A blistering adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s 1952 master work. Invisible Man follows an anonymous black man as he journeys from the Deep South to a basement in the borderlands of Harlem, from a betrayal at his ivy-covered Negro college to a nightmare job in a paint factory in New York City to the story’s violent climax at a Harlem race riot. Ellison’s hero moves through an America divided by race and class, and grapples with the paradoxes of identity that have rendered him invisible.
Adapted by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Oren Jacoby, this production of Invisible Man marks the first time that the Ellison Trust has authorized an adaptation of the novel in any medium. The play is directed by award-winning New York City director Christopher McElroen, a co-founder of the Classical Theatre of Harlem. The play premiered at The Court Theatre in Chicago last season, and was the largest-grossing non-musical in its history.
Studio’s Subscription Season is the core of our programming, offering an uncommonly rich repertoire of provocative contemporary writing from around the world and inventive stagings of contemporary classics.
Studio Theatre dedicated the 2012-2013 Season to the memory of Jaylee M. Mead, whose generous contribution made its plays possible.
This production of Invisible Man was underwritten by Share Fund, with additional support from John Horman, Carolyn and Warren Kaplan, and Toni Ritzenberg.
Christopher McElroen is a New-York based producer and director. He co-founded the Classical Theatre of Harlem (named “1 of 8 Theatres in America to Watch” by the Drama League) where between 1999 and 2009 he produced 41 productions that yielded 18 AUDELCO Awards, six Obie Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, and a Drama Desk Award. He has directed over thirty productions including The Cherry Orchard, an original adaptation of Richard Wright’s novel Native Son, Marat/Sade, The Blacks: A Clown Show (four 2003 Obie Awards, one of the ten best Off Broadway productions of 2003 by The New York Times), and the world premiere of 51st (dream) State, the final work of poet, musician, and activist Sekou Sundiata (BAM’s Next Wave Festival, international tour). Alongside visual artist Paul Chan and Creative Time, Mr. McElroen co-produced and directed Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, a community development through the arts initiative that staged Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot outdoors in the Lower Ninth Ward and Gentilly communities of post-Katrina New Orleans (New York Times Top 10 national art events of 2007). The production archives are now part of the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and were exhibited from May 2010 through September 2011. He has directed at Court Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Walker Arts Center, The Museum of Modern Art, MASS MoCA, and The Contemporary Arts Center Boston, among many others. His work has been recognized with the American Theatre Wing Award (Outstanding Artistic Achievement), Drama Desk Award (Artistic Achievement), Edwin Booth Award (Outstanding Contribution to NYC Theatre), Lucille Lortel Award (Outstanding Body of Work), and two Obie Awards (Sustained Achievement and Excellence in Theatre).
(As of September 2012)
Oren Jacoby is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker. Among the documentaries he has written, produced, and directed are The Second Russian Revolution, The Shakespeare Sessions, Topdog Diaries, Constantine’s Sword with James Carroll, and Sister Rose’s Passion, which was nominated for an Academy Award. His comedy short “The Last Girl on Earth” was commissioned by the Tribeca Film Festival. Mr. Jacoby has directed plays by Moliere, Chekhov, Pirandello and new works by Quincy Long, Richard Dresser, and Franz Xavier Kroetz at venues including: Theater for the New City, the Williamstown Theater Festival, WestBeth Theater and Ensemble Studio Theater. Mr. Jacoby’s adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man premiered at Chicago’s Court Theatre. He is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama and lives in New York with his wife and daughter.
(As of September 2012)
Ralph Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar, and writer. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote two collections of essays, Shadow and Act (1964) and Going to the Territory (1986). His awards and distinctions include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, being made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, election to The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the dedication of the Ralph Waldo Ellison Library in his hometown of Oklahoma City, New York City College’s Langston Hughes Medal, the National Medal of Arts, and a special achievement award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. After his death, more manuscripts were discovered in his home, resulting in the publication of Flying Home and Other Stories in 1996. In 1999, five years after his death, Ellison’s second novel, Juneteenth, was published. It was a 368-page condensation of more than 2000 pages written over a period of forty years. A 1,000-page edition of this incomplete novel was published in 2010 under the title Three Days Before the Shooting.
