THE HUNTINGTON ANNOUNCES CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM OF THE FIRST AMERICAN PRODUCTION OF NEW TOM STOPPARD PLAY LEOPOLDSTADT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Gabrielle Jaques, Publicist
617-273-1520
PHOTOS available for download here
Members of the press, RSVP here
THE HUNTINGTON ANNOUNCES CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM OF THE FIRST AMERICAN PRODUCTION OF NEW TOM STOPPARD PLAY LEOPOLDSTADT
Following its recent Broadway success, Tom Stoppard’s most personal play, Leopoldstadt, kicks off The Huntington’s 24-25 Season in this new American production directed by Carey Perloff
(BOSTON) – The Huntington announces the cast and creative team of Leopoldstadt, the poignant and highly acclaimed new play written by Tom Stoppard and directed by Carey Perloff (The Lehman Trilogy and Rock ‘n’ Roll at The Huntington). Produced in association with DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, Leopoldstadt kicks off the 24-25 Huntington season, running from Thursday, September 12 – Sunday, October 13, 2024 at the Huntington Theatre (264 Huntington Avenue).
The latest and most personal masterpiece from Tom Stoppard, Leopoldstadt is a stirring and epic story of love, family, and enduring bravery. In Vienna, the heart of European culture at the rise of the 20th century, where deep-seated anti-Semitism coexists with a thriving intellectual scene, two brothers have conflicting visions of the future – both for their family and the Jewish people – a tension that will echo through the generations that follow.
“My mother was a Viennese refugee who fled the Nazis in March 1938, so Stoppard’s gorgeous and heartbreaking play has enormous resonance for me personally,” says director Carey Perloff. “I’m honored that The Huntington is giving me the chance to stage the first American production, after my very happy time in Boston last year with The Lehman Trilogy. Leopoldstadt is a play about a complicated Jewish family, and about the choices we make and fail to make in our attempts to survive and to preserve our culture. It is also Stoppard’s most deeply personal play, in which he reckons with the impact of his own Jewish heritage on his life and work, and he will be a crucial part of our collaboration at The Huntington. We are both looking forward to this experience enormously.”
Called a “heart-rending epic” by The New York Times and a “brilliant tragic-comic play” by The Spectator, Leopoldstadt is the winner of four 2023 Tony Awards, including Best Play, and two 2020 Laurence Olivier Awards, including Best New Play. Its world premiere featured a cast of nearly forty actors, including children, in London’s West End in 2020, pausing during the Covid-19 pandemic, and reopening there in late summer 2021. A year later, the play made its Broadway debut in 2022 and the run was extended due to audience demand through July 2023.
“When I first saw Leopoldstadt, I was blown away by the emotional intimacy and vulnerability that Tom Stoppard brought to this masterwork,” says Huntington Artistic Director Loretta Greco. “A little over a year ago, my dear friend Carey Perloff and I started plotting how a new AMERICAN production of Leopoldstadt might come into being and she, in concert with Tom, have been working on this ever since.”
The Huntington’s production marks the very first original American production of the piece. Director Carey Perloff’s three-decade working relationship with Tom Stoppard (along with Harold Pinter) culminated in her recent 2022 book, Pinter and Stoppard, a Director’s View, and will inform and fuel a fresh and personal approach to this striking new Stoppard text.
“I have some history with The Huntington and with the director Carey Perloff, and I have good cause to be grateful to both – all the more so because this production of Leopoldstadt will be the first American one, following the Broadway run of the London production,” says playwright Tom Stoppard.
Leopoldstadt has quickly become recognized as Tom Stoppard’s most personal play. In interviews, he has been very direct in drawing the parallels between the play and his lived experience of not connecting with his own Jewish heritage until later in life. He told The New York Times, “In the final scenes a young Englishman, Leonard Chamberlain, recalling buried memories, comes to accept that he was at one time Leopold Rosenbaum, a boy terrorized by Nazis. This mirrors the true tale of the Czech boy Tomáš Sträussler, whose widowed mother married a British man and had his name changed to Tom Stoppard.”
Tom Stoppard is one of The Huntington’s most-produced playwrights, second only to Shakespeare and August Wilson. Audiences might remember titles including: the very first Huntington production in 1982 – Night and Day, as well as On the Razzle (1984), Jumpers (1987), Travesties (1991), Undiscovered Country (1993), Arcadia (1996), The Real Thing (2005), Rock ‘n’ Roll (2008, also directed by Carey Perloff), and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead (2019).
The cast of Leopoldstadt includes 15 adult actors, 8 child actors (sharing four roles), and several understudies:
Samuel Adams as Fritz, an anti-Semitic cavalry officer with a few romantic interests in the Jacobovicz and Merz families and Percy Chamberlain, a compassionate British journalist engaged to Nellie and worried about the family’s deepening danger. Credits include: Hamlet at Kraine Theater, The Inn at Lydda at Red Bull, and Summer & Smoke at Theater Row.
