Deirdre O'Connell & More to Star in Sarah Ruhl's BECKY NURSE OF SALEM at Lincoln Center Theater This Fall

Lincoln Center Theater has announced its upcoming production of Becky Nurse of Salem, a new play by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Rebecca Taichman. Becky Nurse of Salem will begin previews Thursday, October 27 and open on Thursday, November 21 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (150 West 65 Street).

Becky Nurse of Salem will feature Tina Benko, Candy Buckley, Alicia Crowder, Deirdre O'Connell, Thomas Jay Ryan, Julian Sanchez, and Bernard White.

Becky Nurse of Salem, a dark contemporary comedy by Sarah Ruhl, follows Becky (Deirdre O'Connell), a modern-day descendent of accused witch Rebecca Nurse in Salem. Becky, who works at the local witch museum, seems to be dogged by bad luck. Is it a curse from her past? Or her inability to navigate her present? Looking for love and redemption through spells, pills, and a bartender named Bob (Bernard White), Becky is a contemporary pilgrim for the Lock Her Up era. A play about the legacy of misogyny, witchcraft, and even Arthur Miller, Becky Nurse is a truth-teller for our times.

Becky Nurse of Salem will have sets by Riccardo Hernandez, costumes by Emily Rebholz, lighting by Barbara Samuels, sound by Palmer Hefferan, and projections by Tal Yarden. Caroline Englander is the Stage Manager.

Sarah Ruhl

Sarah Ruhl (Playwright). LCT: How to Transcend a Happy Marriage; The Oldest Boy; In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Pulitzer Prize finalist); The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize). Other plays include For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday; Stage Kiss; Dear Elizabeth; Passion Play, a cycle (PEN American Award, The Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center); Dead Man's Cell Phone (Helen Hayes Award); Melancholy Play; Eurydice; Orlando; and Late: a cowboy song. Her plays have been produced around the country and internationally, translated into fourteen languages. Her books include Smile, a memoir; 100 Essays I Don't have Time to Write; and Love Poems in Quarantine. Opera: Libretto for Eurydice (Metropolitan Opera, composer Matthew Aucoin). Awards: MacArthur "Genius" Grant, Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award, Whiting Writers' Award, MacArthur Fellowship, Lily Award, PEN Center Award for a mid-career playwright. Education: M.F.A., Brown University (with Paula Vogel). Teaches at the Yale School of Drama.

Rebecca Taichman

Rebecca Taichman (Director). LCT: ​How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, The Oldest Boy, The Luck of the Irish (LCT3). In 2017, Rebecca won a Tony Award for Best Director of a Play, an Obie Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for her direction of Indecent written by Paula Vogel. Indecent opened at The Yale Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse and The Vineyard Theatre before opening on Broadway. Rebecca has directed on and off Broadway, new plays and old, musicals and opera. She has worked with writers Jocelyn Bioh, Sarah Ruhl, Danai Guirira, Brian Selznick, Kirsten Greenidge, Nico Muhly, David Adjmi, Lynn Nottage and Nick Payne, among others. She has worked at theaters such as Roundabout, Lincoln Center Theater, The Public, Playwrights Horizons, MCC, Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Old Globe, ART, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, McCarter, Woolly Mammoth, among others. Rebecca is a resident director at Roundabout, a Henry Crown Fellow at The Aspen Institute, and a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. www.rebeccataichman.com

This season, in addition to Becky Nurse of Salem, Lincoln Center Theater is also producing The Nosebleed, written and directed by Aya Ogawa, currently in previews at the Claire Tow Theater, opening Monday, August 1 and running through Sunday, August 28; Lerner & Loewe's Camelot, featuring a book by Academy and Emmy Award winning writer Aaron Sorkin, based on the original book by Alan Jay Lerner, and direction by Bartlett Sher, beginning performances on Thursday, March 9, 2023 and opening on Thursday, April 13, 2023 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater; as well as an additional season of productions to be announced.

Tina Benko

Tina Benko. LCT: Nantucket Sleigh Ride. Broadway includes Irena's Vow, Top Girls, The Real Thing, Not About Nightingales, and Hedda Gabler. International tour: Desdemona/Othello in the concert-play Desdemona (written by Toni Morrison, directed by Peter Sellars). Other theater includes Tales from Red Vienna (MTC), The Little Foxes (NYTW, directed by Ivo van Hove), Midsummer Night's Dream (TFANA), Wally Shawn's Marie and Bruce (New Group), Charles Mee's Wintertime (Second Stage) and LifeGame: the all-improvised show. Film and TV: The Avengers, Ugly Betty, and three seasons on Showtime's Brotherhood. Training: Carnegie Mellon University.

