Michael Potts, Tom Neli and More to Star in KING LEAR at LaMaMa

The full cast has been revealed for Compagnia de’ Colombari’s official Off-Broadway run of King Lear at La MaMa ETC at the Ellen Stewart Theatre, for 16 performances, January 23-February 8, 2026. 

Utilizing director Karin Coonrod's signature multiplicity, ten renowned actors from stage and screen embody King Lear, shift into other characters, and conduct a radical takeover of the text and space.  

Cast: Michael Potts (The Piano Lesson) as King Lear/Gloucester, Tom Nelis (Ragtime) as King Lear/France, Tony Torn (The Dutchman) as King Lear/Oswald, Abigail Killeen (What the Constitution Means to Me) as King Lear/Goneril, Jo Mei (Salesman之死) as King Lear/Regan, Celeste Sena (Shakespeare the Remixed) as King Lear/Cordelia, Paul Pryce (Marvel’s Jessica Jones) as King Lear/Kent, Elijah Martinez (Network) as King Lear/Edmund, Abigail C. Onwunali (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone) as King Lear/Edgar, and Lukas Papenfusscline as King Lear/Fool with Whitney Andrews and Nomè SiDone as understudies, and Paul Wellington, Sasha Aronson, and Peter Gomez as the Black Angels.

Creative Team: KING LEAR is adapted and directed by Karin Coonrod with long-time Colombari collaborators Grammy Award-winner Frank London (original music), Obie Award-winner Oana Botez (costumes), Krista Smith (lighting), and Ty Hunt Fitzgerald (sound).

Throughout 2026, Karin Coonrod's Compagnia de’ Colombari celebrates 22 years of reconstructing texts, disrupting spaces, and generating spectacle wherever it goes. Of Coonrod’s direction, The New York Times proclaimed, “this experimental director has a knack for transforming high concepts into accessible theater” and calls her “a theater artist of far-reaching inventiveness” who uses a “style that deconstructs to construct.” Other highlights include the U.K. premiere of Flannery O’Connor’s Revelation, and multiple U.S. tour dates for the community galvanizing project, Whitman on Walls!.