Jackie, out on parole and newly sober, is determined to start anew with his childhood sweetheart Veronica, but her unrelenting coke addiction, his slick-talking AA sponsor, and the discovery of another man’s hat in his living room all threaten to derail Jackie’s tenuous progress. With passion, profanity, and genuine vulnerability, Jackie and Veronica untangle their decades of codependence as they wrestle with the painful limitations of trust, desire, and rehabilitation.
Stephen Adly Guirgis’ rapid-fire black comedy was a smash hit on Broadway, where The New York Times called it a “bruising, tragicomic apache dance of love, betrayal and indecision.”
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.
This production of The Motherfucker with the Hat was generously underwritten by Stanely and Rosemary Marcuss and Laura Rosberg.
Studio Theatre dedicated the 2012-2013 Season to the memory of Jaylee M. Mead, whose generous contribution made its plays possible.
Stephen Adly Guirgis was born and raised on New York City’s Upper West Side by an Egyptian father and Irish-American mother. “We didn’t have money to really go to Broadway,” he recalls, “but every couple years we would go see a play.” In college, Guirgis didn’t find his focus until his sister gave him tickets to a production of Lanford Wilson’s Burn This, starring John Malkovich. “It changed my fucking life,” he explains. “The play just knocked me out. I went back and changed my major to theater.”
Mr. Guirgis initially embarked on an acting career, but found his calling in playwriting. His plays, as fiercely funny as they are tragic, are notable for their colorful characters and portraiture of New York City street life. As Hilton Als of The New Yorker describes them, Guirgis’ plays feature “black, Jewish, and Latino voices that meet and crash and land on the predatory streets that his characters sometimes stalk far into the night, in search of a little coke, perhaps, or some Chicken McNuggets.”
Mr. Guirgis’ plays has been produced on five continents and throughout the United States. They include Our Lady of 121st Street (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle Best Play nominations, 10 Best Plays of 2003), Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train (Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Award, Barrymore Award, Olivier nomination for London’s Best New Play), In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings (2007 LA Drama Critics Circle Awards, Best Production and Best Writing), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (10 Best, Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly) and The Little Flower of East Orange at The Public Theater. All five plays were originally directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman for LAByrinth Theatre Company (where Mr. Guirgis is currently a co-artistic director). The Motherfucker with the Hat opened on Broadway in 2011 in a co-production with The Public Theater; the production received six Tony nominations, including Best Play.
In London, his plays have premiered at The Donmar Warehouse, Almeida Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, and at The Arts in the West End. Mr. Guigis has received a 2006 PEN/Laura Pels Award, a 2006 Whiting Award and a 2004 TCG fellowship. His television writing credits include NYPD Blue, The Sopranos, Big Apple and UC: Undercover.
(As of January 2013)
Serge Seiden directed Studio’s hit production of Bad Jews (which broke Studio box office records) and returned by popular demand in the 2015-2016 season. Bad Jews was nominated for 4 2015 Helen Hayes Awards including Outstanding Director. Seiden also directed all four plays in the Apple Family Cycle: That Hopey Changey Thing and Sweet and Sad (2013) and Sorry and Regular Singing (2015). Seiden is now the Managing Director/Producer of Mosaic Theater Company of DC, the area's only theater devoted to social justice. Seiden directed Everett Quinton's A Tale of Two Cities at Synetic Theater and Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing! at Olney Theatre Center. From 1990 to 2015 Seiden held many positions at Studio Theatre including Production Stage Manager, Literary Manager, and Producing Director. In 2013 he received the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Director/Resident Musical for Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris… at MetroStage. Other Studio Theatre credits include The Motherfucker with the Hat, The Golden Dragon, Superior Donuts, In the Red and Brown Water, Grey Gardens, and My Children! My Africa! He also directed Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins, which received three Helen Hayes Awards and five Helen Hayes Award nominations including Outstanding Director and Outstanding Resident Play; A New Brain, which received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Resident Musical; and Old Wicked Songs, which received seven Helen Hayes nominations, including Outstanding Director. Additional Studio credits include The Long Christmas Ride Home, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, Black Milk, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The York Realist, Two Sisters and a Piano, Blue Heart, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, and A Class Act. For Studio 2ndStage, Mr. Seiden directed Sixty Miles to Silver Lake, All That I Will Ever Be, This Is Our Youth, Ecstasy, Mad Forest, Hot Fudge, Sincerity Forever, and Durang/Durang. His theatre for young audiences productions at Adventure Theatre MTC—A Little House Christmas and Charlotte’s Web—were both nominated for Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Production/Theatre for Young Audiences. He has directed several readings for the annual Zeitgeist Festival at the Goethe-Institut and Moth for the National New Play Network. For 20 years Seiden has been a member of the faculty of the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory, where he trained as an actor and director. Serge is a graduate of Swarthmore College.
