Kellie Overbey, Carmen Zilles & T. Ryder Smith to Star in Christina Masciotti's NO GOOD THINGS DWELL IN THE FLESH

"No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh," a new play by internationally acclaimed playwright and Guggenheim fellow Christine Masciotti, has revealed its complete cast and creative team. Kellie Overbey (The Coast of Utopia, Twentieth Century), Carmen Zilles (Epiphany, Fuente Ovejuna), and T. Ryder Smith (Oslo, War Horse) star in the world premiere production, running September 6–23, 2023, with an opening on September 10, at the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at A.R.T/New York Theatres (502 W 53rd St, Manhattan).

Jeffrey Brabant, Annie Fang, Megan Lomax round out the cast. Directed by Rory McGregor (Buggy Baby, The Lehman Trilogy), No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh centers on an aging Russian tailor who must confront the one thing she can’t alter – her own mortality. Tickets, starting at $30, are currently on sale.

Set in present-day Queens, No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh features an immigrant master tailor struggling to convince her assistant to take over her business as she loosens her grip on the material world. When her deranged ex-boyfriend begins to stalk her in her shop, she’s forced to reconsider what her legacy can be and make peace with what can’t be fixed, salvaged, or even known.

The creative team for No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh includes Brendan Gonzales Boston (scenic design), Johanna Pan (costume design), Stacey Derosier (lighting design), Brian Hickey (sound design), and Nat Kelley DiMario (production stage manager) with Alexandre Bleau (casting director) andCharmian Hoare (dialect coach).

Masciotti’s most recent production, Raw Bacon from Poland, was declared a New York Times Critic’s Pick by Ben Brantley who found “the poignant new drama… an unexpected celebration of a marriage of true minds.” In earlier works, such as Vision Disturbance and Adult, Masciotti’s “distinctive gift for finding original poetry in everyday speech,” (New York Times), has often been highlighted alongside “language that is beautifully wrought… marvelously strange and humane,” (Time Out New York).

With No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh, Masciotti continues to “mine the banalities of everyday chatter for heroic poetry,” (New York Times). The play was inspired by a professional tailor in Astoria whom Masciotti once frequented.

“Whenever I went to see her, I was always struck by something she’d say. And her level of expertise was astounding,” says Masciotti. “Eventually I approached her about wanting to write a play based on her life. Her immediate response was, ‘I always knew this would happen.’ She pulled up a stool, and I spent six months by her side.”

“The tailor shop also appealed to me as a central metaphor,” Masciotti adds. “Particularly for a story about an immigrant woman who’s been denied her humanity in so many ways. Her labor is made invisible, and her artistry is reduced to servility. As someone brutally displaced by the collapse of the Soviet Union, she remains deeply alienated. The shop plunges us into her world of limbo; between two worlds as an immigrant, and at this point in her life, approaching the end of her career. She’s even more obsessed with textiles, the human form, and measurements because the physical world is slipping away. The story is asking: How do we let go of all we’ve ever known? How do we face the ultimate alteration, death itself?”

“Christina is a distinguished writer with a remarkable pedigree. A true master in creating vividly drawn characters,” says director Rory McGregor. “I love how the play oscillates between the real and the surreal, how the hyper-realistic scenes in the tailor shop are often bookended with more mysterious and strange scenes with the customers. It probes deeply in some uncomfortable and anxiety inducing areas. The timeless questions of how to build a life, and what we leave behind when we go.”

Fourteen performances of No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh will take place September 6–23, 2023, at The Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at A.R.T /New York Theatres, located at 502 W 53rd St in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of Friday, September 8, for an opening on Sunday, September 10. The performance schedule is Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30pm and Sundays at 5pm. The anticipated running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Tickets, which start at $30, can be purchased online at www.christinamasciotti.com.

Please visit www.christinamasciotti.com for more information.

About the Cast

Kellie Overbey - Broadway: The Coast of Utopia, Twentieth Century, “Q.E.D.”, Judgment at Nuremberg, Present Laughter, Buried Child. Drama Desk nominations for Women Without Men (The Mint) and Sleeping Rough (Page 73.) Lortel nomination for The Savannah Disputation (Playwrights Horizons.) Other off-Broadway includes Mary Page Marlowe; Rapture, Blister, Burn; Animals Out of Paper; Betty’s Summer Vacation. Film & TV include: Imitation Girl, Sweet and Lowdown, Outbreak, “Bull”, “FBI”,"Blindspot", “Blue Bloods”, “30 Rock”, and “The Good Wife." As a writer: That’s What She Said premiered at Sundance in 2012, My Wife’s Coat is published in the 29th Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival Plays, and Mobius was a finalist for the 2022 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference. Overby is the Executive Director of AisFor.org, an Eastern Principal Councilor at Actors Equity Association, and a founding member of FairWageOnstage.org. She is a proud member of both AEA and SAG-AFTRA.

