For tickets: https://vineyardtheatre.org/showsevents/
Vineyard Theatre (Sarah Stern and Douglas Aibel, Artistic Directors; Suzanne Appel, Managing Director) and Second Stage Theater (Carole Rothman, President & Artistic Director; Khady Kamara, Executive Director) have announced the complete cast.
A co-production between the two theater companies, WHITE GIRL IN DANGER’s full cast features Liz Lark Brown, Kayla Davion, Latoya Edwards, Jennifer Fouché, Morgan Siobhan Green, Molly Hager, Vincent Jamal Hooper, James Jackson Jr., Tarra Conner Jones, Alyse Alan Louis, Lauren Marcus, and Eric William Morris. LaDonna Burns, Melessie Clark, Alexis Cofield, Shane Donovan, Jon-Michael Reese, and Natalie Walker round out the cast as understudies.
WHITE GIRL IN DANGER will be directed by Tony Award nominee Lileana Blain-Cruz (The Skin of Our Teeth) and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly (A Strange Loop, 2ST’s We’re Gonna Die). Meg Zervoulis will serve as Music Director. This limited engagement begins March 14, 2023 and will officially open on April 10, 2023 at Second Stage’s Off-Broadway home, the Tony Kiser Theater (305 West 43rd Street).
What It's About
Tune in to the epic and viciously funny new musical WHITE GIRL IN DANGER from Michael R. Jackson, the Tony® Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of A Strange Loop (2022 Tony Award Winner for Best Musical). It’s a fever dream mashup of classic daytime and primetime soap operas, Lifetime movies, and red-hot melodrama.
The citizens of the soap opera town Allwhite face high-stakes drama and intrigue all the days of their lives. But Keesha Gibbs (Latoya Edwards) and the other Blackgrounds have been relegated to backburner stories of slavery and police violence for all of theirs. Keesha is determined to step out of the Blackground and into the center of Allwhite’s juiciest stories. Can Keesha handle the Allwhite attention—especially from the Allwhite Killer on the loose? What role do the other Blackgrounds play in Keesha’s Allwhite schemes? And just whose story is this anyway? Find out at WHITE GIRL IN DANGER.
WHITE GIRL IN DANGER was originally developed by Vineyard Theatre as part of a multi-year residency for Michael R. Jackson. Tickets are now on sale at www.2ST.com. Subscriptions and memberships to both Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater are available at VineyardTheatre.org and 2ST.com, respectively.
Vineyard Theatre’s 40th Anniversary Season is generously supported by Season Sponsors Jay Alix and Una Jackman (Lakeview Productions and Talu Productions), the Howard Gilman Foundation and Shubert Foundation.
Second Stage Theater’s season is supported by a generous grant from the Howard Gilman Foundation.
ABOUT THE CAST
LIZ LARK BROWN she/her (Diane W/Barbara W/Judith W) is a founding member of The Musical Theatre Factory. She is grateful to have been there when Michael chose actors to play an outline which became today’s White Girl in Danger. Most recently: Drama League Award-winning Chonburi International Hotel and Butterfly Club (Audible). Longtime member of “Joe Iconis & Family;” featured on ALBUM. Solo show Tarnished (MAC, Bistro and Nightlife Awards). @Lalabee213. lizlarkbrown.com
KAYLA DAVION she/her (Florence). Broadway: Tina: The Tina Turner Musical (Tina), Waitress the Musical (Dawn u/s, Ensemble), King Kong (Ann Darrow u/s, Ensemble). TV: “The Good Fight," “Power Book III: Raising Kanan.” Film: Better Nate Than Ever. Kayla is also a Chita Rivera Recipient.
LATOYA EDWARDS (Keesha Gibbs) has appeared Off-Broadway in Superstitions (The Pool Plays); The Rolling Stone (Lincoln Center); School Girls, or, the African Mean Girls Play (MCC & Center Theatre Group); and Miss You Like Hell (The Public Theater). TV/Film: They Saw the Sun First (BAFTA winner), The Many Saints of Newark, “The Get Down,” Beauty, “Law & Order: SVU,” religion (u can lay your hands on me).
