kirsten Childs’ Bella: An American Tall Tale, Ross Baum and Angelica Cheri’s Gun and Powder, and his own plays, Bootycandy, Mankind, and Insurrection: Holding History. His upcoming projects include directing O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, directing Anthony Davis’s Opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, and writing and directing several film and television projects.

Ato Blankson-Wood (Gary. he/him). Broadway: Slave Play (Tony nomination), Hair, Lysistrata Jones. Off-Broadway: The Rolling Stone (LCT), Slave Play (NYTW – Lortel nomination), The Total Bent (The Public Theatre – Lortel nomination), Transfers (MCC), and The Public Theatre’s Twelfth Night and As You Like It. Film: The Same Storm (upcoming), Worth, BlacKkKlansman, ‪ Detroit. Television: “Monster” (upcoming for Netflix), “When They See Us,” “She’s Gotta Have It” (Netflix), “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon), “The Good Fight” (Paramount Plus). Graduate of NYU Tisch and the Yale School of Drama

Antoinette Crowe-Legacy (Kaneisha. she/all) is thrilled to be making her Broadway debut. Off-Broadway: BLKS (MCC Theater), If Pretty Hurts…(Playwrights Horizons), Slave Play (Yale School of Drama original company) Television: “We Crashed,” (Apple) “Godfather of Harlem” (EPIX). Upcoming, she is shooting “Kindred” for FX. Film: Passing (Netflix). Awards: 2018 Carol Finch Dye Award. MFA from Yale. BFA from SMU.

Jonathan Chad Higginbotham (Philip. he/him). A Lie Agreed Upon (The Gamm Theatre), JQA (The Gamm Theatre), Cymbeline (Yale Repertory Theater), As You Like It (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey), Cymbeline (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company), and KMS…The feels (New Ohio Theatre). TV: “Shining Vale” (Starz), “The Blacklist” (NBC), “Bonding” (Netflix). Higginbotham studied at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford. He holds a BA from Hamilton College and an MFA from Yale School of Drama.

Devin Kawaoka (Dustin. he/him): Broadway debut. Off-Broadway: City Of (Playwrights Realm), Unnatural Acts (Classic Stage Company) for which his performance was awarded the Rosemarie Tichler Grant. Select film and television: “Lucifer,” “Goliath,” “American Housewife,” Marvel’s “The Runaways,” “Criminal Minds,” “The Path,” “Good Trouble,” The Manor, Under the Silver Lake, Under the Lantern Lit Sky, and Submission. Training: MFA, NYU Graduate Acting. Love and gratitude to Mom, The Boys, KC fam, ATMP, and MLE. Dedicated to his father, Kenji Kawaoka.

Chalia La Tour (Teá. she/her) returns to the production after earning a 2020 Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Theater credits include: Slave Play (original Broadway cast), Cadillac Crew (Yale Repertory Theatre), The Review or How to Eat Your Opposition (Women’s Theatre Project). TV: “The Good Fight,” “The Code,” and “Elementary” on CBS. Film: The Future is Bright. The Future is Bright screened at the inaugural African American Smithsonian Film Festival. La Tour is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. Instagram: @chalialatour.

Irene Sofia Lucio (Patricia. she/her). Broadway: Slave Play, Wit. Off Broadway: Romeo y Julieta (Public Theater), Slave Play, Love and Information (NYTW), OrangeJulius (Rattlestick), Undertaking (BAM), King Liz (Second Stage), We Play for the Gods (WP). Regional Credits: Yale Rep, Studio Theater DC, and Cal Shakes among others. TV: “The Americans,” “Bartlett,” “Madam Secretary,” “Gossip Girl,” “Casi Casi.” Co-creator of “BUTS” web series, (NBCU Short Film Festival winner, Imagen Award Nom). Education: Princeton and Yale School of Drama. Native of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Annie McNamara (Alana. she/her). Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the original Broadway production of Slave Play. Selected theater credits: Iowa (Playwrights Horizons, Lortel nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical); We’re Gonna Be Okay (ATL); Rapture, Blister, Burn (Huntington). Elevator Repair Service: Gatz, Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf, The Sound and the Fury. Clubbed Thumb Affiliated Artist. Television and film: Blue Jasmine, “Orange is the New Black,” “Mozart in the Jungle,” “The Good Fight.” Upcoming: “Severance” and “Hello Tomorrow!”

Paul Alexander Nolan (Jim. he/him) originated the role of Jim at NYTW and on Broadway. Other Broadway: Bright Star (Drama Desk nomination), Escape to Margaritaville, Doctor Zhivago (Outer Critcs Circle nomination), Once, Chicago, Jesus Christ Superstar. Off-Broadway: Daddy Long Legs. Proud company member of the Stratford Festival of Canada for six seasons. Past 18 months: Happily isolated in Newfoundland and developed an original concept album “T plus L” with composer Michael Tremblay. Thank you to my family and friends. Your support made this possible and meaningful.

Eboni Flowers (Kaneisha understudy, Teá understudy. she/her). Theater credits include: Too Heavy For Your Pocket (Roundabout), A Raisin in the Sun (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Two Trains Running (Weston Playhouse), Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1-3 (Yale Rep/A.C.T), Dead Dog Park, Paradox of the Urban Cliché, and Court Martial at Fort Devens.

Blake Russell (Philip understudy. he/him). Broadway debut. Currently finishing his fourth year at Juilliard Drama. Favorite Juilliard performances include Flip (Stick Fly), Dwight (The Line), and Julius Caesar. Previously in Glory of the World (BAM), That High Lonesome Sound (Humana Festival), Play On! Shakespeare Festival, “The Blacklist” (NBC). Thanks to Mom, Dad, and Group 51.

Luigi Sottile (Jim understudy, Dustin understudy. he/him). New York and Broadway debut. Regional theatre credits: Steppenwolf, the Goodman, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Signature Theatre (DC), Woolly Mammoth, Folger Theatre, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Walnut Street Theatre, Wilma Theater, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Arden Theatre, Milwaukee Rep. Television: “Chicago PD.” Love to my folks and Brandi & Gracie!

Elizabeth Stahlmann (Alana understudy, Patricia understudy. she/her). Broadway: Slave Play. Theater credits include Grounded at Westport Country Playhouse (CT Critics Circle Award), the Guthrie, the Alley, the Acting Company, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. TV: “City on a Hill,” “The Equalizer,” “Law &Order: SVU.” Graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

Galen J. Williams (Gary understudy. he/she/they) is honored to make his return to Broadway with Slave Play. Past credits: Motown the Musical (Broadway and National tour), “Pose” (FX Network), “The Gaze: No Homo” (two-time Daytime Emmy Award-nominated digital series). See more at www.thegazeseries.com Instagram: @theegalenjwilliams MFA: University of Southern California, BFA: Howard University.

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