THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG Comes to Northern Stage Next Month

Northern Stage closes its 2023/24 main stage season with The Play That Goes Wrong this March and April.

The play is an Laurence Olivier Best New Comedy Award winner, co-written by Mischief Theatre company members Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields and directed by Peter Hackett.

Performances run from Wednesday, March 13 to Sunday, April 14, 2024 in the Byrne Theater at the Barrette Center for the Arts.

In this hilarious West End and Broadway smash hit, an amateur theater company’s murder mystery play quickly unravels from bad to utterly disastrous. With an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines), chaos ensues and everything goes hopelessly wrong. Directed by long-time Northern Stage collaborator and Dartmouth College Theater professor Peter Hackett, The Play That Goes Wrong is a treat for all comedy lovers.

"One of my favorite comic actors and filmmakers, Charlie Chaplin, said, ‘A day without laughter is a day wasted,’” says Hackett. “Working on The Play That Goes Wrong is giving me enough laughs to last a lifetime.”

"Northern Stage has a wonderful history of producing top notch comedies,” says Carol Dunne, Northern Stage’s Producing Artistic Director. “When I saw The Play That Goes Wrong a few years ago, I knew that we had the actors and creative team to bring it to ridiculous, wonderful life.  We can’t wait to share it with our audiences.”

The Play That Goes Wrong received its world premiere in London at the Old Red Lion Theatre in 2012 and opened in the West End at the Duchess Theatre in 2014, where it is still currently running in its 10th year. After winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2015, the play traveled across the Atlantic and opened on Broadway in 2017 at the Lyceum Theatre, bringing home the Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Play in the same year. “A gut-busting hit,” according to The New York Times, The Play That Goes Wrong has since become an international phenomenon, having been translated and licensed for production in over 30 countries and wreaking havoc across the globe. 

This cast of eight features Grayson DeJesus (The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) at Northern Stage, NBC’s Law & Order) as Christopher Bean; Cordell Cole (Side by Side by Sondheim at Northern Stage, Twelfth Night at Oregon Shakespeare Festival) as Robert Grove; David Mason (Oslo and Million-Dollar Quartet at Northern Stage) as Dennis Tyde; Andrew Gombas (Sense and Sensibility at Northern Stage) as Max Bennett; Caitlin Duffy (Northern Stage Debut, The Sign In Sidney Brustein's Window at Intiman Theatre) as Annie Twilloil; Izzie Steele (Constellations and Sense and Sensibility at Northern Stage) as Sandra Wilkinson; Jack Russell (Spring Awakening and Spamalot at Northern Stage) as Jonathan Harris; and Dominic Giovanni (Northern Stage Debut) as Trevor Watson.

Joining Hackett on the creative team are David Arsenault (Scenic Designer), Alicia Austin (Costume Designer), Casey Kaleba (Fight Director), Mirah Kozodoy (Sound Designer), Thom Miller (Dialect Coach), Kat Morill (Lighting Designer), Colt Luedtke (Production Stage Manager), and Julia Egizio (Production Associate). 

Northern Stage’s 2023/24 Season is followed by the New Works Now Festival (April 25 - May 5), featuring the winner (Instagirl by Jessica Moss) and finalist (angel’s share by Dominic Finocchiaro) of the 2023 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Playwriting, together with Literature to Life’s stage presentation of The Great Gatsby, newly adapted and developed by Kelvin Grullon. More information on Northern Stage's New Works Now Festival can be found at https://northernstage.org/new-works-now/.

The Northern Stage 2023-24 season is sponsored by Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, its season underwriter since 2018. The Play That Goes Wrong is sponsored in part by Casella Waste Systems, Ledyard National Bank, and River Valley Club. Opening Nights are sponsored by A.B. Gile, a division of The Rowley Agency; Downs, Rachlin, Martin; and Four Seasons Sotheby's International Realty. Access for All performances are sponsored by Bar Harbor Bank & Trust. Northern Stage is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Vermont Community Foundation.

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