(As of December 2015)
Rosal Colón has been seen on Broadway in A Free Man of Color directed by George C. Wolfe and The Motherfucker with the Hat (u/s) directed by Anna D. Shapiro. Her Off Broadway credits include Ninth and Joanie directed by Mark Wing-Davey at LAByrinth Theater Company, Until We Win and Dancing In My Cockroach Killers directed by Rosalba Rolón at Pregones Theater. On screen, her work includes Law and Order: SVU, and the upcoming film The House That Jack Built. Ms. Colón is a member of LAByrinth Theater Company. She is a graduate of LaGuardia High School for The Performing Arts and received her BFA from the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at SUNY Purchase.
(As of January 2013)
Drew Cortese previously appeared in Washington at The Shakespeare Theatre Company in The Merchant of Venice. His New York credits include As You Like It at The Public Theatre, 1001 with P73, and Honor and the River for SPF. Mr. Cortese’s regional credits include the Denver Center Theater Company, ACT, The Guthrie, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and New York Stage and Film. He is on the faculty of the Vassar College Powerhouse Theater Training Program and Avenues: The World School. Mr. Cortese is a graduate of Duke University and NYU’s Graduate Acting Program, and is a proud volunteer for the 52nd Street Project.
(As of January 2013)
Quentin Maré has appeared on Broadway in Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, Coram Boy, and Julius Caesar with Denzel Washington. Mr. Maré’s other New York theatre includes King Lear with Christopher Plummer at Lincoln Center, A Little Night Music with Jeremy Irons at NY City Opera, Happy Now? at Primary Stages, Alice The Magnet at Clubbed Thumb, Burn This at Signature Theatre, and Birdseed Bundles at Dance Theatre Workshop. His regional theatre credits include Hedda Gabler with Martha Plimpton at Long Wharf Theatre, as well as plays at Denver Center, The Old Globe, Portland Stage Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and The National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. He has been seen on television in Conviction, Law & Order, and Johnny Zero, and his film credits include Brief Reunion, Confession, Body Of Lies, Personal Velocity, and Lisa Picard Is Famous. Mr. Maré is a graduate of The Juilliard School.
(As of January 2013)
Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey is a member of Woolly Mammoth’s Company of Artists and received a Helen Hayes Award for her performance in After the Fall at Theater J. Other Washington area credits include Detroit, Gruesome Playground Injuries, and Stunning at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Divorciadas, evangelicas, y vegetarianas and Cita a ciegas at GALA Hispanic Theatre; The Lyons and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents at Round House Theatre; and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot with Rorschach Theatre (Helen Hayes Award nominee). She is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
(As of March 2014)
Liche Ariza has been seen in New York in Sonnets for an Old Century at The Barrow Group; A Soldier’s Death at 13th Street Theatre; Mo(u)rning, Boss, Geneva, Martinez, Dismiss All the Poets, and Jane Ho with Hudson Exploited Theatre Company (HExTC); Tenn99 at LAByrinth Theatre Company; Line at 13th Street Theatre; Corner of a Morning at Peculiar Works Project; Retrospective at Manhattan Theatre Source; and Sunset Boy at Red Room Theatre. Mr. Ariza collaborates with The 52nd Street Project. He is a recipient of the 2005 HOLA Award for Outstanding Performance for his work in Leopoldo Hernandez’s Martinez and the 2008 LA TEA Bilingual Award for his work in AB Lugo’s Geneva. His television work includes Upright Citizens Brigade, Blue Bloods, NYC22, and the web series slapHappy. His film credits include Entomophilia, The Bill, Miguel Angel Jesus, Proclaiming Macbeth, City Hall, Trópico de Sangre (Rains of Injustice) and the upcoming features Kill the Dictator and Biodegradable. Mr. Ariza is the author of the book On the Rollercoaster and the play Bending Jesus. He trained for drama at The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
(As of January 2013)
Debra Booth is Director of Design at Studio Theatre, where she has designed If I Forget, Translations, The Wolves, The Father, The Hard Problem, Moment, Constellations, The Apple Family Cycle, Jumpers for Goalposts, Belleville, Cock, Edgar & Annabel, Bachelorette, Moonlight, Blackbird, My Children! My Africa!, The Pillowman, and many others. Her international work includes premiere opera Marco Polo (Tan Dun/Martha Clarke) in Munich, Hong Kong, and New York. Regionally, Debra’s credits include Small Mouth Sounds at Round House Theatre; Richard III, The Collection, and The Lover at the Shakespeare Theatre Company; Marisol at Hartford Stage and The Public Theatre; Trying, The Illusion, and Happy Days at Portland Stage Company; the New York premiere of Angels in America at The Juilliard School; Broken Glass at Philadelphia Theatre Company (Barrymore Award nomination); and Moon for the Misbegotten at Yale Repertory Theatre. Debra is the recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Design Grant, and a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.
