Billy Crudup to Reprise His Role in HARRY CLARKE at Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Emmy and Tony Award winner Billy Crudup will reprise his award–winning role in David Cale’s Harry Clarke, performing at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre (2015 Addison St., Berkeley) November 15–December 23, 2023. Press night will be held on Monday, November 20, 2023. Tickets are currently guaranteed for 2023/24 season subscribers. Single tickets for Harry Clarke will go on-sale on September 13, 2023.

Billy Crudup (Coast of Utopia, No Man’s Land, The Morning Show, Almost Famous) returns to Berkeley Rep in a tour-de-force solo performance helmed by Obie Award-winning director Leigh Silverman (Suffs, Violet, Soft Power, In the Wake). This wickedly funny thriller by Obie Award-winning writer David Cale features the exploits of Philip, an awkward Midwestern man leading an outrageous double life as the cocky Londoner Harry Clarke. He moves to New York City and, posing as the seductive Harry, charms his way into a wealthy family. Soon his impetuous and dangerous behavior threatens to unravel more than his persona. Reprising his acclaimed performance, Crudup—who plays 19 different characters—has “the time of his life in a sly role terrifically suited to his gifts,” says The New York Times.

Harry Clarke had its world premiere engagement at Off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theatre in 2017. For his performance, Crudup garnered an Outer Critics Circle Award, Off-Broadway Alliance Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Drama Desk Award and Obie Award, and was nominated for a Drama League Award.

“In addition to his justifiably lauded performances in film and television, in projects from Almost Famous to Spotlight to The Morning Show, Billy Crudup is one of the greatest stage actors of his generation,” said Pfaelzer. “I have been lucky enough to watch his work over the last 30 years, and he just gets better and better. His performance as Harry Clarke is definitive, filled with charm and wit and skill. What Billy, Leigh, and David have made together is a true theatrical delight, and I can’t wait to welcome them back to Berkeley Rep.”

“I'm so happy to return to Berkeley Rep with Harry Clarke,” said Crudup. “I absolutely loved working on No Man's Land in 2013, and I'm so grateful to Johanna Pfaelzer, Leigh Silverman, and David Cale for dreaming up this night of theatre. I hope the audiences will enjoy our evening of film noir theatre!"

Adds Silverman: “Having directed this play twice in New York, I feel such anticipatory excitement for Berkeley Rep audiences to lose their minds for the wildly entertaining Harry Clarke and the deep pleasures of being in the presence of one of our greatest American actors, the amazing Billy Crudup.”

Also reprising their roles from the original, hit Vineyard Theatre production, the creative team for Harry Clarke includes Leigh Silverman (Director), Alexander Dodge (Scenic Design), Kaye Voyce (Costume Design), Alan C. Edwards (Lighting Design), and Bart Fasbender (Sound Design).

Berkeley Rep recognizes the generous support of BART and Peet’s Coffee, Berkeley Rep’s official season sponsors. Berkeley Rep is also delighted to recognize the support at the season sponsor level from Stephen and Susan Chamberlin, Bruce Golden and Michelle Mercer, Frances Hellman and Warren Breslau, Wayne Jordan & Quinn Delaney, Gisele and Kenneth F. Miller, Jack & Betty Schafer, The Strauch Kulhanjian Family, and Gail and Arne Wagner.

ABOUT BERKELEY REP

Berkeley Repertory Theatre has grown from a storefront stage to an international leader in innovative theatre. Known for its ambition, relevance, and excellence, as well as its adventurous audience, the nonprofit has provided a welcoming home for emerging and established artists since 1968. Over 5.5 million people have enjoyed nearly 500 shows at Berkeley Rep, which have gone on to win six Tony Awards, seven Obie Awards, nine Drama Desk Awards, one Grammy Award, one Pulitzer Prize, and many other honors. Berkeley Rep received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 1997. To formalize, enhance, and expand the processes by which Berkeley Rep makes theatre, The Ground Floor: Berkeley Rep’s Center for the Creation and Development of New Work was launched in 2012. The Berkeley Rep School of Theatre engages and educates some 20,000 people a year and helps build the audiences of tomorrow with its nationally recognized teen programs. Berkeley Rep’s bustling facilities — which also include the 400-seat Peet’s Theatre, the 600-seat Roda Theatre, and a spacious campus in West Berkeley — are helping revitalize a renowned city. Learn more at berkeleyrep.org.

ABOUT Billy Crudup

Equally memorable on the stage and screen, Billy Crudup has earned critical accolades for his performances. He most recently starred in and executive produced Apple’s Hello Tomorrow!, as Jack Billings, which centers around a group of traveling salesmen hawking lunar timeshares. Additionally, he currently stars as Corey Ellison in Apple’s Golden-Globe nominated The Morning Show alongside Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carrell, which earned him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, as well as two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. He recently earned a second Emmy nomination for this role.
 
Recently, he starred in the film adaptation of Maria Semple’s novel, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, alongside Kristen Wiig and Cate Blanchett and in Bart Freundlich’s After the Wedding, alongside Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams.
 
Previously, Crudup starred in Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant along with Michael Fassbender and Katherine Waterston and made his television debut in Netflix’s psychological thriller Gypsy opposite Naomi Watts. He appeared in Jackie opposite Natalie Portman; Zack Snyder’s Justice League, alongside Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, and Jason Momoa; 20th Century Women alongside Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, and Greta Gerwig; Spotlight, for which he won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture; the film also won the 2016 Academy Award® for Best Picture; Youth in Oregon, which debuted at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival; and IFC Films’ The Stanford Prison Experiment, which is based on the landmark experiment conducted at Stanford University in the summer of 1971.
 