JENNIFER FOUCHÉ (Abilene). Native Detroiter turned official New Yorker. Broadway: POTUS Or Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying To Keep Him Alive, Chicago, Chicken and Biscuits, Chicago (National Tour, Japan Tour). Off-Broadway: SISTAS The Musical, (original cast), B Boy Blues. Off West End: Half Me, Half You. TV: “Wu Tang: An American Saga,” “Jessica Jones,” “Quantico,” “Person of Interest,” “SMASH,” “Pinkalicious” & “Peteriffic.” Film: B Boy Blues, Crown Heights, White Pickett Fence. IG: @jkfouche
MORGAN SIOBHAN GREEN she/her (Caroline). Broadway: Be More Chill. National Tours: Eurydice in Hadestown (Original Tour Company). Regional and Off-Broadway: Moby Dick (American Repertory Theatre), Between The Lines (Kansas City Rep), Folk Wandering (ART NY). TV: Zuri on “The Bold Type,” “Because I'm Me” music video (The Avalanches). www.morgansiobhan.com
MOLLY HAGER she/her (Megan White). Original casts of Waitress on Broadway, Heathers: The Musical (New World Stages) and Duncan Sheik’s Whisper House (59E59). Virginia Rider on “Five Days At Memorial” (AppleTV+).
VINCENT JAMAL HOOPER (Tarik Blackwell). Off-Broadway debut! Vincent Jamal Hooper has appeared in multiple companies of Hamilton — including LA, Australia, and Puerto Rico (alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda) — playing the roles of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, George Washington, Lafayette/Jefferson, and King George III. Other favorite roles — The Youth in Passing Strange, Benny in In the Heights, and Stokely Carmichael in The Great Society. Television credits include “Chicago Med” (NBC), “Shots Fired” (FOX), and “American Crime” (ABC). IG: @_vincentjamalhooper.
JAMES JACKSON JR. he/him (Clarence). A Strange Loop (Broadway, Off-Broadway) Obie Award-winner. NYC: Radio City Christmas Spectacular, Henri Gabler (Exigent Theatre). Solo: (Shady Sings the Blues, The Black-Ups) - Joe’s Pub, Club Oberon/A.R.T., Lyric Theatre/LA, Green Room42, Feinstein’s/54 Below, Post Office Cabaret/Provincetown. Nat’l Tours: Whistle Down the Wind. Regional: Dreamgirls (DASH Award), The Wild Party (SpeakEasy Stage). Co-host of Broadway-themed podcast 5 Questions with James and JAM. www.TheJamesJacksonJr.com & @JJacksonJr
TARRA CONNER JONES (Nell Gibbs) is a NYC based singer/actor/writer originally from Jacksonville, Fl. She is proud to be making her off-Broadway Debut! Some past credits include: The Color Purple, Little Shop of Horrors, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Ain’t Misbehavin`, Shrek, Hairspray, Chicago the Musical, Dreamgirls, and From Birmingham To Broadway (written by Tarra).
ALYSE ALAN LOUIS (Maegan Whitehall). Broadway: Amélie, Disaster, Mamma Mia!. Drama Desk Award nominee for Soft Power at The Public Theater (Hillary). Off-Broadway: White Girl in Danger (NYSAF); TEETH (NAMT); A New Brain (Encores Off Center); The Civilians’ Pretty Filthy (Abrons). Regional: Rattlesnake Kate (The Denver Center); Soft Power (CTG and Curran); Amélie (CTG and Berkeley Rep); Fall Springs (Barrington Stage Company); The Rocky Horror Show (Bucks County Playhouse); Original Cast Recordings: Soft Power (Grammy nomination), Amélie ,Pretty Filthy, A New Brain. @alyselouis
LAUREN MARCUS (Meagan Whitehead). Broadway: Be More Chill (Original Cast, Lyceum Theatre). Select credits: Sarah Silverman’s The Bedwetter (The Atlantic), Fiddler On The Roof (Lyric Opera of Chicago), Little Shop of Horrors (Pittsburgh Public), The Humans (St. Louis Rep), Company (Barrington Stage). Film: tick, tick…BOOM! As a writer, Lauren was a 2021 Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist and was chosen by New York Stage and Film to develop her original television pilot with their Filmmakers Workshop. She released her first full-length retro-pop album this winter.