(As of September 2012)
Teagle F. Bougere returns to The Studio Theatre where he began the season as the title character in Invisible Man. His international work includes Macbeth (Macbeth) in Florence, Italy. His Broadway appearances include A Raisin in the Sun and The Tempest. His Off Broadway work includes A Soldier’s Play and Wings at Second Stage Theater; Henry V, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon Of Athens, Macbeth, and Space at the Public Theater/NY Shakespeare Festival; A Fair Country at Lincoln Center Theater; and A Last Dance For Sybill at New Federal Theater. Locally, Mr. Bougere has performed in Othello at The Shakespeare Theatre Company and in more than 30 productions at Arena Stage while a member of the resident acting company from 1990 to 1995. His regional work includes Clybourne Park and Of Mice and Men at Seattle Repertory Theater; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Blue Door at Berkeley Repertory Theatre; The Good Negro at The Goodman Theatre; Gee’s Bend at Hartford Stage; and Blue/Orange at The Old Globe. His film work includes Hill and Gully (2013 release), A Night at the Museum, The Imposters, The Pelican Brief, Two Weeks Notice, and What The Deaf Man Heard. He has been seen on television in A Gifted Man, The Big C, Cosby, Conviction, Third Watch, The Job, Murder in Black and White, and Law & Order.
(As of May 2013)
McKinley Belcher III has appeared in As You Like It at Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, the world premiere adaptation Macbeth 1969 at Long Wharf Theatre, To Kill a Mockingbird at Bay Street Theatre, Medal of Honor Rag at Shadowland Theatre, The Merchant of Venice at Kingsmen Shakespeare Company, Victor Woo at the Village Theatre/NY Fringe Festival, and The Wiz at True Colors Theatre Company, among others. Mr. Belcher’s television credits include Louie on FX, Rizzoli & Isles on TNT, and Law & Order: LA on NBC. His film credits include Ricky and John Sayles’ next independent feature film Go For Sisters (2013 release). Mr. Belcher is a graduate of USC’s Graduate Acting Program, where he won the Ava Greenwald Award.
(As of September 2012)
Brian D. Coats has been seen in New York in On The Levee at Lincoln Center Theater/ LCT3, Mongo and La Ruta at Working Theater, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Public Theater/NY Shakespeare Festival, Puddn’head Wilson for The Acting Company, The Bereaved for Partial Comfort Productions, Woza Albert! at Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education, and several productions with Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood Festival. His regional credits include the Southeast premiere of Clybourne Park at the Caldwell Theatre Company, Fences and A Raisin in the Sun at Geva Theatre Center, and Distant Fires at People’s Light and Theater Company, for which he won a Barrymore Theatre Award. Mr. Coats’s television and film credits include Friendship! from Sony Pictures International, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, JAG, Big Lake (Comedy Central), How to Make it in America, The Sopranos, Blue Bloods and the short film For Flow (HBO Zone). Mr. Coats is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
(As of September 2013)
Johnny Lee Davenport has performed in 115 plays in 15 states and four countries over the course of his stage career. His DC credits include The Oedipus Plays with The Shakespeare Theatre Company, which traveled to the Athens Festival. Recent credits include Master Harold . . . and the boys with Gloucester Stage Company, The Tempest (Prospero) and Othello (title role) with Tennessee Shakespeare Co., Broke-ology with Lyric Stage Company (Elliot Norton Award, BroadwayWorld Boston Award), Neighbors with Company One (BroadwayWorld Boston Award), Vengeance Is the Lord’s with Huntington Theatre Company (IRNE nomination). His film credits include Ted, The Fugitive, and U.S. Marshals. Mr. Davenport has played more than 50 roles in 22 of Shakespeare’s plays and hopes to complete the canon. For his body of work during the 2010-2011 season, he was named Best Actor in Boston Magazine.
