CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR Second Stage Theater's World Premiere Production of DAYS OF RAGE

Starring MIKE FAIST, TAVI GEVINSON,

J. ALPHONSE NICHOLSON and ODESSA YOUNG

A New Play Written by Steven Levenson

Directed by Trip Cullman

Previews begin October 9, 2018

Opening night is October 30, 2018

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September 4, 2018 – Continuing its 40th Anniversary Season, which began with the Broadway production of Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, Second Stage Theater (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Casey Reitz, Executive Director) has announced casting for the world premiere of STEVEN LEVENSON’s play, DAYS OF RAGE, directed by TRIP CULLMAN.

The company will feature MIKE FAIST (Dear Evan Hansen), TAVI GEVINSON (This Is Our Youth), J. ALPHONSE NICHOLSON (Paradise Blue), and ODESSA YOUNG (Assassination Nation). One additional role remains to be cast and will be announced shortly.

DAYS OF RAGE will mark Levenson’s return to Second Stage Theater, where the musical, Dear Evan Hansen, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, had its New York Premiere. The production will also mark Trip Cullman’s return to Second Stage Theater, where he most recently directed the acclaimed Tony-nominated Broadway production of Lobby Hero.

DAYS OF RAGE will begin previews Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at the Tony Kiser Theater (305 West 43rd Street) and will officially open on Tuesday, October 30, 2018. Tickets are available at 2ST.com or by calling the Second Stage Box Office at 212-246-4422.

Against the backdrop of an endless, unwinnable war raging halfway across the world, and a polarizing president recklessly stoking the flames of racist backlash at home – a generation of young people rises up to demand change from a corrupt political establishment. It is October, 1969 and unbeknownst to the rest of the world, three 20-something radicals are busy planning the impending revolution from a quiet college town in Upstate New York. But when two strangers appear, disrupting the group’s delicate balance, new dangers and old wounds threaten to tear the collective apart. By the Tony Award-winning writer of Dear Evan Hansen, DAYS OF RAGE is a timely new play about means and ends, ideals and extremes, and the perils of changing the world.

DAYS OF RAGE will feature scenic design by Louisa Thompson; costume design by Paloma Young; lighting design by Tyler Micoleau; sound design by Darron L. West; and casting by Telsey + Company.

The season will continue in winter 2019 with the World Premiere musical, SUPERHERO, with a book by Tony Award winner John Logan (Red), music and lyrics by Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Kitt (Next to Normal), and direction by Tony Award nominee Jason Moore (Avenue Q). This new musical will feature Tony Award nominees Kate Baldwin (Hello, Dolly!), Bryce Pinkham (A Gentleman’s Guide…) and newcomer Kyle McArthur.

Summer 2019 will feature Christopher Shinn’s Pulitzer Prize finalist, DYING CITY, in a new production from acclaimed director Lila Neugebauer (The Wolves), who returns to Second Stage after directing Tracy Letts’ Mary Page Marlowe this summer.

Additionally this fall, Second Stage’s sold-out, wildly popular production of Harvey Fierstein’s TORCH SONG, directed by Moisés Kaufman and starring Michael Urie and Mercedes Ruehl, is moving to Broadway and will play at Second Stage’s Broadway home, The Helen Hayes Theater.

Subscriptions packages for this season begin at $255 and are available by calling the Second Stage Box Office at 212-246-4422 or visiting the company’s website, www.2ST.com.

BIOGRAPHIES

MIKE FAIST (Spence): Broadway: Dear Evan Hansen (2017 Tony Award Nomination, Best Featured Actor in a Musical), Newsies. Off-Broadway: Dear Evan Hansen (Second Stage, Arena Stage), A Month in the Country (Classic Stage Co.), Appropriate (Signature Theatre) TV: “Law & Order: SVU,” “Deception,” Film: Wildling, I Can, I Will, I Did, The Grief of Others, License Plates, Active Adults, Touched with Fire. Founding Artistic Director of the Ohio Artists Gathering.