(As of October 2019)
Michael Giannitti was Resident Lighting Designer at Studio Theatre from 2006-2010; since 1991 he has designed 45 productions at Studio, including The Hard Problem, Jumpers For Goalposts, Water by the Spoonful, The New Electric Ballroom, American Buffalo, Reasons to Be Pretty, Rock ‘n’ Roll, The Pillowman, and Seven Guitars (Helen Hayes Award nomination). He designed lighting for the Broadway premiere of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. His Off Broadway credits include Cross That River and Sounding Beckett. He has designed extensively for Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Dorset Theatre Festival, Capital Rep, Trinity Rep, Shakespeare & Company, and the Weston Playhouse. Giannitti has also designed for Arkansas Rep, Barrington Stage, Chautauqua Theatre Company, Virginia Stage, Indiana Rep, Portland Stage, George Street, Yale Repertory Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, and the Spoleto Festival. He has been on the faculty at Bennington College in Vermont since 1992. As a Fulbright Specialist, he taught in Romania and New Zealand, and has been a guest lecturer at the Guangxi Arts Institute in China.
(As of August 2018)
Ivania Stack previously designed several productions at Studio Theatre including I Wanna F***ing Tear You Apart and Water By The Spoonful among others. Ivania designs for many regional and DC area theatres, including Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (Company Member), Seattle Repertory Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Round House Theatre (Resident Artist), Kennedy Center, Center Stage, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Everyman Theatre, The Second City, Signature Theatre, Imagination Stage, Olney Theatre Center and Studio Theatre. She has an MFA in design from the University of Maryland and is an Adjunct Lecturer for Georgetown University.
(As of February 2019)
Eric Shimelonis' Studio Theatre productions include Between Riverside and Crazy,The Year of Magical Thinking, Stoop Stories, In the Red and Brown Water, An Iliad, Time Stands Still, The Motherfucker with the Hat, and Torch Song Trilogy. Other recent productions include The Night Alive at Round House Theatre, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at Folger Theatre, and Marie Antoinette at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company for which he received a 2015 Helen Hayes Award nomination. Mr. Shimelonis is the recipient of a 2014 Helen Hayes Award for outstanding sound design for his work on Never the Sinner at 1st Stage.
(As of January 2016)
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)
Lauren Halvorsen is in her ninth season as Studio’s Associate Literary Director. Her dramaturgy credits here include Doubt, P.Y.G. or the Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle, Admissions, Kings, If I Forget, Vietgone, The Wolves, Skeleton Crew, The Father, Three Sisters, The Hard Problem, Hand to God, Moment, Between Riverside and Crazy, Chimerica, The Wolfe Twins, Belleville, Water by the Spoonful, Tribes, The Real Thing, The Motherfucker with the Hat, The Aliens, Bachelorette, The Big Meal, and Time Stands Still. Previously, Lauren spent three seasons as Literary Manager of The Alley Theatre. She was the Artistic Associate of the WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory for six years and has worked in various artistic capacities for The Kennedy Center, City Theatre Company, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, First Person Arts Festival, and The Wilma Theater. Lauren is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College.
(As of December 2019)
Jack Doulin has been the Casting Director at New York Theatre Workshop since 2000. Productions there include Fetch Clay/Make Man, Peter and the Starcatcher, Tony Kushner’s Homebody /Kabul, Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, A Number (Sam Shepard), and Love and Information. Ivo von Hove’s Hedda Gabler, The Misanthrope, and The Little Foxes. Other New York highlights include Blasted and two notable Uncle Vanyas, (Andre Gregory’s production with Julianne Moore and Wallace Shawn; Annie Baker’s adaptation with Reed Birney, Maria Dizzia, and Michael Shannon directed by Sam Gold). His regional credits include: Long Wharf, Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, ART, Seattle Rep, Chautauqua Theater Company, Pig Iron Theatre, The Philadelphia Theatre Company, The Wilma Theater, and Arena Stage. For Studio Theatre he previously cast The Motherfucker with the Hat, Water by the Spoonful, and Cock. Film work includes New Orleans, Mon Amour directed by Michael Almereyda and Jonathan Demme’s film A Master Builder. Mr. Doulin cast the speaking roles in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Le Fille du Regiement. Mr. Doulin teaches at ESPA and in the drama division at Juilliard.
(As of October 2014)
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)