(As of September 2013)
De’Lon Grant has been seen around the country in Troilus and Cressida and Cymbeline at Actors’ Shakespeare Project; Big River, Superior Donuts, and 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at The Lyric Stage Company; Passing Strange, Dessa Rose, and The World Goes Round at New Repertory Theatre; Big River and Richard III at The Arkansas Shakespeare Festival; and Rent at The Roxy Regional Theatre, among others. Mr. Grant’s film credits include Surrogates and Silver Circle.
(As of September 2013)
Edward James Hyland appeared with Lorna Luft last winter in White Christmas at the Paper Mill Playhouse. He has been seen on Broadway in Arcadia, The Man Who Had All the Luck, Feste, The Price, and Ah, Wilderness. His Off Broadway credits include Big Doolie and Juno and the Paycock. Locally, Mr. Hyland has appeared in The Heavens Are Hung in Black at Ford’s Theatre, Passion Play and Theophilus North at Arena Stage, and Macbeth at The Shakespeare Theatre Company. His regional work includes Much Ado About Nothing, Mary Stuart, The Tempest, Oedipus the King, and Electra at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre, as well as productions at Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Huntington Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Missouri Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage, and Alabama Shakespeare Festival, among others. He recently appeared with Susan Sarandon in her new series Political Animals. His other film and television work includes The Happening, The Caller, Asylum Seekers, The Next Big Thing, The Cradle Will Rock, Law & Order, Gossip Girl, Guiding Light, and One Life to Live.
(As of September 2013)
Joy Jones returns to Studio Theatre after performances in Cloud 9, Invisible Man (Helen Hayes Award: Outstanding Ensemble), and Belleville. Off Broadway credits include Zaide at Lincoln Center Festival and The Champion at BRIC Media Arts and workshops at The Public, Playwrights Horizons, and New Dramatists. International credits include Tantalus at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Select regional credits include Mary T & Lizzy K at Arena Stage; Ruined and Tantalus at the Denver Center; Fences at Everyman Theatre; Invisible Man at Huntington Theatre; and Pericles and Romeo & Juliet at PlayMakers Repertory. Recently, she was featured in String Music on BBC4 and in the independent film The Confidential Informant. Ms. Jones holds an MFA in acting from UNC-Chapel Hill.
(As of December 2016)
Jeremiah Kissel's credits include The Cherry Orchard, The Sisters Rosensweig, Circle Mirror Transformation at Huntington Theatre Company; Henry V, The Accident, and Three Farces & A Funeral at American Repertory Theater; Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and The Tempest for Commonwealth Shakespeare; The Scene, Time Stands Still, and Noises Off at Lyric Stage Company; Hard Times at New Rep; Little Black Dress Mortal Terror at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. He is also a multi-year veteran of Shear Madness in Boston, appears as guest narrator with The Boston Pops, and can be heard on WGBH-produced installments of NOVA and Frontline. His recent film and television credits include The Town, The Fighter, and ABC’s Body of Proof. He has won several Norton and Irne awards, and is the recipient of The 2003 Eliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence.
(As of September 2013)
Deidra LaWan Starnes has previously appeared at Studio Theatre in Passing Strange, In the Red and Brown Water, Radio Golf, The Old Settler, and Seven Guitars. Other area productions include Blood Wedding at Constellation Theatre; Charlotte’s Web at Adventure Theatre (People’s Choice Award from DC Theatre Scene); 24, 7, 365 at Theatre of the First Amendment; In Darfur at Theater J; Lysistrata in a co-production between Synetic Theatre and Georgetown University; King Lear at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre; Intimate Apparel (Helen Hayes Award), A Raisin in the Sun, The Gingham Dog, I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document…, Two Trains Running, Personal History, and Spunk at African Continuum Theatre; The Violet Hour and Anna Lucasta at Rep Stage; Blues for an Alabama Sky at Everyman Theatre; Hurly Burly at Woolly Mammoth; and A Raisin in the Sun, Doubt, and Stuff Happens at Olney Theatre Center. Regionally, Ms. Starnes has been seen in The Old Settler at Portland Center Stage and for colored girls who have considered suicide… at New Federal Theatre, for which she received an AUDELCO Award. Her television and film credits include Nocturnal Agony, Ladder 49, and America’s Most Wanted. She received her BA in Theatre from the University of Maryland and her MFA in Drama from The University of Connecticut.