Firdous Bamji as Ludwig Jakobovicz, a mathematician married to Eva, Nellie’s father, and Wilma and Hanna’s brother; unlike Hermann, he is wary of assimilation and Kurt Zenner, a philosopher and Marxist academic, also Hermine’s father and Hanna’s husband. Credits include: The Lehman Trilogy and Mary Stuart at The Huntington, and Indian Ink at Roundabout.
Sarah Corey as Wilma Jakobovicz Kloster, Ludwig’s sister, married to Ernst, and eager to regain her family’s approval after marrying a gentile. Credits include: The Band’s Visit at The Huntington and A Letter to Harvey Milk and Love and Real Estate Off Broadway.
Anna Theoni Digiovanni as Hanna Jakobovicz Zenner, a talented pianist and Wilma and Ludwig’s sister who eventually marries Kurt and is mother to Hermine, and Hermine, Hanna and Kurt’s daughter, Otto’s wife, and a flirtatious romantic. Credits include: Through the Sunken Lands at the Kenney Center, The Till Trilogy at Mosaic Theatre Company of DC, and Cry it Out at Studio Theatre.
Samuel Douglas as Otto Floge, a proto-Nazi banker who marries and then divorces Hermine, and Civilian, a powerful, intimidating, and authoritative figure. Sam is also understudying Ernst Kloster. Credits include: The Comedy of Errors at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Gently Down the Stream at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, and Romeo and Juliet at Montana Shakespeare in the Parks.
Maboud Ebrahimzadeh as Ernst Kloster, a big-hearted Protestant doctor who dislikes danger and violence and is married to Wilma. Credits include: Here There Are Blueberries at Shakespeare Theatre Company and Tectonic Theatre Project, and Murder on the Orient Express and Disgraced at McCarter Theatre Center.
Rachel Felstein as Eva Merz Jakobovicz, Hermann’s sister and a self-proclaimed “bad Jew,” married to mathematician Ludwig, and Nellie Jakobovicz Rosenbaum, Eva and Ludwig’s daughter, Leo’s mother, and a witty socialist. Credits include: This American Life – As Seen on Radio at BAM, A Tender Offer at Ensemble Studio Theater, and The George Sand Play Festival at New York City Center.
Rebecca Gibel as Hilde, a parlor maid, and Rosa Kloster, Wilma and Ernst’s Americanized daughter and Freudian analyst who is unafraid to speak her mind. Credits include: Merrily We Roll Along at The Huntington, and The Prince of Providence and Little Shop of Horrors at Trinity Repertory Company.
Phyllis Kay as Grandma Emilia Merz, the feisty and wry matriarch of the Merz family, Hermann and Eva’s mother, in whose apartment most of the action takes place, and Eva Merz Jakobovicz, hopeful for the future and a proud mother. Credits include: Prayer for the French Republic and We All Fall Down at The Huntington and Tiny Beautiful Things at Trinity Rep.
Adrianne Krstansky as Poldi, the family’s loyal cook and housekeeper, and Hanna, a pianist, poised and protective of her family. Credits include: The Art of Burning and A Doll’s House at The Huntington, and Luck, Pluck, and Virtue at Atlantic Theater Company.
Brenda Meaney as Gretl Merz, a gentile married to Hermann, carrying a few secrets, and the subject of a Klimt painting. Credits include: Uncle Vanya on Broadway, Indian Ink at the Roundabout, and Incognito at MTC.
Nael Nacer as Hermann Merz, who runs the family’s textile business and converted to Catholicism after marrying gentile Gretl; believes in assimilation. Credits include: Prayer for the French Republic and Romeo and Juliet at The Huntington, and Prayer for the French Republic on Broadway.
Anna Slate as Jana, the family’s nursemaid who cares for the children during the holidays, and Sally Kloster Fischbein, Zac’s wife and Nathan’s devoted mother. Credits include: La Cage aux Folles and By the Queen at Trinity Repertory Company, and Indecent at Wilbury Theatre Group.
Mishka Yarovoy as Jacob Merz, Hermann and Gretl’s opinionated son and wounded World War I veteran, and Leo Rosenbaum Chamberlain, Nellie’s son, who must confront and explore his family’s history after growing up adopted in England, unaware of his heritage. Credits include: Sanctuary City at TheatreWorks Hartford, As You Like It at Actors’ Shakespeare Project, and Chicken and Biscuits at Front Porch Arts Collective.
Joshua Chessin-Yudin as Zac Fischbein, Sally’s husband and Nathan’s father, and Nathan Fischbein, a mathematician and Wilma and Ernst’s traumatized grandchild who survives Auschwitz. Credits include: Prayer for the French Republic at The Huntington, The Sound Inside and Leopoldstadt on Broadway.
