Tony Danza and More Join Williamstown Theatre Festival Summer Season

Additional cast members have been unveiled for the Williamstown Theatre Festival's 71st season. The complete Festival takes place from Thursday, July 17 through Sunday, August 3. Weekend passes for all productions are on sale now. Single tickets for Camino Real, Spirit of the People, Not About Nightingales, and Vanessa are currently available with single tickets for Many Happy Returns, The Things Around Us, and Untitled On Ice going on sale starting Tuesday, May 27 at noon ET.
 
The inaugural Creative Collective, a new collaborative leadership model, is led by Tony Award nominee Jeremy O. Harris, with actor, model, and co-founder of the online book club “Library Science,” Kaia Gerber and her co-founder Alyssa Reeder, entrepreneur and producer Alex Stoclet, and dancer and member of American Theatre’s “2023’s 6 to watch,” Christopher Rudd.
 
W71 is a multi-disciplinary theatrical eruption that investigates and celebrates playwright Tennessee Williams, as well as the spaces he inhabited and inspired. This Festival is not nostalgic, and these artists are not simply heralding this canonical icon. They are diving deep, scrutinizing the conditions that influence human behavior, and asking the question, “who tells our stories and why do they tell them the way that they do?” 
 
Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award nominee Tony Danza, who previously starred on Broadway in productions of Eugene O’Neil’s The Iceman Cometh and Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge along with musical comedies like The Producers and Honeymoon in Vegas will return to the stage in Williams’ Camino Real (Saturday, July 19–Sunday, August 3 on the MainStage) as ‘Casanova,’ alongside Vin Knight as ‘Gutman,’ and two-time Obie Award winner April Matthis as ‘Gypsy.’
 
They join the previously announced Golden Globe® and SAG Award® nominee Pamela Anderson as ‘Marguerite,’ Emmy Award winner Nicholas Alexander Chavez as ‘Kilroy’ and Whitney Peak as ‘Esmerelda.’ This is the first significant revival of Camino Real since the 1999 Williamstown production, reimagined and directed by Obie Award and Lucille Lortel Award-winning theater and opera director Dustin Wills. The final two actors for the 24-member company of Camino Real will be announced shortly.
 
Williamstown Theatre Festival also announces initial casting for the world premiere of Jeremy O. Harris’ Spirit of the People (Thursday, July 17–Friday, August 1 on the MainStage), directed by Katina Medina Mora. The cast will feature Tonatiuh, who is starring opposite Jennifer Lopez in the upcoming Bill Condon-directed “Kiss of the Spiderwoman,” for which he received flawless reviews following the Sundance premiere, Emma Ramos, Julian Sanchez, Christopher Geary, Amandla Jahava, Tony Award® nominee Ato Blankson-Wood, and Tony Award nominee James Cusati-Moyer. Additional casting for Spirit of the People will be announced shortly.
 
While attending Yale School of Drama, Harris worked on early drafts of what would become his breakout hit Slave Play. Blankson-Wood and Cusati-Moyer were part of very early readings of Harris’ Slave Play and went on to star in the New York premiere at New York Theatre Workshop where it became the most talked about play in years. The production transferred to Broadway and received 12 Tony Award nominations, including Best Play for Harris and Best Featured Actor in a Play for both Blankson-Wood and Cusati-Moyer.
 
Finally, W71 announces that Elizabeth Lail, who rose to fame as the star of “Once Upon A Time” and the first season of the Netflix series “You,” will join the cast of Not About Nightingales (Thursday, July 17 - Sunday, August 3 on the NikosStage), directed by Tony Award nominee Robert O’Hara (A Raisin in the Sun at Williamstown and Slave Play). Lail replaces the previously announced Sydney Lemmon who, due to scheduling conflicts, departs the production.