Photos: Tracy-Ann Oberman and Jennifer Westfeldt in Rehearsals for ASSEMBLED PARTIES

Hampstead Theatre has shared a glimpse into the rehearsal room for the UK premiere of Richard Greenberg’s The Assembled Parties directed by Blanche McIntyre and starring Tracy-Ann Oberman and Jennifer Westfeldt. The production runs on the Main Stage at Hampstead Theatre from 17 October to 22 November.

Former movie star Julie Bascov insists on taking Christmas seriously - despite her family’s reminders that that they are in fact Jewish. Every year, she and her impossibly well-heeled husband Ben host a feast in their palatial apartment on Central Park West. In December 1980, their son and his best friend Jeff come down from Harvard to join the party, and Jeff is dazzled by the Bascov clan. But when he returns for the same occasion twenty years later he finds that much that was sown in 1980 has been reaped in the intervening years…

Richard Greenberg’s virtuosic comedy-drama was such a sensation when it played on Broadway in 2013 that it had to be extended three times. The award-winning playwright died earlier this year leaving a canon of work that includes the Tony Award winning Take Me Out and Pulitzer Prize finalist Three Days of Rain.

Director Blanche McIntyre returns to Hampstead after her productions of Letters from Max and the record breaking The Invention of Love.

Tracy-Ann Oberman returns to Hampstead following sell-out successes Old Money and Godchild. Her recent theatre credits include The Merchant of Venice 1936 (RSC, West End, UK Tour), Mother of Him (Park Theatre) and Present Laughter (Chichester Festival Theatre). Multi award-winning actor, writer and director Jennifer Westfeldt makes her London theatre debut in The Assembled Parties. Her previous credits include Wonderful Town (Broadway) for which she was nominated for a Tony Award, and screen work includes Kissing Jessica Stein, Friends With Kids, Grey's Anatomy and 24.  

The cast also includes Daniel Abelson (In Praise of Love, Orange Tree Theatre; Machinal, Old Vic) Julia Kass (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, West End), David Kennedy (Days of Significance, RSC), Alexander Marks (who is making his professional stage debut) and Sam Marks (The Fever Syndrome, Hampstead Theatre).

The Assembled Parties is designed by James Cotteril, with lighting design by Malcolm Rippeth and sound design by John Leonard.