For New York's Downtown Theater Scene, A Rising Visionary Yarin Neuhaus Has a Refreshing Approach to Theater

-by Annie Abramczyk

After the longest shutdown in Broadway history, followed by a rocky and Covid-complicated return, New York’s theater scene is finally back. The critics are abuzz about Off-Broadway.

The theatrical forecast for the first quarter brings budding promise long before spring. With January sales skyrocketing at theatres like the Atlantic Theater Company and the Signature, audiences are swarming to the hottest shows with star-studded casts of the stage – and some from the silver screen, testing their theatre chops fallout (or courtesy) of the 118-day SAG-AFTRA strike. Among the must-see list: Second Stage Theater production of The Apiary.

Set “22 years in the future [as] two lab assistants hatch a plan that could change the world,” the world-premiere play will open in January 2024 at the Tony Kiser Theater. It stars Tony nominee Gabby Beans, Carmen M. Herlihy, April Matthis, and Emmy nominee Taylor Schilling (Orange is the New Black). The Apiary is written by Kate Douglas, directed by Kate Whoriskey (Broadway’s Clyde’s), and features an impressive creative team. Among them is Whoriskey’s newest protégé as assistant director, who is no stranger to the Off-Broadway world.

His name is Yarin Neuhaus. He’s a 24-year old South African actor and NYU Tisch Drama alum with masterful wit and promising talent. He’s humble, relatable, intelligent, and handsomely charismatic. Most importantly, his approach to theater is sophisticated and has a modern-style aesthetic, honoring the work with a reverent story-first perspective. He met Whoriskey by chance one fateful night on a homework assignment.

“I’m grateful for my time at NYU Tisch. It was the first time I was introduced to Kate Whoriskey’s work. We saw Clyde's in previews at Second Stage for a directing class I was taking,” Neuhaus recalled. “Kate has a dedication to deep analysis of the text and using all theatrical facets to tease out the themes and soul of the play so effectively. I was honored to see the invited dress. The rest was history.” From a longtime artistic admiration blossoms a working relationship.

After graduation, Neuhaus immediately began working with Whoriskey. The pair collaborated on the Signature Theater’s original production of Pulitzer Prize-winner Sarah Ruhls’s new autobiographical play Letters From Max. Ruhl, played by two-time Tony nominee Jessica Hecht, guides us through the years she spent in correspondence

with Max Ritvo, her inspiring former student at Yale, before his death from terminal illness.

The production was a massive success. “It’s a theatrical act of remembrance and a sacrament of grief, but it’s also a comedy,” per Laura Collins of the New York Times. “Whoriskey is the rare director who grasps the ineffable in Ruhl and knows how to make sense of it in three dimensions. For all its talk of this world and corporeality.”

Ruhl’s witty, raw new work offered opportunities for sweet sensitivity and compassion. Within the production, there was a hint of Neuhaus’ curiosity: “I’m interested in exploring new works and experimenting with storytelling on stage and screen,” he explained. Whether on or off stage, Neuhaus is interested in “creating work that aids the emotional processing of a world that is advancing to a point of seeming self-destruction.”

Not only comfortable behind the scenes, Neuhaus recently made his professional acting debut Off-Broadway as the leading Dmytro in Steppe (pictured here by Bronwen Sharp), a new one-act play by Ukrainian playwright Masha Makutonina that tells an intergenerational story of an unexpected friendship against the backdrop of an ecological disaster. The story is inspired by the effects of war in Ukraine on the Chalk Flora Nature Reserve and the unexpected revelations that appear in places of purgatory. Steppe was part of the prolific Rattletick Theater’s annual Global Forums Theater Festival, where the company features new works created entirely by immigrant artists.

From his first entrance, Neuhaus captivates the audience with a stage presence unique among contemporary actors– a palpable energy palatable for audiences, evidenced by Neuhaus’ extensive artistic training.

Before graduating from New York University’s esteemed Tisch School of the Arts, Neuhaus studied in conjunction with some of the most renowned programs in the world, including The Experimental Theatre Wing, The Integrated Approach to Actor Training program in Berlin, the International Theatre Workshop in Amsterdam, and Stonestreet Studios. His Tisch performing credits include Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play, directed by Carson McCalley at Atlantic's Off-Broadway Linda Gross Theater, The Lower Depths by Javier Antonio Gonzalez, and Small Mouth Sounds at Playwrights Horizons, as well as production work on Tali Smith’s film Umama, which won the 2019 Student Oscar for Best Film.

“Being given the opportunity to have such a wide range of training from heavy text analysis to improvised physical movement pieces has taught me to adapt when faced with things that seem new and uncomfortable,” Neuhaus told me after his recent show The Adventures of Orlando and Virginia closed at NYU Tisch. This piece, inspired by

Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, was conceived and directed by Neuhaus’ mentor and former professor Kevin Kuhlke.

It was a joyfully experimental production that explored Woolf’s musings on gender for today’s world. For Neuhaus, “Embracing everything that seems new and unexplored keeps the work fresh.” As a director and actor, he’s proudly “always in the pursuit of telling the story in the most entertaining way.”

I, for one, as a self-proclaimed fan of Neuhaus’ work, look forward to the entertainment he’ll provide and the new ideas he’s bound to express. His vision for new works as an increasingly popular creative is one that resonates with today’s world: It’s exciting, it’s refreshing, it’s what theater needs.

For Neuhaus, “The brilliance of live theatre continues to draw thousands to New York. I am intrigued to see how the next coming years will restructure spaces and ways of gathering together in a room to experience art.”