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WORLD PREMIERE
“The sexiest thing…is Fish’s approach, which both loves and ironizes its source, both chills and reheats old material. I left thinking of all the many pieces I want Fish to do in this noir literalist style—and wondering impatiently how quickly he can start.” – Time Out New York
ABOUT THE WORK
Internationally acclaimed director Daniel Fish (Oklahoma!) turns his eye to one of the most combustible conversations of the AIDS crisis: the 1993 televised clash between Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading AIDS researcher, and playwright-activist Larry Kramer. A confrontation charged with rage, urgency, and unexpected intimacy, it crystallized a turning point in the fight for care, treatment, and recognition. In this world premiere, Fish dramatizes their exchange as both history and provocation, a searing reminder of how art, activism, and public health collide on the most human terms. With Tony Award-winner Will Brill (Stereophonic) and Thomas Jay Ryan (Henry Fool).
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Daniel Fish is a New York-based artist who makes work across the boundaries of theater, film and opera. He has created work on Broadway, in The West End and at venues throughout the US and Europe. His acclaimed 2019 production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s OKLAHOMA! transferred to Broadway from St. Ann’s Warehouse and won the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival. The production then transferred to London’s West End where it won the Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival. Other recent work includes Anne Carson’s ELEKTRA (West End), ANONYMOUS CATHEDRAL (a silent film), Ted Hearne’s Over and Over (Komiche Oper Berlin/ Schall&Rausch) WHITE NOISE, inspired by the novel by Don DeLillo (Ruhrfestspiele Recklingshausen, Theater Freiburg, and Skirball Center NYU), Michael Gordon’s opera, ACQUANETTA (Prototype Festival/Bard Summerscape), Don’t Look Back (The Chocolate Factory), Who Left This Fork Here (Baryshnikov Arts Center, Onassis Center), Ted Hearne’s The Source (BAM NEXT WAVE, L.A Opera, San Francisco Opera), and ETERNAL, a video installation. His work has been seen at The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Le Maillon, Williamstown Theater Festival, The Young Vic, The Walker Arts Center, PuSH, Teatro Nacional D. Maria, Lisbon/Estoril Film Festival, Vooruit, Festival TransAmériques, Noorderzon Festival, The Chocolate Factory, The Public Theater’s Under The Radar, Opera Philadelphia/Curtis Opera Theater, American Repertory Theater, Richard B. Fisher Center at Bard College, Yale Repertory Theater, McCarter Theater, Signature Theater, The Shakespeare Theater Company, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Staatstheater Braunschweig, and The Royal Shakespeare Company. Residencies and commissions include The MacDowell Colony, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Mass MOCA, The Chocolate Factory, LMCC/ Governor’s Island.
He is graduate of Northwestern University’s Department of Performance Studies and has taught at The Juilliard School, Bard College, The Yale School of Drama and The Department of Design for Stage and Film at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
He is the recipient of the 2017 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for the Theater as well as an Obie Award and a Tony nomination for outstanding direction of a musical.
Will Brill has worked in NYC on Broadway in Act One (Lincoln Center) and You Can’t Take It With You, Oklahoma!, and Stereophonic (Tony award!); Off-Broadway in Our Town and Tribes (OCC nom) (Barrow Street), Illyria (the Public), Stereophonic (Drama Desk Ensemble Award) (Playwrights Horizons), A Case for the Existence of God (Drama Desk nom) (Signature), Meet The Cartozians (2nd Stage), Uncle Vanya (Oh Henry); Off-Off-Broadway at the Access (Up Late with Skip Carter), Irondale (Fresh Ground Pepper), a couple lofts (EPBB, Oh Henry), some bars (Ephemera), on zoom (Zero Cost House); and in other media, like television (Fellow Travelers, etc), film (Caught Stealing, Test Pattern, Not Fade Away, etc), Netflix (The OA, the Beast in Me, Monster), Amazon (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), a web series (#Z), and stuff shot on iPhones (King Kelly). This is his second time working with Daniel Fish and his second time working with Thomas J. Ryan and he is very excited on both counts. Coming up he’ll appear in The Whisper Man for Netflix, Being Heumann for Apple, and The Musical, a very fun indie movie with Gillian Jacobs and Rob Lowe. He’s repped by Authentic Talent and Literary Management, and WME. He attended CMU.
Thomas Jay Ryan is an accomplished, prolific New York theater actor, Thomas was last seen in Sam Gold’s Tony-winning revival of Enemy of the People. His other Broadway credits include West Side Story, The Nap, The Crucible, and Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play. His film credits include Scenes from an Empty Church, Cryptozoo, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and the title role in the Cannes Festival prize-winning Henry Fool, among many others. Thomas has won a Callaway Award and two Drama Desk Awards, as well as Drama League and Gemini Award nominations.
CREATIVE CREDITS
Conceived and Directed by Daniel Fish
featuring Will Brill and Thomas J. Ryan
With Greig Sargeant
In association with Collapsable Giraffe
Scenic design: Jim Findlay, Josh Higgason, Amy Rubin
Lighting design: Scott Zielinski
Sound design: Tei Blow
Costume design: Terese Wadden
Movement Director: Beth Gill
Assistant Director: Michael Rogerson
Produced by Shannon Sindelar
With permission from C-SPAN and with support from OHenry Productions
SUPPORT
NYU Skirball’s programs are made possible in part with support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the Howard Gilman Foundation; Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; Culture Ireland; The Shubert Foundation; Collins Building Services; General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA; Goethe Institut New York with support from the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany; Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation; New England Foundation for the Arts; Harkness Foundation for Dance; and Marta Heflin Foundation; as well as our valued donors through memberships, commissioning, and Allies for Arts Access Fund support.