TAVI GEVINSON (Peggy) is an actress, writer, and founder of the online teen magazine “Rookie.” She has appeared on Broadway as Jessica in Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth, as Mary Warren in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and as Anya in Stephen Karam's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. Williamstown Theater Festival credits include Halley Feiffer's Moscow x6 and Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding. Film credits include Nicole Holofcener's Enough Said and Dustin Guy Defa's Person to Person. TV credits include Parenthood, Scream Queens, and The Simpsons. Gevinson has also edited five Rookie anthologies, published by Penguin Random House.

J. ALPHONSE NICHOLSON (Hal) is an American-born actor/percussionist. Most recent credits include Signature Theatre’s Paradise Blue (Blue). Other credits Off-Broadway: Freight (NFT). Regional: Fences (Cal Shakes), West Coast premiere of black odyssey (Cal Shakes), Sunset Baby (City Theater of Pittsburgh), Seven Guitars (ATL). TV/Film: Just Mercy (Warner Brothers), “Untitled Katori Hall Project” (STARZ), “Blue Bloods” (CBS) “Mr. Robot” (USA), “Shots Fired” (FOX), Marvel’s “Luke Cage” (Netflix), “Tales” (BET), “Blacklist” (NBC), “Chicago PD” (NBC).

ODESSA YOUNG (Quinn) will soon be seen as the lead of the much buzzed-about Sundance hit Assassination Nation, written and directed by Sam Levinson. She also stars in three upcoming independent features: Josephine Decker’s Shirley opposite Elisabeth Moss, Sam Taylor Johnson’s A Million Little Pieces opposite Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Wayne Roberts’ Richard Says Goodbye opposite Johnny Depp. Previous credits include Jamie M. Dagg’s thriller Sweet Virginia opposite Jon Bernthal and the Australian drama The Daughter opposite Geoffrey Rush. This performance earned Odessa a win as Best Lead Actress at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Awards.

STEVEN LEVENSON (Playwright) is the Tony Award-winning book writer of Dear Evan Hansen. His plays include If I Forget, The Unavoidable Disappearance Of Tom Durnin, Core Values, The Language of Trees, and Seven Minutes In Heaven. Honors include the Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Outer Critics John Gassner Playwriting Award, Drama League Award, Drama Desk nomination, Hull-Warriner nomination, Lucille Lortel nomination, and the Helen Hayes Award. A former Artist in Residence at Ars Nova, he worked for three seasons as a writer and producer on Showtime’s Masters of Sex and is a founding member of Colt Coeur and an alumnus of MCC’s Playwrights Coalition and Ars Nova’s Play Group. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and Playscripts. A graduate of Brown University, he is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc. and the WGA.

TRIP CULLMAN (Director) has staged seven productions at Second Stage, including Kenneth Lonergan’s Lobby Hero; Leslye Headland's The Layover and Bachelorette; Jon Robin Baitz's The Substance of Fire; Paul Weitz's Lonely, I'm Not; Terrence McNally's Some Men; and Adam Bock's Swimming In The Shallows. Select NYC: John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation (Barrymore), Joshua Harmon’s Significant Other (Booth), Anna Jordan's Yen (MCC), Halley Feiffer's A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Gynecologic Oncology Unit At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Of New York City (MCC), Harmon's Significant Other (Roundabout), Feiffer's I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard (Atlantic), Simon Stephens' Punk Rock (MCC, Obie Award), Tarell Alvin McCraney's Choir Boy (MTC), Julia Jordan and Juliana Nash's Murder Ballad (MTC and Union Square Theatre), Headland's Assistance (Playwrights Horizons), Bock's A Small Fire (Playwrights Horizons, Drama Desk nom.), Adam Rapp's The Hallway Trilogy: Nursing (Rattlestick), Bert V. Royal's Dog Sees God (Century Center), Bock's The Drunken City (Playwrights Horizons), Weitz' Roulette (EST), Jonathan Tolins' The Last Sunday In June (Rattlestick and Century Center), Gina Gionfriddo's US Drag (stageFARM), and several productions with The Play Company. London: Bock's The Colby Sisters of Pittsburgh, PA (Tricycle). Select regional: McCraney's Choir Boy (Geffen and Alliance, NAACP and Suzi Bass awards), Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation (Old Globe), Richard Greenberg's The Injured Party (South Coast Rep), McNally's Unusual Acts of Devotion (La Jolla Playhouse), Christopher Durang's Betty's Summer Vacation (Bay Street), Bess Wohl's Touched (Williamstown Theater Festival), Michael Friedman and Daniel Goldstein's Unknown Soldier (WTF), Wohl's Barcelona (Geffen, Ovation nom.), Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo (WTF).