ERIC WILLIAM MORRIS (Matthew S/Scott M/Zack Paul Gosselar) can currently be seen in a great supporting role in the FX limited series “Fleishman Is In Trouble” opposite Jesse Eisenberg. Theatrically, he starred in Broadway's King Kong and in Richard Greenberg's The Perplexed at MTC opposite Margaret Colin. Other TV Credits: “Mindhunter,” “FBI,” “NCIS: New Orleans,” ABC’S “Quantico,” and Amazon's “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
LADONNA BURNS (Understudy) is a New York based singer and actress, from Indianapolis. NY credits: Caroline, or Change (Caroline), Follies (Stella), Unraveled (Anna). National Tours: RENT (Seasons of Love Soloist) and Seussical (Sour Kangaroo). Regional credits include Sister Act (Sister Mary Lazarus), All Shook Up (Sylvia), Smokey Joe's Café (BJ), Ain't Misbehavin (Armelia). World Premiere of Grace at Ford’s Theatre. A proud member of Broadway Inspirational Voices! Thank you to her family for their constant support, especially Chris. Thank you, Brian Keith Graziani at Hell’s Kitchen Agency.
MELESSIE CLARK (Understudy) is thrilled to be making her off-Broadway debut! She was recently seen in the Grio Trio in the world premiere of Goddess at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Risa in Pittsburgh Public’s Two Trains Running. Other credits: PCLO’s The Wizard of Oz, Grease, Rock of Ages and Pittsburgh Public Theater’s Little Shop of Horrors, School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play. TV/film credits: “Archive 81” on Netflix and Anything’s Possible directed by Billy Porter on Amazon Prime. @melessieclark
ALEXIS COFIELD she/her (Understudy) is a Black American artist and scholar. Off-Broadway Debut! Training: NYU Tisch BFA in Drama (Atlantic, Classical Studio, ITW in Amsterdam). Credits include: MotherF**king Girl Scouts (Wild Project), Food for the Gods (La MaMa), “Severance” (Apple TV), Grace (Director - Natalie Jasmine Harris). Workshops: The National Black Theatre, Ars Nova and a new multi genre musical based on Jane Eyre. She is eternally grateful to her friends and family. Very Special Thank You to Bohemia and Stewart. @msalexiscofield
SHANE DONOVAN (Understudy) Tour: South Pacific, Hinton Battle's American Variety Bang, Toddrick Hall’s Cinderella Rock. Regional: Papermill Playhouse (Grease), Fulton Theatre (Kinky Boots, Treasure Island, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Sweeney Todd), The Rev (Working), Arkansas Rep (White Christmas), Walnut Street Theatre (Miss Saigon). TV/Film: “Investigation Discovery,” “Welcome to Harlem.” Thanks to The Mine, Telsey, Creative Team, and Mum. For Hannah and Charlie! @shanemdonovan
JON-MICHAEL REESE he/him (Understudy). Second Stage/Vineyard Debut! Broadway: A Strange Loop. Regional: James Baldwin, Jimmy and Lorraine (Pillsbury), This Bitter Earth (Penumbra), Theo (Two River), Marry Me a Little (New Ohio Theatre), Nikola Tesla Drops The Beat (ATF), Man of la Mancha, To Let Go and Fall (Theatre Latté Da), Lear (Exit Pursued By Bear), My Heart is the Drum (Village Theatre, Gregory Award: Outstanding Actor). Rep: SAKS&. BFA: CMU. @theJMRavatar
NATALIE WALKER (Understudy) is a performer and writer whose work has appeared in New York Magazine and Bookforum. Credits include her self-devised solo show Mad Scenes, Alice by Heart, Dogfight in concert here at Second Stage, “Search Party,” “The Other Two,” “BoJack Horseman.” Despite Google’s insistence, she is neither the Australian Natalie Walker (Beef Palace...?) nor the American musician featured on “Grey's Anatomy,” unless believing that makes you like her more, in which case she is one or both of them.
ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM
MICHAEL R. JACKSON (Playwright, Composer, Lyricist) is one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2022. His Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Circle winning A Strange Loop (which had its 2019 world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in association with Page 73 Productions) received 11 Tony nominations in 2022, winning Best Musical, and was called "a full-on laparoscopy of the heart, soul, and loins" as well as a "gutsy, jubilantly anguished musical with infectious melodies" by Ben Brantley for The New York Times. In The New Yorker, Vinson Cunningham wrote, "To watch this show is to enter, by some urgent, bawdy magic, an ecstatic and infinitely more colorful version of the famous surreal lithograph by M. C. Escher: the hand that lifts from the page, becoming almost real, then draws another hand, which returns the favor." Awards and associations include: a New Professional Theatre Festival Award, a Jonathan Larson Grant, a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, an ASCAP Foundation Harold Adamson Award, a Whiting Award, the Helen Merrill Award
for Playwriting, an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Drama Desk Award, an Obie Award, an Antonyo Award, a Fred Ebb Award, a Windham-Campbell Prize, a Dramatist Guild Fellowship and he is an alum of Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group.
LILEANA BLAIN-CRUZ (Director) is a director from New York City and Miami. Recent projects include: The Skin of Our Teeth (Lincoln Center, Tony nomination); The Listeners (Opera Norway); Dreaming Zenzile (St. Louis Rep, McCarter Theatre, upcoming: NYTW / National Black Theatre); Marys Seacole (LCT3, Obie Award); Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding’s …(Iphigenia) (MASS MoCA, Arts Emerson, The Kennedy Center); Hansel and Gretel (a film for Houston Grand Opera); Afrofemononomy (PSNY); Anatomy of a Suicide (Atlantic Theater Company); Fefu and Her Friends (TFANA); Girls (Yale Rep.); Faust (Opera Omaha); Fabulation, Or the Reeducation of Undine (Signature Theatre); Thunderbodies and Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. (Soho Rep.); The House That Will Not Stand and Red Speedo (New York Theatre Workshop); Water by the Spoonful (Mark Taper Forum/CTG); Pipeline (Lincoln Center); The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (Signature Theatre, Obie Award); Henry IV, Part One and Much Ado About Nothing (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); The Bluest Eye (The Guthrie); War (LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater and Yale Rep.); Salome (JACK); Hollow Roots (the Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater). She is the recipient of the Drama League’s 2022 Founders Award for Excellence in Directing and is currently the resident director of Lincoln Center Theater. Lileana was named a 2021 Doris Duke Artist, a 2020 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist, and a 2018 United States Artists Fellow. She is a graduate of Princeton and received her MFA in directing from the Yale School of Drama.
RAJA FEATHER KELLY (Choreographer) is a choreographer and director, and the Artistic Director of the feath3r theory–a dance-theatre-media company. Kelly has created 16 evening-length premieres with the feath3r theory, most recently WEDNESDAY at New York Live Arts. He choreographed the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical A Strange Loop (Lyceum Theatre, premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizon), and is also a choreographer for Off-Broadway theatre with frequent collaborators like Lileana Blain-Cruz, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sarah Benson, and Michael R. Jackson. Recent works include We're Gonna Die (Second Stage Theater), Macbeth In Stride (A.R.T.), On Sugarland (New York Theater Workshop), SUFFS (The Public Theater), and Lempicka (La Jolla Playhouse). He has received numerous accolades, including three Princess Grace Awards, an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle honor for choreography for the Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-winning musical A Strange Loop, a Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts, a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, a Creative Capital award, a Breakout Award for choreography from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SCDF), the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography, Dance Magazine's Harkness Promise Award, and the SDCF Joe A. Callaway Award finalist for outstanding choreography of Fairview (Soho Rep, Berkeley Rep, TFANA, and winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama).