(As of September 2013)
Julia Watt returns to the cast of Invisible Man having appeared in the world premiere production at Court Theatre in Chicago. Her regional credits include The Master Builder, Othello, The Wild Duck, and Love’s Labour’s Lost at A Noise Within, Los Angeles; How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Tempest, and 1940’s Radio Hour at PCPA Theaterfest; Man of La Mancha at Sierra Repertory; and A, My Name is Alice at Oregon Cabaret Theatre. As a company member for three seasons at The Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Ms. Watt appeared in Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, Noises Off, Disguises, Beauty and the Beast and The Secret Garden. She is a founding member of The American Vicarious, whose production of Living in Exile performed at The Public Theater’s 2011 Under the Radar Festival. She will appear in the upcoming film, Gertrude Stein’s: Brewsie and Willie. Ms. Watt holds an MFA from The Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
(As of September 2013)
Troy Hourie has designed over 275 productions for various Off Broadway, regional, and opera companies across the United States. His work has been seen in New York at The New Victory, New York Theatre Workshop, Cherry Lane Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Classical Theatre of Harlem (resident designer for 22 productions), Epic Theatre Ensemble, and Juilliard, among others. Regionally, Mr. Hourie has designed at The Guthrie, Bay Street Theatre, Westport Country Playhouse, New York Stage and Film, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Court Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Syracuse Stage, Studio Arena Theatre, Geva Theatre Center, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Pioneer Theatre, and Sarasota Opera. Awards include: 2003 Drama Desk Nomination, 2007 Henry Hewes Nomination, 2005 AUDELCO Award and six nominations, and 2005 Ford Foundation Artist Grant. Mr. Hourie’s design for Waiting for Godot was selected to represent the United States in an exhibition “From the Edge” in the Prague Quadrennial 2011. He is currently completing his second master’s degree as an MA Scenography candidate at Central School of Speech and Drama.
(As of September 2012)
Mary Louise Geiger has designed Chimerica, Time Stands Still and Invisible Man (Helen Hayes Award) for Studio Theatre. Upcoming projects include The Crucible at the Cleveland Play House, The Sound of Music at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle, and the new play Native Gardens at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Her work has been seen on Broadway in The Constant Wife, and most recently in New York with Dael Orlandersmith’s new work Forever at the New York Theatre Workshop. Additional New York credits include shows with Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, Second Stage Theatre, The Vineyard Theatre, The Actors Company Theatre, and Ars Nova. Her design for Mabou Mines’ Dollhouse played St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York and toured around the United States and internationally. Ms. Geiger is Head of Lighting in the Department of Design for Stage and Film at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and trained at the Yale School of Drama.
(As of September 2015)
Kathleen Geldard returns to Studio Theatre after designing Cry It Out, Curve of Departure, Animal, Choir Boy, Jumpers for Goalposts, Tribes, and Invisible Man. Other recent regional credits include Macbeth at Shakespeare Theatre Company; Misery and Shakespeare in Love at Cincinnati Playhouse; and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime; and Humana Festivals 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Other regional credits include Arena Stage, Portland Center Stage, Huntington Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Florida Studio Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, The Kennedy Center, Round House Theatre, Imagination Stage, and Folger Theatre. She is an artistic associate for Signature Theatre.