Child Actors include: Elijah Ditkoff, Mae Grimley, Holden King-Farbstein, Golda Munzer, Quinn Murphy, Hannah Nocon, Simonne Stern, and Elias Wettengel.
Understudies include: Tony Estrella, Jennie Israel, David Keohane, Sarah Oakes Muirhead, Lily Narbonne, Jacob Schmitt, and Jackie Scholl.
The creative team for Leopoldstadt includes scenic design by Ken MacDonald (A Thousand Splendid Suns at ACT), costume design by Alex Jaeger (Prayer for the French Republic at The Huntington), lighting design by Robert Wierzel (The Lehman Trilogy at The Huntington), original music and sound design by Jane Shaw (The Art of Burning at The Huntington), projection design by Yuki Izumihara (desert in at Boston Lyric Opera), and wig and makeup design by Tom Watson (Spamalot on Broadway). The dramaturgs are Charles Haugland and Drew Lichtenberg. The associate director is Dori A. Robinson, with movement by Daniel Pelzig, the fight direction and intimacy coordinator is Jesse Hinson, and the dialect coach is Lee Nishri-Howitt. The production stage manager is Emily F. McMullen and the stage managers are Deirdre Benson, Ashley Pitchford, and Kendyl Trott.
After it’s run in Boston at The Huntington, Leopoldstadt will run at Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington DC from Saturday, November 30 through Sunday, December 29, 2024.
Leopoldstadt is presented by arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service imprint (dramatists.com).
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Tom Stoppard (Playwright) Internationally award-winning writer Tom Stoppard’s plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound, After Magritte, Jumpers, New Found Land, Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth, Travesties, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (a play for actors and orchestra written with André Previn), Night and Day, The Real Thing, Hapgood, Arcadia, Indian Ink, The Invention of Love, The Coast of Utopia, Rock ‘n’ Roll and The Hard Problem. His radio plays include Albert’s Bridge, Artist Descending a Staircase, The Dog It Was That Died, If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank, and most recently, his dramatic imagining of Pink Floyd’s Darkside of the Moon, Darkside. Stoppard is also a writer for film and television and received the Academy Award for the screenplay of Shakespeare in Love.
Carey Perloff (Director) is a director, playwright, producer and educator who served as Artistic Director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco from 1992- 2018, where she staged dozens of classical and contemporary plays and nurtured a three-decade collaboration with Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard resulting in her new book Pinter and Stoppard: A Director’s View. She is also a distinguished teacher who helped lead the MFA program at A.C.T. and has guest taught at Columbia, SF State, UC Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, and numerous other universities. Perloff’s recent directing work includes The Lehman Trilogy (The Huntington and Repertory Theater of St. Louis), As You Like It (Santa Cruz Shakespeare), Hend Ayoub’s Home? (Voices Festival Productions, D.C.), Ibsen’s Ghosts (Seattle Rep and Williamstown), Pale Fire by Colm Toibin (Gate Theatre, Dublin), Merchant of Venice starring Seana McKenna at the Shakespeare Company, Calgary, and A Thousand Splendid Suns at Arena Stage. Perloff has staged numerous plays at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and at theaters across Canada. Upcoming: The Oedipus Project (Red Bull Theater, NYC), Leopoldstadt (The Huntington, Shakespeare Theater), Iphigenia in Tauris (Legion of Honor, SF).
As a playwright, Perloff’s work includes Vienna, Vienna, Vienna (Finalist, 2023 Jewish Plays Project prize), If God Were Blue (developed at New York Stage and Film and Playmaker’s Rep, directed by Vivienne Benesch), Edgardo or White Fire (Williamstown Theater Festival commission, Finalist O’Neill Playwrights Conference 2022, workshop at Writer Theater 2023), Higher (Winner, 2011 Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Theater Visions Award, produced at A.C.T. directed by Mark Rucker), Luminescence Dating (Sloane Foundation Commission, produced at Ensemble Studio Theater NY and Magic Theater SF, directed by Mark Rucker, Bay Area Theater Critics Best Original Script), Kinship (premiered at the Theatre de Paris starring Isabelle Adjani and then at Williamstown Theatre Festival starring Cynthia Nixon, directed by Jo Bonney), and The Fit (SF Playhouse 2019, directed by Bill English). Perloff is the author of Beautiful Chaos: A Life In The Theater (City Lights Press 2015) and Pinter and Stoppard: A Director’s View (Bloomsbury Methuen 2022). In 2007, Perloff was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, and has been awarded honorary degrees from University of San Francisco and A.C.T. She has recently created her own digital theater platform, Tiny Theatricals, to share open online rehearsals of great plays with artists-in-training and with the general public.
