Cast, Creative Team & More to Join A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE Classic Perspectives Series at CSC

Classic Stage Company has announced its full programming for Classic Perspectives, a series of post-show conversations inspired by A Man Of No Importance by Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty, and Lynn Ahrens. The Classic Perspectives series at CSC offers audiences the opportunity to explore each production's themes in more depth, tying the classical stories onstage to the real-life experiences from past and present.

For A Man Of No Importance, CSC will lead the following discussions:

October 16

Happy 168th Birthday, Oscar Wilde

Featuring
Andrew Lear (LGBTQIA+ historian and professor) and Moisés Kaufman (Tony-nominated director and playwright)

From?The Importance of Being Earnest?to?The Picture of Dorian Gray,?the artistry of Oscar Wilde has enamored audiences for decades.?Join in a celebration of Wilde's witticisms, charm, and legacy as we explore his major works and learn more about his fascinating life and career.

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October 26

"You Know Where Smut Eventually Leads!"?

Featuring
Jonathan Friedman (Director of Free Expression and Education Programs at PEN America), Kalynn Bayron (Cinderella is Dead) and Jonathan Toth (Frontline Buyer for Barnes & Noble)

Artistic censorship has been a galvanizing issue since the heyday of Oscar Wilde's era in Victorian England through book bans in libraries across America today in
2022. We'll discuss what's changed (and what unfortunately hasn't) since England initially banned?Salome?in
the 1890s.

November 6

CSC Community Discussion

Ever been curious about what that stranger sitting next to you thought of the play you just watched together? Now's your chance to find out! Stay after the show and join in a guided discussion about the themes of?A Man of No Importance?with your fellow audience members.

November 12

Equality in Ireland

Featuring Yvonne Cassidy (acclaimed Irish novelist and teacher), Seán Ó hAodha
(Deputy Consul General of Ireland in New York), and Christine Kinealy (Director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University)

This special Saturday afternoon talk will explore the history of LGBTQIA+ rights in Ireland. Once known as a deeply conservative and Catholic nation, Ireland was the first country to legalize same sex marriage by popular vote in 2015. How has the country evolved from the days of Oscar Wilde to the 1960s setting of the play to present day?

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November 30

Behind The Scenes of?A Man of No Importance

Join in for an exciting conversation with members of the company and creative team of our production of?A Man of No Importance.?Learn about the process behind rehearsing the play, how the work came together, and what it's like to perform the show nightly.

Featuring a book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty, and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, A Man Of No Importance will be the final CSC production directed by
John Doyle following his tenure as Artistic Director. A Man Of No Importance will begin performances on Tuesday, October 11, with opening night set for Sunday, October 30 for a limited run through Sunday, December 4. A Man Of No Importance is produced by special arrangement with Tom Kirdahy and Mara Isaacs.

The cast of A Man Of No Importance includes four-time Emmy winner Jim Parsons (The Boys in the Band) and Tony nominee Mare Winningham (Girl From the North Country) as siblings Alfie and Lily Byrne, respectively, as well as Alma Cuervo (On Your Feet!), Kara Mikula (The Cradle Will Rock at CSC), Tony nominee Mary Beth Peil (Macbeth at CSC), Thom Sesma (Pacific Overtures at CSC), Tony nominee A.J. Shively (Paradise Square), Nathaniel Stampley (Paradise Square), Jessica Tyler Wright (Allegro at CSC), Joel Waggoner (School of Rock) and William Youmans (To Kill A Mockingbird). Understudies include
Justin Scott Brown (Anastasia), Lee Harrington (Assassins at CSC), Benjamin Howes (Mary Poppins), and Beth Kirkpatrick (Les Misérables).

The creative team includes John Doyle (Scenic Design), Ann Hould-Ward (Costume Design), Adam Honoré (Lighting Design), Sun Hee Kil (Sound Design), Craig Burns, The Telsey
Office (Casting), Alexander Wylie (Props Supervisor), Bruce Coughlin (Orchestrator),
Caleb Hoyer (Music Director), Bernita Robinson (Production Stage Manager), and
Hollace Jeffords (Assistant Stage Manager).

Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty, and Terrence McNally's
acclaimed musical A Man Of No Importance tells the story of an amateur theatre group in 1960s Dublin and their leader, bus driver Alfie Byrne (Jim Parsons). Determined to stage a production of Oscar Wilde's Salome despite the objections of local church authorities, Alfie confronts the forces of bigotry and shame over a love "that dare not speak its name." This evocative and award-winning musical illustrates the redemptive power of theater, love, and friendship, all for a man of seemingly no importance.