Crudup made his motion picture debut in Barry Levinson’s Sleepers, opposite Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, and Jason Patric, followed by Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You, and Pat O’Connor’s Inventing the Abbotts. Crudup played the leading role in critically acclaimed Without Limits, the story of legendary long distance runner Steven Prefontaine, for which he won the National Board of Review Award for Breakthrough Performance of the Year.
 
He then starred in the critically acclaimed Jesus’ Son opposite Samantha Morton, Holly Hunter, and Denis Leary, which earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination, and he reunited with Jennifer Connelly in the acclaimed Waking the Dead. Crudup also starred in Cameron Crowe’s Academy Award®-winning Almost Famous along with Frances McDormand and Kate Hudson.
 
Crudup’s other film credits include: 1 Mile to You, based on Jeremy Jackson’s novel Life at These Speed;. Noah Buschel’s Glass Chin; William H. Macy’s directorial debut Rudderless;  Guillaume Canet’s Blood Ties opposite Clive Owen; the box office hit Eat Pray Love starring alongside Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, and James Franco;  Michael Mann’s Public Enemies alongside Johnny Depp and Christian Bale; Zack Synder’s Watchmen opposite Patrick Wilson; Charlotte Gray opposite Cate Blanchett; Tim Burton’s fantasy tale, Big Fish, also starring Ewan McGregor, Helena Bonham Carter, and Albert Finney; Stage Beauty opposite Claire Danes; Trust the Man with Julianne Moore; J.J. Abrams’ Mission Impossible 3 opposite Tom Cruise; and Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd alongside Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. 
 
On stage, Crudup starred in the one-man play Harry Clarke at the Vineyard Theatre, for which he won an Outer Critics Circle Award, Off-Broadway Alliance Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Drama Desk Award, and Obie Award and garnered a nomination for a Drama League Award. Crudup starred in the repertory productions of No Man’s Land and Waiting for Godot on Broadway, opposite Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, and Shuler Hensley. In 2007, Crudup won a “Best Performance by a Featured Actor” Tony for his role in the Broadway production of The Coast of Utopia. He also received Tony nominations for his roles in The Elephant Man, The Pillowman, and Arcadia. 
 
He made his Broadway debut as Septimus Hodge in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, directed by Trevor Nunn, which won him several awards, including the Outer Critics Circle Award for “Outstanding Debut of an Actor” and a Theater World Award. He was also honored with the Clarence Derwent Award from Actor’s Equity for “Outstanding Broadway Debut.”
 
His other stage credits include: William Inge’s Bus Stop and in the Roundabout Theater’s production of Three Sisters, which earned him a Drama Desk nomination. He has appeared in Oedipus with Frances McDormand, starred in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Measure for Measure at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, and starred in the off-Broadway run of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui opposite Al Pacino and Steve Buscemi.
 
Crudup received his Masters of Fine Arts from New York University and also attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He resides in New York City.

ABOUT Leigh Silverman

Leigh Silverman attended Ground Floor's inaugural year with Madeleine George on the play that became Pulitzer finalist, The Curious Case of the Watson Intelligence. She has directed over 60 world premiere new plays and musicals.  She received a Tony nomination for her direction of the musical, Violet and received a 2011 Obie Award and 2019 Obie for Sustained Excellence. She previously directed Chinglish and In The Wake at BRT and is extremely excited about returning to direct Harry Clarke in the upcoming season! Her Broadway credits include: Grand Horizons (2ST; Williamstown Theater Festival); The Lifespan of a Fact (Studio 54); Violet (Roundabout; Tony nomination); Chinglish (Goodman Theatre; Longacre); Well (Public Theater; ACT; Longacre). Recent Off-Broadway: SUFFS (Public Theater); The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (Shed, Taper); Soft Power (Public Theater; Ahmanson Theater/ Curran Theater; Drama Desk nom); Hurricane Diane (New York Theatre Workshop; Two River Theater); Harry Clarke (Vineyard Theatre/Audible, Minetta Lane; Lortel nom). Encores: Violet; The Wild Party; Really Rosie. She has directed streaming concerts for Sutton Foster, FYC shorts for Amazon, and Audible projects including Harry Clarke and the recently released Dykes to Watch Out For. 
 

ABOUT David Cale

David Cale’s recent works include his solo musical memoir, We’re Only Alive for A Short Amount of Time, for which he wrote the book, lyrics, co-composed the music with Matthew Dean Marsh and starred (The Public Theater, NYC, Goodman Theatre, Chicago, Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Lucille Lortel Award nomination, Drama Desk Award nomination, Jeff Award); and the solo plays Harry Clarke, starring Billy Crudup (Audible at Minetta Lane Theatre, Vineyard Theatre, NYC, Lucille Lortel Award), and Sandra starring Marjan Neshat (Vineyard Theatre), both directed by Leigh Silverman. Earlier solo works in the Bay Area for which Cale was both writer and performer include Deep in a Dream of You (Life on the Water), Lillian (Magic Theatre), and Palomino (Aurora Theatre, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award).

Photo credit: Carol Rosegg

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