RUSSIAN TROLL FARM: A WORKPLACE COMEDY Will Play Off-Broadway In January 2024

Sarah Gancher's Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy, which premiered at Geva Theatre this past spring, will play Off-Broadway later this season at the Vineyard Theatre in New York City.

Geva's Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson has been with the show from the beginning; Williamson, SarahGancher, and Multimedia Designer Jared Mezzocchi won an OBIE Award for their work on the 2020 online production. They were joined by Tony Award-winning director Darko Tresnjak for the play's in-person world premiere last season in Rochester, presented in association with Tony Award-winning producer Dori Berinstein.

Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson says, “It's so thrilling to have Russian Troll Farm, which it's been such a joy to work on both in online and in-person productions, continue to grow and reach new audiences!”

“Steve likes Masha; Masha likes Nikolai; and Egor just wants to win a microwave. It's another day at the office for the workers of St. Petersburg's infamous (real-life) Internet Research Agency, whose job is manipulating social media to advance Russia's agenda at home and abroad. Set in the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election,office comedy meets political satire in Sarah Gancher's shape-shifting examination of the power, seduction, anddanger of a good story.”

Previews of Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy are scheduled to begin at the Vineyard January 25, 2024; the play officially opens February 8 and is slated to run through March 3, 2024.

Learn more about our cast and production team:

SARAH GANCHER (Playwright) Award-winning writer Sarah Gancher's plays have been seen on stages worldwide including London's National Theatre, Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre, Budapest's Quarter6Quarter7 Festival, The Public Theatre, New York Theater Workshop, Steppenwolf, Berkeley Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Hartford Stage, RoundHouse (DC), Madison's Forward Theatre, Seattle Rep, and Ars Nova. The online production of her play Russian Troll Farm (dir. Jared Mezzocchi and Elizabeth Williamson) was chosen as one of the Top Ten productions of 2020 by the New York Times; The Guardian named her musical Mission Drift “Top 50 of the 21stCentury (So Far).” Other honors include the Richard Rodgers Award, New York Stage and Film Founders' Award, The Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, the James Stevenson Prize for Comedy, the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Award, a Toulmin Foundation commission, several Lortel, Drama Desk, and Drama League nominations, and the AR Gurney Prize. She frequently collaborates on musicals, including Hundred Days and The Lucky Ones with The Bengsons and Anne Kauffman, and Mission Drift with Heather Christian, Rachel Chavkin, and The TEAM. Her work in the realm of large-scale spectacles includes partnerships with Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil. An alumna of Ars Nova Play Group, WP Lab, P73 and The Playwrights' Realm, she is a current resident at New Dramatists. She also plays jazz violin. MFA: NYU.

Darko Tresnjak (Director) won the Tony, the Drama Desk, and the Outer Critics Circle awards for his directionof A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER. He won an Obie Award for his direction of THE KILLER, starring Michael Shannon. After a two-year run on Broadway, his production of ANASTASIA has been seen in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, Canada, and will be opening in Mexico in the summer of 2023. From 2004 to 2009, Darko was the Artistic Director of The Old Globe Shakespeare Festival. From 2011 to 2019, he was the Artistic Director of Hartford Stage Company. As a director of plays, musicals, and operas, Darko has worked at Joseph Papp Public Theater, Theater for a New Audience, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Royal Shakespeare Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Vineyard Theatre Company, Atlantic Theater Company, Alley Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Huntington Theatre Company, Long Wharf Theatre Company, Goodspeed Musicals, Westport Country Playhouse, Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and Santa Fe Opera. Favorite productions include DER ZWERG with Rodrick Dixon,REAR WINDOW with Kevin Bacon, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE with F. Murray Abraham, THE WINTER'S TALE with Kandis Chappell, and THE GHOSTS OF VERSAILLES with Patti LuPone. Darko is writing a musical comedy, ASK FOR THE MOON, with composer Oran Eldor.

Elizabeth Williamson (Dramaturg/Artistic Director of Geva Theatre) has built a distinguished career as a producer, director, dramaturg, and adaptor. She has worked extensively throughout the U.S. and around the globe,including on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in London's West End before becoming the Artistic Director of GevaTheatre in 2022. For Geva Theatre, she directed and adapted Jane Eyre to launch the 50th Anniversary season.

Other recent projects include dramaturging the Young Vic/West End/Broadway production of Matthew López' The Inheritance (Tony, Olivier, Critics Circle, Evening Standard, GLAAD, and Drama Desk Awards for Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Honoree); dramaturging the Hartford Stage/Broadway productions of A Gentleman's Guide to Loveand Murder (Tony Award for Best Musical) and Anastasia; artistic producing, co-directing and dramaturging the online version of Sarah Gancher's Russian Troll Farm (TheaterWorks Hartford/TheatreSquared/The Civilians, New York Times' “Best Theater of 2020”); directing and adapting Jane Eyre (Hartford Stage); dramaturging Bess Wohl's Make Believe (Outer Critics Circle Honoree, New York Times' “Best Theater of 2019”); and directing Henry V(Hartford Stage). Williamson's extensive organizational leadership experience includes serving as Associate Artistic Director and Literary Manager at Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City from 2008 – 2012 and as AssociateArtistic Director and Director of New Play Development at Hartford Stage from 2012 – 2020. As a freelance artist,she has also worked for About Face Theatre, the Act French Festival, ACT, Berkeley Rep, Cal Shakes, Court Theatre, Figureatret i Nordland in Norway, HERE, the La Jolla Playhouse, Steppenwolf Theatre, the Lincoln CenterTheater Directors Lab, Primary Shages, Theatre de La Jeune Lune, Universal Studios, Westport Country Playhouse, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and London's Young Vic. Education: M.St. Oxford University, B.A Bennington College, trained at the Ecole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and with Complicité. She is the 2007 recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Literary Translation. Member: SDC, LMDA.

Founded in 1972, Geva Theatre Center is a not-for-profit, professional theatre company dedicated to creating andproducing professional theatre productions, programs, and services of a national standard.

The 516-seat Elaine P. Wilson Stage is home to a wide variety of performances, from musicals to American and world classics. The 180-seat Ron & Donna Fielding Stage is home to Geva's series of contemporary drama,comedy, musical theatre, and new play development programs. In addition, the Fielding Stage hosts visiting companies of both local and international renown.

Geva offers a wide variety of educational, engagement, and literary programs, nurturing audiences and artists alike. Geva Theatre Center sits on the ancestral and unceded territory of the O-non-dowa gah, or "the people of the GreatHill.” In English, they are known as the Seneca people, “the keeper of the western door.” They have stewarded this land through generations, and Geva pays respect and gives thanks to their elders, past and present.

Geva is under the leadership of Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson and Executive Director Christopher Mannelli.

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