PERFORMANCE INFORMATION FOR LEOPOLDSTADT
WHEN
Performances: September 12 – October 13, 2024
Evenings: Tues – Thurs at 7pm; Fri and Sat at 7:30pm
Matinees: Select Wed, Fri, Sat, and Sun at 2pm
Days and times vary; see complete schedule above.
Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes, no intermission
Press Opening: Wednesday, September 18, 2024 at 7pm (RSVP here)
WHERE
The Huntington Theatre
264 Huntington Ave, Boston
TICKETS
Tickets start at $30. Season ticket packages and FlexPasses are also now on sale:
- online at huntingtontheatre.org
- by phone at 617-266-0800;
- or in person at the Huntington Theatre (264 Huntington Ave) or Calderwood Pavilion (527 Tremont Street)
Select discounts apply:
- $10 off: season ticket holders
- $40 “HYPE” tickets (Huntington Young Patron Events) for patrons 40 years-old and younger (valid ID required)
- $20 student and military tickets (valid ID required)
Please note that a digital recording of this production may be available for online viewing. More information to be shared online at a later date.
The Huntington asks that any patron experiencing illness stay home and contact ticketing services for more information about exchanges.
ACCESS PERFORMANCES FOR LEOPOLDSTADT
Tickets are $20 for each patron and their guests. To reserve tickets please email access@huntingtontheatre.org, call ticketing services at 617-266-0800, or visit in person at the Huntington Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston.
Accessible performances are supported in part by the Liberty Mutual Foundation.
OPEN CAPTIONED PERFORMANCE: Tuesday, October 1 at 7pm. The Huntington offers open captioning at designated performances for any patron who benefits from having the text of spoken dialogue visible in time with the play.
AUDIO-DESCRIBED PERFORMANCE: Saturday, October 12 at 2pm. The Huntington offers audio description for patrons who are blind or low-vision at designated performances. Please visit huntingtontheatre.org/visit/accessibility for information.
Large Print and Braille Programs will also be available for patrons at performances.
MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA
Any members of the media who are interested in speaking with the artists of Leopoldstadt, please contact Publicist Gabrielle Jaques at gjaques@huntingtontheatre.org or 617-273-1520.
Press night for critics is Wednesday, September 18, 2024 at 7pm. Please RSVP here for press night or other available performances.
Production photos will be available for download online, and b-roll footage can be requested.
PHOTOS available for download here
LEOPOLDSTADT SPECIAL EVENTS
“Stage & Screen” Empire of the Sun at Coolidge Corner: Monday, September 9
The Huntington and Coolidge Corner continue their “Stage & Screen” collaboration with an event on Monday, September 9 at Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA. After a 7pm showing of Empire of the Sun (directed by Steven Spielberg, screenplay by Tom Stoppard, 1987), guests from The Huntington’s production of Leopoldstadt will host a post-screening discussion.
Tickets to the Stage & Screen film and post-screening discussion can be purchased here: coolidge.org/programs/stage-screen
Jewish Community Night: Tuesday, September 17
The Huntington hosts a pre-show reception for members of the Jewish community to gather and network before the 7pm performance on Tuesday, September 17. More information to be shared soon.
Actors Forum: Thursday, September 26
The Huntington hosts a moderated, post-show discussion with members of the cast after the 7pm performance on Thursday, September 26 at the Huntington Theatre (264 Huntington Ave). Hear actors from Leopoldstadt reflect on their roles and nuances of each character.
Humanities Forum: Sunday, September 29
The Huntington hosts a post-show discussion after the 2pm matinee performance on Sunday, September 29 at the Huntington Theatre (264 Huntington Ave).
ABOUT THE HUNTINGTON
Celebrating over 40 years of outstanding theatre, The Huntington is Boston’s theatrical commons and leading professional theatre company. On our stages and throughout our city, we share enduring and untold stories that spark the imagination of audiences and artists and amplify the wide range of voices in our community.
Under the leadership of Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director Loretta Greco and Executive Director Christopher Mannelli, The Huntington is committed to welcoming broad and diverse audiences, provides life- changing opportunities for students through its robust education and community programs, is a national leader in the development of playwrights and new plays, has acted as the host organization for a multi-year residency of The Front Porch Arts Collective, a Black theatre company based in Boston, and serves the local arts community through our operation of The Huntington Calderwood/BCA.
The Huntington reopened the historic Huntington Theatre in fall of 2022 after its transformational renovation, and is currently in phase two of the project; the renovation and building project of this storied venue with a bold vision for the future will allow us to innovatively expand our services to audiences, artists, and the community for generations to come. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.
ABOUT SHAKESPEARE THEATRE COMPANY
For over 35 years, Washington, D.C.’s Tony Award-winning Shakespeare Theatre Company has been recognized as the nation’s premier classical theatre. STC tells vital stories in audacious forms, stories that are Shakespearean in the deepest sense, even if they are not written by Shakespeare. STC stages epic stories in exhilarating style.
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