ABOUT SECOND STAGE THEATER

Under the artistic direction of Carole Rothman, SECOND STAGE THEATER produces a diverse range of premieres and new interpretations of America’s best contemporary theater by living American playwrights, including 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirgis; 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner Next to Normal by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey; 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes; The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown; Dogfight by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Peter Duchan; Dear Evan Hansen by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and Steven Levenson; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage; Trust and Lonely, I’m Not by Paul Weitz; The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz; Everyday Rapture and Whorl Inside a Loop by Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott; Let Me Down Easy by Anna Deavere Smith; Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo; Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl; The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane; Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin; Jitney by August Wilson; Jar the Floor by Cheryl L. West; Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein; Crowns by Regina Taylor; Saturday Night by Stephen Sondheim; Afterbirth: Kathy & Mo’s Greatest Hits by Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy; This Is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan; Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants by Ricky Jay; Coastal Disturbances by Tina Howe; A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller; Little Murders by Jules Feiffer; The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry; and Tiny Alice by Edward Albee.

The company’s more than 130 citations include six 2017 Tony Awards for Dear Evan Hansen (Best Musical; Best Lead Actor in a Musical, Ben Platt; Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Rachel Bay Jones; Best Book of a Musical; Best Original Score; Best Orchestrations), three 2009 Tony Awards for Next to Normal (Best Lead Actress in a Musical, Alice Ripley; Best Score, Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey; Best Orchestrations, Michael Starobin and Tom Kitt); the 2007 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (Julie White, The Little Dog Laughed); the 2005 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical (Rachel Sheinkin, …Spelling Bee) and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Dan Fogler, …Spelling Bee); the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director of a Play (Mary Zimmerman for Metamorphoses); the 2002 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work, 30 Obie Awards, eight Outer Critics Circle Awards, three Clarence Derwent Awards, 13 Drama Desk Awards, nine Theatre World Awards, 19 Lucille Lortel Awards, the Drama Critics Circle Award and 23 AUDELCO Awards.

In 1999, Second Stage Theater opened The Tony Kiser Theater, its state-of-the-art, 296-seat theater, designed by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. In 2002, Second Stage launched “Second Stage Theater Uptown” series to showcase the work of up and coming artists at the McGinn/Cazale Theater. The Theater supports artists through several programs that include residencies, fellowships and commissions, and engages students and community members through education and outreach programs.

SECOND STAGE THEATER ON BROADWAY

Second Stage Theater purchased the historic Helen Hayes Theater, located at 240 W. 44th Street, in 2015 and enlisted David Rockwell and The Rockwell Group to make renovations and updates to the 104 year old landmark building. The company will continue to lease and operate the McGinn/Cazale Theater on the city’s Upper West Side and The Tony Kiser Theater in Midtown Manhattan.

Second Stage Theater is investing in its future on Broadway by co-commissioning established playwrights through its STAGE-2-STAGE program, launched with Los Angeles’s Center Theatre Group. This ongoing program will provide a pathway to Broadway, with each play receiving an initial production in Los Angeles at one of CTG’s three theaters before moving to New York. The commissioned playwrights are Jon Robin Baitz, Lisa D’Amour, Will Eno, Lisa Kron, Young Jean Lee, Lynn Nottage, and Paula Vogel.

Second Stage Theater is also co-commissioning a new work from Bess Wohl for Broadway, through a partnership with the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and new works for Broadway from Lydia R. Diamond and Dominique Morisseau, which will be developed in association with Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theater.

For more information, please visit www.2ST.com

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