Cast and Creative Team Set for THE AGE OF INNOCENCE at Arena Stage

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater has revealed the cast and creative team for The Age of Innocence. A searing critique of high society's suffocating norms, Karen Zacarías (Native Gardens, Destiny of Desire) brings Edith Wharton's timeless masterpiece to the stage. Coming to the theater’s iconic in-the-round Fichandler Stage, The Age of Innocence will run February 28 – March 30, 2025, directed by Arena Stage Artistic Director Hana S. Sharif.
 
“I am delighted to bring to life Edith Wharton's bitingly funny and haunting love story to my home theater of Arena Stage,” said Zacarías. “Now is the perfect time to engage in a tale of romantic ideals overrun by the machinations of society, wealth, and power. Hana Sharif's gorgeously lavish production cuts to the quick of Wharton's wit. The Gilded Age was then...and is now.”
 
Against the lush backdrop of 1870s New York, where hypocrisy thrives and forbidden romances simmer, The Age of Innocence follows Newland Archer as he grapples with the rigid constraints of privilege and Countess Ellen Olenska as she battles the suffocating cage of entitlement, desire, and tradition in pursuit of her own destiny. Surrounded by an ocean of societal conformity where love clashes with duty and innocence is sacrificed, this entrancing adaptation unveils the tear between tradition and the allure of hidden passions, presenting a riveting tale of prohibited desires.
 
“I am ecstatic to be directing Karen Zacarias’ glittering adaptation of The Age of Innocence as my debut on one of the most iconic in-the-round stages in the American theater,” said Sharif. “Karen has tackled Edith Wharton’s magnus opus with immense grace, poetically capturing the passion and intrigue of relationships simmering under the surface in a time of strict societal rules.”
 
Reprising their roles from the 2024 world-premiere production at San Diego’s The Old Globe are cast members Shereen Ahmed (Broadway’s My Fair Lady) as Ellen and Delphi Borich (Broadway’s Into the Woods) as May.
 
Returning to Arena Stage are Regina Aquino (Holiday), Lise Bruneau (Watch on the Rhine), Felicia Curry (Death on the Nile), Natalya Lynette Rathnam (POTUS), Jacob Yeh (The 51st State docudrama), Kim Bey (The Little Foxes), Peter Boyer (Holiday), and Lilli Hokama (Death on the Nile).
 
Making their Arena Stage debuts in The Age of Innocence are Anna Theoni DiGiovanni (STC’s Leopoldstadt), Paolo Montalban (Walt Disney Television’s Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella), Anthony Newfield (Broadway’s 1984), Noah Mutterperl (Kennedy Center’s National Tour of Look Both Ways), and Tony nominee A.J. Shively (Broadway’s Paradise Square) as Newland Archer.
 
Sharif will lead a brilliant team of creatives that include set designer Timothy Mackabee (Broadway’s Frozen), Costume Designer Fabio Toblini (Broadway’s Romeo and Juliet), lighting designer Xavier Pierce (Broadway’s Clybourne Park), original music and sound designers Charles Coes (Broadway’s To Kill a Mockingbird) & Nathan A. Roberts (Off-Broadway’s Golden Shield), wig, hair, and makeup designer Tommy Kurzman (Broadway’s Uncle Vanya), and dialect and vocal coach Lisa Nathans (Arena’s Death on the Nile). Dramaturgy is by Otis Ramsey-Zöe, New York casting is by Stephanie Klapper Casting / Stephanie Klapper, CSA, and DC casting is by Raiyon Hunter. The stage manager is Christi B. Spann and assistant stage manager is Stefania Giron Zuluaga.