APPROPRIATE Miami Premiere to be Presented at GableStage Theatre Company
This darkly comic American family drama plays at GableStage’s historic Biltmore Hotel home from January 31 - February 23, 2025.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Dec. 30, 2024
GableStage will present the Miami premiere of Appropriate by Pulitzer Prize finalist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. This darkly comic American family drama plays at GableStage’s historic Biltmore Hotel home from January 31 - February 23, 2025.
It’s summer in Arkansas and the cicadas are singing. Every estranged member of the Lafayette clan has descended upon the crumbling homestead to settle the accounts of the newly-dead patriarch. As his three adult children sort through a lifetime of hoarded mementos and junk, they collide over clutter, debt, and a contentious family history. But after a disturbing discovery surfaces among their father’s possessions, the reunion takes a turn for the explosive, unleashing a series of crackling surprises and confrontations.
Jacobs-Jenkins, a MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient and Fulbright Scholar is considered one of America’s most inventive and profound playwrights. Appropriate received an Obie Award in 2014 and in 2024, a reimagined production, with an updated script and star-studded cast, was awarded the 2024 Tony Award for Best Revival. GableStage produced Jacobs-Jenkins’ Gloria in 2018.
The Miami premiere of Appropriate is directed by GableStage Producing Artistic Director, Bari Newport (The Lehman Trilogy) and features an ensemble cast of exceptional actors. Returning to GableStage are Rachel Burttram (A Doll’s House, Pt. 2) and Mark H. Dold (The Lehman Trilogy). They will be joined by Minneapolis-based Tony Larkin and popular South Florida actors Suzanne Ankrum and Natalie Donahue McMahon, who will be making their GableStage debuts.
The two teenage characters in the production will be played by Brando Lafleur, a Junior at Emerson College and Cecile Etzbach, an eighth grader at Ransom Everglades School. Eight year old Lorenzo Garcia, a student at Saint Thomas the Apostle Catholic School, will appear as the youngest member of the Lafayette family.
“We have assembled a dream cast and design team,” says Newport. “We are transforming our historic horse stable theatre home into an antebellum Arkansas plantation and look forward to bringing this monumentally raucous dramedy to thrilling life.”
Jessie Wolfson and Dr. Larry Kron are the lead sponsors of the GableStage production of Appropriate. Additional support from Knight Foundation, Rhoda Levitt, Jeff Davis and Michael Miller, Jodi and Paul Tartell, the City Of Coral Gables, The Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs/the Cultural Affairs Council, and the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, are making this production possible.
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