Taylor Schilling, Gabby Beans & More to Star in THE APIARY at Second Stage Theater

Second Stage Theater has unveiled the complete cast for its upcoming world premiere production of Kate Douglas’ THE APIARY, directed by Kate Whoriskey.

 

The play, which is the centerpiece production of Second Stage’s inaugural NEXT STAGE FESTIVAL, will feature Tony nominee Gabby Beans (The Skin of Our Teeth, I’m Revolting), Obie Award-winner April Matthis (The Piano Lesson, Toni Stone), Lucille Lortel Award nominee Carmen M. Herlihy (Second Stage’s Bachelorette), and Emmy, SAG, and Golden Globe award nominee Taylor Schilling (Orange is the New Black, CSC’s A Month in the Country). The production will begin previews on January 31, 2024, and officially open on February 13 at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater, 305 West 43rd street.

 

22 years in the future, two lab assistants hatch a plan that could change the world. All they need are a few volunteers. A raucous and provocative world premiere by Kate Douglas about sacrifice, ambition, and honeybees, directed by Kate Whoriskey (Clyde's).

THE APIARY and the NEXT STAGE FESTIVAL is made possible in part by the New American Voices Fund, which was established in 2016 by a lead gift fromDavid Stone.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Gabby Beans

is a Tony Award nominated actress. Some of her recent TV credits include Apple's Presumed Innocent, HBO’s Succession, CBS’ Blue Bloods, CBS’s The Good Fight, Netflix’s House of Cards, and Showtime’s Ray Donovan. Some past theater credits include The Skin of Our Teeth at Lincoln Center (Tony Award Nomination for Best Lead Actress), I’m Revolting at the Atlantic Theater Company, Anatomy of a Suicide at the Atlantic Theater Company, and Mary Seacole at LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater.

Carmen M. Herlihy

returns to Second Stage where she appeared in the acclaimed production of Leslye Headland’sBachelorette. Other credits include Kingdom Come (Roundabout), crooked (Women’s Project; Lucille Lortel Nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress), The Piano Teacher (Vineyard Theatre), The Thugs (Soho Rep), columbinus (NYTW, Drama League Nomination for Ensemble), Top Girls (Huntington Theatre), Recent Alien Abductions (Humana Festival). TV includes Servant, Blue Bloods, New Amsterdam, Awkwafina is Nora From Queens, Madam Secretary. Film:  The Trouble with Cali, The Switch, The Rebound, Burn After Reading, Morning Glory, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, My First Kiss and The People Involved.

April Matthis

is an Obie Award-winning actor. Broadway: The Piano Lesson. Selected Off-Broadway: Primary Trust(Roundabout); Help (The Shed); Toni Stone (Roundabout); Fairview, Lear (Soho Rep); The Sound & the Fury (ERlevator Repair Service); Fondly, Collette Richland (NYTW); Measure for Measure (The Public); Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf (Abrons Art Center); GATZ (Perth Festival).TV: The Blacklist, New Amsterdam (NBC); Evil, The Good Fight (Paramount Plus); Life & Beth(Hulu). Film: Black Card (HBO, Showtime), Fugitive Dreams (FantasiaFest, Cinequest), Ramona at Midlife (Woodstock Film Festival).

Taylor Schilling

is an Emmy, Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominated actress, who most recently starred alongside Connie Britton in Apple TV+’s series Dear Edward, based on the novel by Ann Napolitano and executive produced by Jason Katims. Schilling appeared as Erica Gauthier in Hulu’s hit miniseries Pam & Tommy, which was released on February 2, 2022. Previous television credits include Netflix acclaimed series, Orange is the New Black and Hulu’s anthology series Monsterland. Film credits include: Family (premiered at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival), The Public (premiered at the 2018 Toronto Film Festival), The Prodigy, Take Me, Netflix’s The Titan, The Overnight (which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and SXSW Film Festival) and The Lucky One. On stage, Schilling starred in the Classic Stage Company production of A Month in the Country, opposite Peter Dinklage. Schilling graduated from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Arts in Acting and subsequently attended New York University’s Graduate Acting Program.

