PRIMARY TRUST Will Come to The Mark Taper Forum in May
Performances run May 20 to June 28.
Primary Trust, written by Eboni Booth and directed by Knud Adams, will perform May 20 to June 28 at the Mark Taper Forum. A New York Times Critic's Pick, Primary Trust is a story of a man who finds a new job, new friends, and a new sense of worth, illustrating how small acts of kindness can change a person's life and enrich an entire community.
Kenneth, a 38-year-old bookstore worker in a small upstate New York town, spends his evenings sipping Mai Tais at the local tiki bar with his Best Friend Bert. When he's suddenly laid off, Kenneth faces challenges he has long avoided—with transformative and heart-warming results. Primary Trust is a touching story of new beginnings, old (and new) friends, and finding the courage to see the world for the first time.
The cast includes Petey McGee as Kenneth; Ugo Chukwu as his friend Bert; Rebecca S'manga Frank as Corinna, Wally's Waiter and others; James Urbaniak as Clay and others; and Luke Wygodny as Musician.
The creative team includes Marsha Ginsberg (Set Designer), Sophia Choi (Costume Designer), Masha Tsimring (Lighting Designer), Mikaal Slaiman (Sound Designer), Luke Wygodny (Original Music), and Henry Russell Bergstein (Casting Director).
“The Mark Taper Forum has always been known as the home to great American plays, and I'm thrilled that tradition continues this season with Eboni Booth's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Primary Trust,” said CTG Brindell & Milton Gottlieb Artistic Director Snehal Desai. “Knud has put together a luminous and fiercely talented ensemble to bring the rich characters that inhabit Eboni's play to life. I can't wait to share this gorgeous and moving play with CTG audiences.”
In an interview for Roundabout Theatre that produced its New York premiere in 2023, Eboni Booth said, “I find myself trying to smoke out what feels real, what feels true, what feels like it reminds me of something that I've encountered myself … developing a tolerance for discomfort has helped me tremendously, both onstage and off, and I have found that an ability to sit with the unknown has deepened my work.”
Booth continued, “I saw a lot of regulars [working] as a bartender. I worked at places where we had some people who came in every night of the week, every day of the year. I had a curiosity about their lives. I think I'm drawn to stories of loneliness and people who are trying to do battle, however quietly, with the feeling of being isolated. So it wasn't conscious, but I think writing Primary Trust was my way to better understand moments in my life where I felt very alone and very sad ... times when I wanted to connect with people but wasn't completely sure how to go about it.”
“I've spent a lot of time in the northeast, in towns and small cities in New England and upstate New York, and there's something about the region that is very evocative to me. The landscape is beautiful and sad—the green of spring and summer, the changing leaves of fall, the bareness of winter. The towns and cities that were once prosperous are now struggling. It gets really, really cold. It can be hard to know what to do with yourself at 4pm once the sun has set,” Booth concluded.
When Primary Trust premiered in New York in 2023, The Observer said, “it will restore your faith in theatre's elemental storytelling powers.” The Daily Beast said it's “pretty darn near to perfect.”
Chris Jones said in the Chicago Tribune, “I warrant you'll leave feeling at least a little bit better about the world. One of the most notable aspects of the play is that the antagonist forces are mostly internal to Kenneth. He has to deal with setbacks and challenging people, like the rest of us, but most of the folks he encounters ... during his ordinary days wish him well and try to help. And that's one of this play's most appealing aspects. In many ways, it's a play about learning to use the people around you to find the help they want to give you.”
Jones continued, “Theater is typically more pleasurable when you like the characters you are watching. I've long had a fondness for plays that celebrate ordinary people dealing with issues that the broader world mostly does not notice. This one, in particular, is an empathy machine that moved me greatly by its end.”
Charles McNulty said in the Los Angeles Times, “This is a quirky, small-scale, quietly reflective work that's as tenderhearted as it is spryly comic and as poignant as it is ultimately uplifting. It's refreshing to see such a prodigious honor bestowed on a piece of writing that's content to go about its human business without the need to inflate its own importance.”
McNulty continued, “Booth knows there's value in every life, no matter how obscure or unimpressive. The compassionate attention she lavishes on her gentle, troubled protagonist opens up an entire world, if you're willing to take in what's been hiding in plain sight. He's telling a different story, the story of his loneliness. And how his world unexpectedly transformed through the grace of other people taking an interest in him. Knud Adams, who directed the Roundabout Theatre Company's world premiere of Primary Trust, stages the play with an amiable lightness that exemplifies Cranberry's motto: ‘Welcome Friend, You're Right on Time!' The simplicity is endearing.”
Naveen Kumar said in The New York Times Critic's Pick, "In Primary Trust, the playwright Eboni Booth zooms in on Kenneth, who lives in a fictional suburb of Rochester, N.Y. He is alone and adrift in this tender, delicately detailed portrait, though surely he has not always been. Listen, and he'll tell you about the moment he almost drowned and how he learned to keep his head above water. He begins to reach through the cracks of his isolation to discover good, decent people.”
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