Carmen Zilles - After training at the Yale School of Drama, Zilles has performed all over New York’s Off Broadway stages, most recently at Lincoln Center Theater in Brian Watkins' Epiphany, directed by Tyne Rafaeli, and at Theatre for a New Audience in Fuente Ovejuna. She has worked with acclaimed theater directors such as Ivo van Hove (in his adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage), Lileana Blain-Cruz (on Maria Irene Fornés’s Fefu and her Friends), and Rachel Chavkin (in Bess Wohl’s nearly silent play Small Mouth Sounds). Film and television credits include: Bel Canto alongside Julianne Moore and directed by Paul Weitz; Pimp opposite Keke Palmer; and roles on “FBI”, “Law & Order: Organized Crime” and “Blue Bloods”. She is repped by Artists & Representatives and Lasher Group.

T. Ryder Smith - Broadway: Oslo, War Horse, Equus. Off-Broadway: Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Passion Play, Our Lady of Kibeho, She Stoops to Comedy, Thom Pain, Apparition, Terra Firma, King Cowboy Rufus Rules the Universe, The Gods Are Pounding My Head, Social Security. Regional theatre: world premieres Scenes from Court Life, We Are Pussy Riot, Creditors, Big Love, Salome. Film/TV: Hunters, Bull, The Blacklist, Elementary, Nurse Jackie, The Abolitionists, The Report, Happy Tears, Brainscan; experimental films by Rachel Rose, Marie Losier, Daniel Fish, Lawrence Krauser, Redmond Entwistle. Vocal: videogame Bioshock, animated series The Venture Brothers, Pacifica Radio’s annual readings of James Joyce’s Ulysses, numerous audiobooks. Drama Desk nomination, Outstanding Solo Performance: Glen Berger’s Underneath the Lintel; Audie Award, Best Non-Fiction audiobook Fire in Paradise; shared Drama Desk award, Outstanding Ensemble, Lebensraum; shared OBIE, Outstanding Ensemble, Oslo. Upcoming: films Lost Nation, Ikonophile Z, SOR, TV series “The Penguin”.
 

Jeffrey Brabant is a New York-based actor and a NYU Tisch graduate.  Jeffrey has since appeared Off-Broadway in Ransom (Arts on Site), Burnt Fur in Buggy Baby (APAC Center) and recently as Orlando in Smith Street Stage's As You Like it (Carroll Park).  His film and TV credits include guest roles on ABC's For Life, Netflix's The Punisher and recently in City on Fire on Apple+.
 

Annie Fang Off-Broadway: Your Own Personal Exegesis (LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater), SHHHH (Atlantic Theater Company). Select regional: Jennifer Who Is Leaving (Round House Theatre), Thrive, Or What You Will and Twelfth Night (American Shakespeare Center), SHIP (Azuka Theatre), Man of God (InterAct Theatre). More at www.fang-annie.com

Megan Lomax recently made her Broadway debut with the Tony award winning show Skin of Our Teeth at Vivian Beaumont. Other theater credits include: The Great Bluffer (New Perspective Theater) 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, Rosie Revere, Engineer (TheaterWorks National Tour) Kudzu (AL Shakespeare Festival). TV: City on a Hill (Showtime). Education: BA, DeSales University.
 

About the Creative Team

Recent Guggenheim Fellow and one of The New York Times’ Faces to Watch (2015), Christina Masciotti (playwright) has been honored as a finalist for the Princess Grace Award, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Centre Stage New Plays Festival, and the Trustus Playwrights Festival. Her most recent production, Raw Bacon from Poland was a New York Times Critics’ Pick (2017). Her earlier work, Social Security (2015), a five-star-reviewed Time Out New York Critics' Pick, received an honorable mention from The Kilroys, and was named one of the Best Shows of 2015 by Helen Shaw. Her scripts, Adult (2014) and Vision Disturbance (2010), have been selected for preservation in the Permanent Archives of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Vision Disturbance was also cited as one of Time Out New York's Top 10 Shows of 2010, and selected monologues from Vision Disturbance, Adult, and Raw Bacon from Poland have been anthologized by Smith and Kraus' and Applause Theater and Cinema’s Best Contemporary Monologues series (2014, 2016, 2018).

Masciotti’s work has been presented or supported by Waterwell, The New Group, Abrons Arts Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Bushwick Starr, The Public Theater’s UTR Festival; CUNY’s Prelude Festival; Arts Emerson’s TNT Festival (Boston); Duke University’s New Works Lab Series (Durham); Circle X Theatre (Los Angeles); LaStarria 90’s Desorientacion Series (Santiago, Chile); Theater Bonn (Bonn, Germany); the VIE Scene Contemporanea Festival(Modena, Italy); Trienalle Teatro dell’Arte (Milan, Italy); Theater Garonne (Toulouse, France); T2G (Genevilliers, France); Le Maillon (Strasbourg, France); and ZKM (Zagreb, Croatia). She graduated from Brown University (English with Honors in Playwriting) and earned an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University. She is currently a playwright-in-residence at Lincoln Center Theater. For more information, please visit www.christinamasciotti.com