ABOUT VINEYARD THEATRE
Under the artistic leadership of Douglas Aibel and Sarah Stern, Vineyard Theatre develops and produces new plays and musicals that push the boundaries of what theatre can be and do. For nearly 40 years, The Vineyard has nurtured a community of fearless theatre makers whose work has expanded the form, the field, and the larger culture.
Vineyard Theatre has transferred 11 shows to Broadway, seven directly after their acclaimed Vineyard premieres: Lucas Hnath’s Dana H and Tina Satter’s Is This A Room (both NYT Best Theatre of 2021); Paula Vogel’s Indecent; Nicky Silver’s The Lyons; Kander, Ebb and Thompson’s The Scottsboro Boys; Bell and Bowen’s [title of show]; and Avenue Q by Marx, Lopez and Whitty (Tony Award, Best Musical). In recent years, four additional shows launched at The Vineyard have been revived in their first Broadway productions: Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive; Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar And Grill; Becky Mode’s Fully Committed; and Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Three Tall Women.
From our home in NYC’s Union Square, The Vineyard develops and premieres new plays and musicals which go on to be seen around the country and the world. Recently, Jeremy O. Harris’ play “Daddy” (2019) received its London premiere at the Almeida; Ngozi Anyanwu’s Good Grief (2018) and David Cale’s Harry Clarke (2017) were recorded by Audible; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Gloria (2014), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, transferred to Chicago’s Goodman Theatre; Paula Vogel’s Tony Award-winning Indecent (2016) aired on PBS’s “Great Performances” and was one of the most-produced plays nationwide in 2019; and Emmy winner Colman Domingo's Dot (2016) is being adapted into an AMC series. The Vineyard’s first major digital work, Lessons in Survival, was named one of the top theatrical experiences of 2020 by the New York Times and has been viewed by audiences in more than 40 countries.
Our work and artists have been honored with numerous awards including Pulitzer Prizes and Tony Awards, and the company is proud to be the recipient of special Drama Desk, Obie, and Lucille Lortel Awards for artistic excellence and support of artists.
For more information please visit: www.vineyardtheatre.org
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ABOUT SECOND STAGE THEATER
WHITE GIRL IN DANGER joins Second Stage Theater’s 44th Season, which kicked off this fall with Bess Wohl’s new play, Camp Siegfried, directed by David Cromer. The New York premiere production recently concluded its run at the Tony Kiser Theater. Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Between Riverside and Crazy, directed by Austin Pendleton, is currently in previews at Second Stage’s Broadway home, the Hayes Theater, officially opening on December 19th. The season will also include the Broadway premiere of Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play, directed by Rachel Chavkin, beginning previews in April 2023 at the Hayes Theater.
Under the artistic direction of Carole Rothman, SECOND STAGE THEATER operates three New York City venues, exclusively dedicated to producing living American playwrights.
Second Stage recently completed its 43rd season, which included the Tony Award-winning revival of Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out and the New York premiere production of Lynn Nottage’s Tony-nominated play Clyde’s, as well as the world premieres of Rajiv Joseph’s Letters of Suresh and JC Lee’s To My Girls. The company’s 2021-22 productions received several nominations and awards, including Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Play (Take Me Out) and Best Featured Actor in a Play (Jesse Tyler Ferguson – Take Me Out); the Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Revival of a Play (Take Me Out), Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play (Jesse Tyler Ferguson – Take Me Out) and Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play (Uzo Aduba – Clyde’s); the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Projection Design (Shawn Duan – Letters of Suresh); and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design for a Play (Jennifer Moeller – Clyde’s).
Second Stage’s first season on Broadway at The Hayes Theater included Lobby Hero by Kenneth Lonergan, directed by Trip Cullman (Tony nominee for Best Revival of Play, Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role, Michael Cera and Brian Tyree Henry) and Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee, directed by Anna D. Shapiro.
Follow Second Stage on Twitter: @2STNYC, Instagram: @2stnyc and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/2STNYC/