(As of January 2019)
David Remedios makes his Studio Theatre debut. Recent projects include Coriolanus with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Captors and In a Forest Dark and Deep with Contemporary American Theater Festival, Car Talk: The Musical!!! with Underground Railway Theater, Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh with Portland Stage Company, and The Luck of the Irish (original music and sound) with Huntington Theatre Company. His work in Boston has also been heard at New Repertory Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Boston Lyric Opera, and American Repertory Theatre (50 productions), among others. Other regional credits include Theatre for a New Audience, Baltimore CenterStage, La Jolla Playhouse, and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, among others. Mr. Remedios’ work has been heard internationally in South America, Europe, Asia, and the UK. Awards include Independent Reviewers of New England, Connecticut Critics’ Circle, and Elliot Norton.
(As of September 2012)
Robb Hunter has directed violence for more than 20 Studio productions including Vietgone, The Effect, Hand to God, Bad Jews, Belleville, The Motherfucker with the Hat, Reasons to be Pretty, Invisible Man, Superior Donuts, American Buffalo, Red Speedo (Helen Hayes nomination for choreography) and The Walworth Farce (Helen Hayes nomination). He also directs movement/violence for the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth (where he received a Helen Hayes Award for HIR and nomination for An Octoroon), Signature Theatre, and many others. He is a member of SDC, AEA, SAG/AFTRA, and is a Certified Fight Director for the Society of American Fight Directors. He is on faculty at The Shakespeare Theatre’s Academy for Classical Acting, is the Choreographer in Residence at American University and is a teaching artist for the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory.
(As of February 2019)
Adrien-Alice Hansel is the Literary Director at Studio, where she has dramaturged the world premieres of I Hate it Here, Queen of Basel, The Remains, No Sisters, I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart, Animal, Red Speedo, Dirt, Lungs, and The History of Kisses as well as productions of Cry It Out, Translations, Curve of Departure, The Effect, Wig Out!, Straight White Men, Cloud 9, Hedda Gabler, Constellations, Jumpers for Goalposts, Bad Jews (twice), The Apple Family Plays, Invisible Man, Sucker Punch, The Golden Dragon, and The New Electric Ballroom, among others. Prior to joining Studio, she spent eight seasons at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she headed the literary department and coordinated project scouting, selection, and development for the Humana Festival of New American Plays. She is the co-editor of eight anthologies of plays from Actors Theatre and editor of 10 editions of plays through Studio. Adrien-Alice holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
(As of January 2021)
John Keith Hall's DC credits include many productions at Studio Theatre including Bad Jews, Choir Boy, Water by the Spoonful, Tribes, Torch Song Trilogy, 4000 Miles, Sucker Punch, In The Red And Brown Water, The History Boys, Adding Machine: A Musical, and The Road To Mecca; Hir, The Nether, and An Octoroon at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Soon, SCKBSTD, and West Side Story at Signature Theatre; Sweeney Todd, Mary Poppins, and The Producers at Olney Theatre Center. Regional credits include several seasons as a Resident Stage Manager at The Barter Theatre in Virginia where he supervised over 40 productions, Shadowland Stages in New York, and Virginia Musical Theatre in Virginia Beach. A graduate of Virginia’s Longwood University, Mr. Hall is a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association.
(As of September 2017)
Christopher Mirto most recently served as Assistant Director on The Motherfucker with the Hat, An Iliad, The Aliens, and Invisible Man at The Studio Theatre. His recent directing credits include Semele and L’enfant et les sortileges at Manhattan School of Music and Some Girl(s) by Neil LaBute at Stella Adler Acting Studio, and he served as associate producer on Fucking Hipsters in the New York Musical Theatre Festival. While Co-Artistic Director of Yale Cabaret’s 42nd season, he directed several new musicals, including Three Sisters, or The Dormouse’s Tale, for which he also co-wrote the book; the play received a developmental workshop through Artists’ Bloc this Spring. In New York, he directed the revival of Dionysus in 69, directed in Peculiar Works’ East/West Village Fragments (Obie Award), and performed in two Richard Foreman productions. He holds an MFA from Yale School of Drama.
(As of May 2013)