Rory McGregor (director) is a British theatre director currently based in New York City. Most recently, he directed the U.S. premiere of Josh Azouz’s Buggy Baby (APAC). Other recent directing credits include the world premiere of Interior by Nick Payne (59E59 Theaters), Ransom (Arts on Site), Vigil, Conway(Both theaterlab), The Great Divide (Finborough Theatre, UK), Building Pain (First Irish Festival, Origin Theatre), Macbeth (Connelly Theatre). He has served as Associate Director for the world’s leading theatre directors including Sam Mendes, Julie Taymor, Rupert Goold, and Carrie Cracknell. Recent credits include The Lehman Trilogy (Broadway, Ahmason Theatre in LA and London's West End), Ink (Broadway), Sea Wall/A Life (The Public Theater & Broadway) and M. Butterfly (Broadway). He is currently an Artistic Representative on the Young Partner’s Board at The Public Theater. McGregor Rory has taught at Columbia University, Bucks County Playhouse and mentored undergraduate directing students at NYU/Playwright's Horizons Theatre School. He was previously a Directing Fellow at Manhattan Theatre Club, a script reader at Roundabout Theatre Company, the Artistic Associate of Classic Stage Company and an Artistic Apprentice at Roundabout. McGregor holds an undergraduate degree in History from the University of York and graduated from the MFA Directing Program at Columbia University in 2017, under the tutelage of Anne Bogart and Brian Kulick.

Brendan Gonzales Boston (scenic design) is a New York based scenic designer. Select design credits include: Crumbs from the Table of Joy (Off-Broadway), Buggy Baby (Off-Broadway), Hippolytos (Bard College), The Medium/A Hand of Bridge (Hofstra Opera), The Marriage of Figaro (Mannes Opera), A Number (Abrons Arts Center), A Blanket of Dust (The Flea Theater), Chris Gethard: Career Suicide (Off-Broadway), Terror (Miami New Drama). Associate design credits include: The Flying Dutchman (Santa Fe Opera), L’Italiana In Londra (Oper Frankfurt), The Twilight Zone (West End), Der Rosenkavalier(Metropolitan Opera). www.brendangonzalesboston.com

Johanna Pan (costume design) is a costume and sometimes scenic designer for theater, film, dance and opera, a textile and visual artist, host and co-producer of the podcast “Dirty Laundry: Unpacking the Costume Closet.” They first discovered theatrical design while competing in the creative thinking competition Odyssey of the Mind and have never looked back. Johanna’s artistic practice is centered around decolonizing the imagination, breaking down the notions of feminized labor, and anti-racism. They continue to harbor hope for a more sustainable humankind in the face of adversity and dreams of a future filled with equity, inclusion and diversity. BFA:Ithaca College, MFA: NYU/TISCH

Stacey Derosier (lighting design) has designed The Cotillion (The Movement Theatre Company & New Georges), Regretfully, So the Birds Are (Playwrights Horizons), How to Defend Yourself (NYTW), On Set with Theda Bara (Exponential Festival), Cornelia Street (Atlantic Theater Company), Where the Mountain meets the Sea (Manhattan Theatre Club), Weightless (The Women’s Project), This Beautiful Future (Cherry Lane), Fat Ham (Public Theater & National Black Theater), Wedding Band (Theatre for a New Audience), sandblasted (Vineyard Theatre/WP Theater), Head Over Heels (Pasadena Playhouse), The Last of the Love Letters (Atlantic Theater Company), Stew (Page 73), Lewiston/Clarkston (Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater) & is the 2018 Lilly Award Daryl Roth Prize recipient.

Brian Hickey (sound design) is a Brooklyn based sound designer and audio engineer whose work has been heard in various Off-Broadway, regional and university theaters. Select credits: Every Brilliant Thing, Esai’s Table (JAG), Buggy Baby (APAC), Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons), birthday birthday birthday (Lenfest), Superstitions, Is Edward Snowden Single? and The Ding Dongs (New Ohio Theatre), A Nation Groove’s (Mass MoCa), Or, An Astronaut Play (The Tank), Novenas For A Lost Hospital (Rattlestick), Self Portraits (BRIC Arts), Phèdre (Cutting Ball Theater), Bright Half Life (Magic Theatre), with additional Off-Broadway associate and assistant credits. Audiobook: Brutal Imagination (Audible Original). Education: MFA, Yale School of Drama.

About A.R.T./New York Theatres

The A.R.T./New York Theatres are a project of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York) which provide state-of-the-art, accessible venues and top-line technical equipment at subsidized rates, so that the city’s small and emerging theatre companies can continue to experiment, grow, and produce new works. Founded in 1972, A.R.T./New York assists over 500 member theatre companies and independent producers in realizing their rich artistic visions and serving their diverse audiences well. A.R.T./New York accomplishes this through providing progressive services to members – from shared office and rehearsal spaces to technical assistance programs for emerging theatres. Because of this dedication to serving the needs of the nonprofit theatre community, A.R.T./New York has received numerous honors, including an Obie Award, an Innovative Theatre Award, a New York City Mayor’s Award for Arts & Culture, and a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre. For more information, please visit www.art-newyork.org.

 

Photo credit: Maria Baranova