Lucille Lortel Theatre Unveils New Programming from The Alcove at the Lortel

The Lucille Lortel Theatre has revealed updates from The Alcove at the Lortel, the Lortel’s new play development program for early and mid-career playwrights. Curated by Caridad Svich, Artistic Director of New Play Development, these programmatic initiatives include a free digital reading of Dan O’Brien’s The Other Jack along with the appointment of Alistair McDowall as the Lortel’s 2025 virtual artist in residence.

A free digital reading of The Other Jack by Lortel-commissioned playwright Dan O’Brien will stream online April 8–22, 2025. Directed by James Dacre, the reading stars Jasmine Blackborow (Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, BBC’s Marie Antoinette) and Nathaniel Parker (BBC’s The Inspector Lynley Mysteries).

The Other Jack is a play about books, mostly . . . and bonfires, clichés, dystopias, failure, happiness, jokes, justice, privilege, publishing, rejection, self-loathing, shoplifting, and umbrellas. An old, established, male English writer and a young, aspiring, female American writer meet in London cafés to talk about books—that’s the plot. There are flirtations, arguments, spilt coffee, deaths both in life and in fiction, generational and gender and cultural conflict, rain and laughter. Adapted from celebrated author Charles Boyle’s The Other Jack and 99 Interruptions.