Molly Ringwald, Bob Odenkirk, and More Will Lead ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN Off-Broadway
The production will feature a rotating cast of artists, including Steven Pasquale, Santino Fontana, Andrew McCarthy, and more.
Initial casting has been announced for a new production of Eric Bentley’s 1972 play, ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN, directed by Tony Award-winning director Anna D. Shapiro. The limited 15-week engagement will begin performances at New York City Center Stage (i) on Tuesday, June 2, 2026.
This summer, a rotating cast will come together for this revival of Eric Bentley's ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN. The docudrama drops you into the tense world of the 1940s House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings, where fame offered no protection and political pressure could end a career.
Using only the original transcripts, the play features the words of artists like Arthur Miller, Jerome Robbins, Paul Robeson, Elia Kazan, Lillian Hellman, Abe Burrows, and Lionel Stander as they faced impossible choices: defend their integrity, protect their careers, or betray their peers. And yet the probing, chilling questions posed by the committee are as powerful as the testimonies themselves, revealing a climate of intimidation and moral conflict that resonates far beyond its time.
The production will feature a rotating cast of artists throughout its run. Guest starring in the production from June 2 through June 21 are David Krumholtz (Leopoldstadt), Obie Award winner Billy Eugene Jones (Purlie Victorious, Fat Ham), Andrew McCarthy (Pretty in Pink), Sally Murphy (August: Osage County), and Jay O. Sanders (Purlie Victorious).
Six veteran actors will perform for the duration of the limited 15 week run through September 11: Three-time Tony Award nominee Brooks Ashmanskas (Smash, The Prom), Jason Babinsky (Network, Billy Elliot), Tony nominee Steven Boyer ([Hand to God]), Emmy and Grammy winner Adam Kantor (The Band’s Visit), Drama Desk Award winner Frederick Weller (In Plain Sight), and Grammy winner, Emmy and Academy Award nominee Michael McKean (Laverne & Shirley, This is Spinal Tap). Melvin Abston, Noah Pyzik, and Bill Timoney have been cast as understudies.
Joining the cast for future dates to be announced soon are Santino Fontana, T.R. Knight, Harry Lennix, Bob Odenkirk, Steven Pasquale, Molly Ringwald, and Thomas Sadoski, with more artists to be announced as guest stars during the run.
The design team for this production includes Andrew Boyce (Scenic Designer), Johanna Pan (Costume Designer), Donald Holder (Lighting Designer), Milbo Music (Sound Designer), and Brittany Bland (Projections Designer).
Following select performances, ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN will host a series of post-show talkbacks featuring celebrated artists, directors, playwrights, and cultural leaders. Scheduled guests include J. T. Rogers (6/2), Trip Cullman (6/4 evening), Judy Kuhn and John Weidman (6/11 evening), Christopher Ashley (6/16), Arian Moayed (6/17 matinee), Joanna Samuels (6/17 evening), Heidi Schreck (6/18), Moisés Kaufman (6/23), David Henry Hwang (6/25), Matthew Libby (6/30), Bill Rauch (7/14), Oskar Eustis (7/23), Robert O'Hara (8/29 matinee), Pam MacKinnon (9/2 evening), and Michael Roth (9/9 evening).
Created by one of the most influential theater intellectuals of the 20th century, Eric Bentley, ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN embodies his career-long drive to challenge audiences with the ideas behind the drama. Honored with a 2006 Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement, Bentley turned history into riveting theater. By presenting the words exactly as spoken, Bentley transformed archival material into a dramatic confrontation between artists and government power.
Throughout his career, Bentley wrote extensively on drama and performance with influential works including the landmark 1946 book The Playwright as Thinker, which helped define modern theater criticism.
The production arrives amid renewed public interest in the blacklist era, following last fall’s New-York Historical Society exhibition examining the Hollywood blacklist and the cultural impact of the HUAC hearings. The exhibit highlighted many of the same figures featured in Bentley’s play and underscored how questions of artistic freedom, political expression, and public pressure continue to resonate today.
Among the other figures portrayed in ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN? are film actor Larry Parks; director Sam G. Wood; filmmakers and Hollywood Ten members Edward Dmytryk and Ring Lardner, Jr.; screen star Sterling Hayden; acclaimed stage and screen actor José Ferrer; screenwriter Martin Berkeley; Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter Robert Rossen; labor organizer Tony Kraber; film director Frank Tuttle; actor and radio performer Nicholas Bela; stage and screen actor Elliott Sullivan; and character actor Marc Lawrence. Drawn from across film, theatre, radio, and music, these artists represent a cross-section of mid-century American entertainment at the height of the Hollywood studio era.
Tickets for ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN are now on sale online and at the box office.
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