Candy Buckley

Candy Buckley. LCT: Ring Round the Moon, Bernarda Alba. Broadway includes Cabaret, After the Fall, Scandalous and Thoroughly Modern Millie. Additional theater includes The Patron Saint of Sea Monsters (Playwrights Horizons), The Petrified Prince (Drama Desk nomination, The Public), Barefoot in the Park (Bucks County Playhouse), Hedda Gabler (ART), All the King's Men (music by Randy Newman, Dallas Theater Center), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (The Old Globe), Kleptocracy (Arena Stage), Kill Local (Critics' nom, La Jolla), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (with Harris Yulin, Chautauqua Theater Company) and A Delicate Balance (Critics' nom, The Guthrie). Recent Film and TV includes The Kill Room (starring Uma Thurman), Rare Objects (starring Katie Holmes), Womb (short film) and "WeCrashed" (Apple+ series with Anne Hathaway and Jared Leto). Princess Grace Award winner for excellence in theater. Education: MFA in directing.

ALICIA CROWDER

ALICIA CROWDER. LCT debut. Film/TV includes the independent film Bleecker (directed by Edith Hagigi), "The Society" (Netflix) and "Instinct" (CBS). Education: Juilliard; Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.

DEIRDRE O'CONNELL

DEIRDRE O'CONNELL. LCT: The Front Page. Broadway includes Dana H (Tony, Obie, Outer Critics Circle, Los Angeles Critics Circle awards; New York Drama Critics Special Citation; also Vineyard, Goodman, Kirk Douglas) and Magic/Bird. Additional favorite theater includes Corsicana (Playwrights Horizons); Before The Meeting (W.T.F.); Fulfillment Center (Drama Desk and Drama League nominations), By the Water (Lortel nom) at MTC; Terminus (NYTW); The Way West and Thinner Than Water (LAByrinth); Judy (Page 73); Thunderbodies (Soho Rep); Scarcity (Rattlestick); The Vandal (The Flea); Circle Mirror Transformation (Obie, Drama Desk awards); In the Wake (Los Angeles Ovation Award; Lortel nom); In The Blood (The Public); Antigone (Big Dance Theater); and Mud (Signature). Recent films include I Am a Seagull, The Boy Downstairs, Gabriel, Synecdoche, NY and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. TV includes "Outer Range," "The Path," "The Affair" and "Nurse Jackie." Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Performance, Lilly Award for Distinguished Service to Playwrights.

Thomas Jay Ryan

Thomas Jay Ryan. LCT: In the Next Room, or the vibrator play. Broadway: West Side Story, The Nap, The Crucible. Off-Broadway includes Eureka Day, Dance Nation, The Amateurs, 10 Out of 12, The Lady from Dubuque, Venus, The Temperamentals, The Misanthrope and The Little Foxes. Regional: Berkeley Rep, Guthrie Theater, Yale Rep, Ahmanson, Kennedy Center, La Jolla Playhouse, among many others. Films: Henry Fool (title role), Scenes From an Empty Church, Cryptozoo, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Legend of Bagger Vance, Burn Country, Teknolust, Strange Culture. Awards: Callaway Award, two Drama Desk awards; Drama League, Gemini award nominations.

JULIAN SANCHEZ

JULIAN SANCHEZ. LCT debut. Previous credits include Girls by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Yale Rep); YELL: a "documentary" of my time here by Jeremy O. Harris (Yale Carlotta Festival); Middletown, A Chorus Line (Heritage Theatre Festival); and Hand to God (Live Arts). Education: Graduated from the Yale School of Drama, May 2022.

Bernard White

Bernard White. LCT: Blood and Gifts, The Who & The What. New York theater includes The Death of Garcia Lorca, The Tempest (The Public); Sakharam Binder (The Play Company); Landscape of the Body (Signature); Naseem (New York City Center). Regional includes Lucy and the Conquest, Blithe Spirit, The Clean House, Ghosts (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Disgraced (Goodman, Berkeley Rep, Seattle Rep); Wings of Desire (ART, Toneelgroep Amsterdam); Dogeaters, The Seven (La Jolla). Film and TV includes "Beef," "Little America," "Roar," "Big Sky," "Claws," "Kidding," "Silicon Valley," "The Blacklist," "Murder She Wrote," "Knight Rider," The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions, Captain America: Winter Soldier, It's Kind of a Funny Story, American Dreamz, Wim Wender's Land of Plenty.