DOWNSTATE Will Come to Broadway Beginning in October

It's official! Downstate will make its Broadway premiere this fall. Directed by three-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello, Downstate will begin previews Saturday, October 17, at the Booth Theatre (222 W. 45th St.) for a limited 12-week engagement. Opening night is set for Sunday, November 15. Tickets to Downstate will be available beginning this Thursday, September 10.

The show made its 2018 world premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, its UK premiere at The National Theatre in 2019 and its New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons in 2022. Read the reviews from Chicago and New York. 

The Broadway cast of Downstate will feature Cassie Beck, two-time Tony Award nominee K. Todd Freeman, Evening Standard Award nominee Francis Guinan, Adrian Martinez, Al'Jaleel McGhee, Tony Award nominee Thomas Sadoski, Ivy Wolk, and Emmy Award winner Liza Colón-Zayas.

In downstate Illinois, four men convicted of sex crimes against minors live together in a group home, their every movement governed by restrictions that continue to close in around them. The house's fragile order begins to fracture as an accuser arrives to confront his abuser, bringing with him a storm of unspoken memories. Shockingly funny, savage and furiously political, Bruce Norris's play pulls audiences into a world where punishment is unending, compassion itself can feel like a transgression, and forgiveness is always out of reach.

Mantello returns to Broadway with Downstate following his historic production of Arthur Miller's Death of Salesman, which made Broadway history as the most awarded revival of a play ever and the most Tony Award-winning show of the year, with six Tony wins including Best Revival of a Play and Best Direction of a Play.

The creative team for Downstate will include three-time Tony Award-winning scenic designer Scott Pask, Tony and two-time Academy Award-winning Costume Designer Ann Roth, Drama Desk Award-winning lighting designer Heather Gilbert, and Tony Award-winning sound designer Mikaal Sulaiman.

Cast Biographies

Cassie Beck is reuniting with director Joe Mantello after collaborating with him on The Humans, for which the cast received the Drama Desk Award for Best Ensemble. Also on Broadway: The Rose Tattoo, Picnic and The Norman Conquests. Beck performed the role of “Heidi” in the 13-city Broadway tour of What the Constitution Means to Me. She's originated numerous roles off-Broadway and regionally. Selected TV/film credits include I Know What You Did Last Summer, “High Maintenance,” “Pose,” and “Chicago Med.” Beck adapted, executive produced and starred in the short film Admonitions, which premiered at the Greenpoint Film Festival.

K. Todd Freeman. Broadway: Death of a Salesman, The Minutes, Airline Highway (Tony Nomination, Drama Desk Award), Wicked, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Song of Jacob Zulu (Tony Nomination). Off-Broadway: Prince Faggot (Playwrights Horizons – Obie Award), Downstate (Playwrights Horizons – Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Obie Awards), Fetch Clay Make Man (NYTW – Obie Award); The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, Spunk (Public Theatre). Television: “Will Trent,” “Horrors of Dolores Roach,” “The Rehearsal,” “High Maintenance,” “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” “Blindspot,” “Law and Order: SVU,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “NYPD Blue.” Film: No One Cares, The Same Storm, Anesthesia, The Dark Knight, Cider House Rules, Gross Pointe Blank. Member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Francis Guinan has been a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble since 1979. He has appeared in numerous Steppenwolf productions including American Buffalo, The Night Alive, The Seafarer, Noises Off and Love Song. Other regional credits include The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard at The Goodman Theatre, The White Guy on the Bus and Stella and Lou at Northlight Theatre in Chicago. Stella and Lou also traveled to the Galway Arts Festival. Off-Broadway credits include Balm in Gilead, And a Nightingale Sang and As Is. On Broadway he has appeared in August: Osage County and The Grapes of Wrath. Film credits: The Last Airbender, Relative, Abundant Acreage Available, Constantine. TV credits: “Law and Order,” “Eerie Indiana,” “Chicago Med,” “Mike and Molly.” Thanks always to the Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Adrian Martinez. Film: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Focus, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, American Hustle, Renfield, iGilbert, Stumptown, The Interpreter, Casa de los Babys, It's Kind of a Funny Story, and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Television: “Only Murders in the Building,” “The Blacklist,” “Stumptown,” “No Activity,” “Gotham,” “Inside Amy Schumer,” “Louie,” “30 Rock,” “Law & Order,” and “Sex and the City.” He starred opposite Will Smith and Margot Robbie In Focus and opposite Ben Stiller in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Martinez wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the feature film iGilbert, which earned multiple festival awards.

Al'Jaleel McGhee. Chicago actor. Selected theatre credits include: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Revolution(s) (Goodman Theatre); A Soldier's Play (National Broadway Tour); Toni Stone (Huntington Theatre); Henry Johnson (Victory Gardens) Paradise Blue (Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe); Noises Off (Steppenwolf/Geffen Playhouse); Intimate Apparel, Fireflies (Northlight); Paradise Blue, To Catch a Fish (TimeLine); Blues for an Alabama Sky (Court). Selected Film/TV credits include: “Duster” (HBO); Lady in the Lake, “Shining Girls” (Apple); 61st Street (AMC). Northwestern University MFA Acting Inaugural Cohort.

Thomas Sadoski. Broadway credits include: reasons to be pretty (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League nominations); Other Desert Cities; The House of Blue Leaves; Reckless. Off-Broadway and international credits include: Are You Now or Have You Ever Been; Wedding Band; White Noise; The Way We Get By; As You Like It; The Tempest; Other Desert Cities (Obie Award), Becky Shaw (Lucille Lortel Award); This is Our Youth; Stay; Where We're Born; Jump/Cut. Film credits include: Adult Children; Group: The Schopenhauer Effect; Devotion; Lilly; Wild; The Mimic; The Last Word; I Smile Back; John Wick and John Wick Chapter Two; Take Care; The New Twenty; Loser. Television credits include: “The Newsroom;” “American Sports Story: Gladiator;” “The Crowded Room;” “Tommy;” “Life in Pieces;” “The Slap;” “Law & Order: SVU;” “Ugly Betty,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent;” “Law & Order.” A graduate of Circle in the Square Theater School in New York City, Sadoski has an honorary doctorate from Niagara University for his decades of humanitarian work with War Child USA, INARA, Fortify Rights and others.

Ivy Wolk can currently be seen onscreen in Ryan Murphy's new FX series “The Shards,” based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel, as well as in a recurring role in “Deli Boys” for Hulu. She played supporting roles in Jonah Hill's “Outcome” for Apple and in “Roommates” for Netflix. Ivy can also be seen in Sean Baker's multiple Academy Award-winning film Anora, in Eugene Kotlyarenko's film The Code and in Andrew De Young's film Friendship, for A24. Wolk appeared in Mary Bronstein's If I Had Legs I'd Kick You and Nick Corirossi's Napa Boys, as well as Brian Jordan Alvarez's “English Teacher” for FX and “Everything's Gonna Be Okay” for Freeform.

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