ABOUT Classic Stage Company

Classic Stage Company (CSC) is committed to reimagining classic stories for contemporary audiences. It is a home for New York's finest established and emerging artists to grapple with great works of the world's repertory that speak directly to the issues of today.

In 1967, director Christopher Martin founded CSC Repertory in a 100-seat theater at Rutgers Presbyterian Church on West 73rd Street. Following short stints in small spaces, CSC grew to the point where it needed a permanent home. In 1973, the theater moved to its present premises on 13th Street, an intimate space that was formerly an East Village carriage house.

In the 55 years since, CSC has become a leading Off-Broadway theater that is a home for new and established artists, as well audiences seeking epic stories intimately told. Productions have been cited by all major Off-Broadway theater awards including the Obie, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, and the Lucille
Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work.

ANDREW LEAR

is a well-known expert on LGBTQ+ history, with a background as a professor of ancient Greek and gender studies at Harvard, Pomona College and NYU. He has numerous publications and won the Harvard Award for Excellence in Teaching five times. In retirement, he founded the first and only LGBTQ+ history and art tour company, Oscar Wilde Tours; he has also been working with actor and author Stephen Fry on developing an LGBTQ+ history TV series.

MOISÉS KAUFMAN

Broadway credits include the revival of Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song, Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo with Robin Williams, 33 Variations starring Jane Fonda (Tony Award nomination for Best Play), and Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife (Obie Award and Tony, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award nominations). Most recently, he directed the Broadway bow of the new musical Paradise Square, for which he directed the world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and in Chicago in the winter of 2021. West End: Gross Indecency, I Am My Own Wife, This Is How It Goes. Off-Broadway / Regional: The Laramie Project (Drama Desk nomination), The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later (Alice Tully Hall), Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Play), Macbeth with Liev Schreiber (Delacorte Theater), among others. Film/TV: The Laramie Project (HBO, 2 Emmy Award nominations for writing and directing; Humanitas Prize). Kaufman is the Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project and a Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting.

Jonathan Friedman, PhD

is the director of free expression and education programs at PEN America. He oversees research, advocacy, and education related to academic freedom, educational gag orders, book bans, and general free expression in schools, colleges, and universities.

KALYNN BAYRON is the New York Times and Indie bestselling author of the YA fantasy novels "Cinderella is Dead” and "This Poison Heart.” Her latest works include the YA fantasy This Wicked Fate and the middle grade paranormal adventure “The Vanquishers.” She is a CILIP Carnegie Medal Nominee, a two-time CYBILS Award nominee, and the recipient of the 2022 Randall Keenan Award for Black LGBTQ fiction. She is a classically trained vocalist and musical theater enthusiast. When she's not writing you can find her watching scary movies and spending time with her family. 

YVONNE CASSIDY

was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland and moved to New York in 2011. She is the author of four novels published by Hachette: The Other Boy, What Might Have Been Me, How Many Letters Are In Goodbye?, and I'm Right Here. In addition to being published widely in Europe, How Many Letters Are In Goodbye? was published in the U.S. by Flux and was selected for the American Library Association "Rainbow Book List" in 2017. Her personal essay "Tuesdays" was published in Grabbed, an anthology on sexual assault, empowerment and healing published in 2020. She has taught creative writing extensively and currently teaches for the Irish Arts Center and the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. She lives on the Upper West Side with her wife Danielle. She is currently working on her fifth novel.

SEÁN Ó HAODHA (He/Him)

Seán took up his posting to Deputy Consul General of Ireland in New York in August 2018. Seán was previously Deputy Director in the Humanitarian Unit of Irish Aid, which administers the Irish Government's humanitarian aid budget. ?Prior to this he covered humanitarian and global health issues at the Irish Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva. Previous assignments within the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs include Addis Ababa and Brussels. Originally from Dublin, Seán lives in Hell's Kitchen with his husband, Sebastiaan, who he married in Dublin City Hall in January 2019.

PROFESSOR CHRISTINE KINEALY

Since completing her PhD at Trinity College in Dublin, Professor Christine Kinealy has worked in educational and research institutes in Ireland, England and, more recently, in the United States. In September 2013, Christine was appointed the founding Director
of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, a position she continues to hold. Christine has curated a number of exhibitions at Quinnipiac University, several of which have travelled to Ireland and Canada. Her current exhibition,
which opened in 2021, is Oscar Wilde and the Importance of Being Irish. She has also written about Oscar and his remarkable family in "Hope and Hunger in a Stricken Land: the Wilde Family and the Great Hunger" in Reading Ireland (2021). In 2018, Christine was named an international ambassador for Belfast. In 2021, she received the prestigious Gold Medal Award from Eire Society of Boston. In 2022, Christine was named the
Irish Echo's (New York) person of the year. She has frequently been included in the Top 100 Educators in Irish America.