Kate Douglas

is a writer, composer, performer, and horticulturist. Recent work includes The Apiary (Judith Royer Award); The Ninth Hour at The Met Cloisters (starring opposite her co-writer Shayfer James); Against Women & Music! with Grace McLean (The Civilians); and The Lucky Few (starring opposite her co-writer Todd Almond). She has been awarded residencies at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Swale House on Governors Island, New York Stage & Film, Rhinebeck Musicals, Millay Arts, Goodspeed Musicals, and the New Musicals Lab at Ferguson Center, among others. Alum of the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program, Colt Coeur, The Civilian R&D Group, GTG Speakers Corner, and The Orchard Project Greenhouse. Previous performance credits include Punchdrunk's Sleep No More (where she also held the title of Associate Artist), Fernando Rubio'sEverything by my side, Third Rail's The Grand Paradise, and Kansas City Choir Boy starring Todd Almond and Courtney Love. Upcoming: featured performer in Liz Phair's 30th Anniversary Tour of her seminal album Exile in Guyville. BFA: New York University. Certificate in Sustainable Garden Design, New York Botanical Garden. www.katedouglasprojects.com

Kate Whoriskey

returns to Second Stage Theater, where she most recently directed Lynn Nottage’s Tony-nominated play,Clyde’s. Broadway credits include Sweat at Studio 54 and The Miracle Worker at Circle in the Square. Ms. Whoriskey’s additional Second Stage productions include Cardinal and How I Learned to Drive. Other Off Broadway:  All the Natalie Portmans (MTC), Songs for a New World (Encores Off Center), Ruined (MTC), Her Requiem (Lincoln Center), Aubergine, Fabulation and Inked Baby (Playwrights Horizons), The Piano Teacher (Vineyard), among others. Regional credits include productions at the Guthrie, the Goodman, the Geffen, South Coast Rep, Sundance Theatre Lab, Shakespeare Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, the Huntington, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore Center Stage, Arena among others.  Her opera direction has been seen at the Mannes Opera: Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Chatelet in Paris and Teatro Municipal in Brazil. 

Single tickets are currently on sale and can be purchased at 2ST.com, by calling 212-541-4516, or by visiting the Tony Kiser Theater box office.

 

ABOUT THE NEXT STAGE FESTIVAL

THE NEXT STAGE FESTIVAL formalizes Second Stage Theater’s artistic pipeline, providing support at crucial early moments in a playwright’s development - from writers with partial drafts to early career playwrights ready for their New York debuts.

 

THE NEXT STAGE FESTIVAL will also include The Judith Champion Reading Series, featuring three new plays developed over a week of rehearsal with experienced directors, top-notch casts and targeted design support. Each play will receive a one-night-only presentation at the Tony Kiser Theater. The plays are D.A. Mindell’s ON THE EVOLUTIONARY FUNCTION OF SHAME, Sarah Mantell’s THE GOOD GUYS, and Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin’s TIGER BEAT.  The Judith Champion Reading Series is funded by a grant from the Judith Champion Charitable Fund and Mel Litoff.

 

Additionally, the invaluable work of the Lark Playwrights Workshop will continue under the auspices of Second Stage Theater – five playwrights will be mentored by established theater artists, including David Henry Hwang, Rajiv Joseph, and May Adrales.  The six private sessions that comprise this program occur every 2-3 weeks beginning Wednesday, January 17th and concluding on Tuesday, March 26th.

 

 

ABOUT Second Stage Theater

Under the artistic direction of Carole Rothman, Second Stage Theater operates three New York City venues, exclusively dedicated to producing living American Playwrights.

Among Second Stage’s 180 productions are the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirgis; the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner Next to Normal by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey; the 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes; Mary Page Marlowe by Tracy Letts; The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown; Dogfight by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Peter Duchan; Dear Evan Hansen by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and Steven Levenson; Clyde’s and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage; Trust and Lonely, I’m Not by Paul Weitz; Grand Horizons by Bess Wohl; The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz; Everyday Rapture and Whorl Inside a Loop by Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott; Let Me Down Easy and Notes From the Field by Anna Deavere Smith; Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo; Torch Song by Harvey Fierstein; Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl; The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane; Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin; Jitney by August Wilson; Crowns by Regina Taylor; Saturday Night by Stephen Sondheim; Afterbirth: Kathy & Mo’s Greatest Hits by Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy; This Is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan; Coastal Disturbances by Tina Howe; A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller; The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry; and Tiny Alice and Peter and Jerry by Edward Albee.

The company’s more than 170 citations include the 2022 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for Take Me Out, as well as Best Featured Actor in a Play for Jesse Tyler Ferguson; six 2017 Tony Awards for Dear Evan Hansen (Best Musical; Best Lead Actor in a Musical, Ben Platt; Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Rachel Bay Jones; Best Book of a Musical; Best Original Score; Best Orchestrations); the 2009 Tony Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Musical (Alice Ripley, Next to Normal), Best Score (Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, Next to Normal), and Best Orchestrations (Tom Kitt and Michael Starobin, Next to Normal); the 2007 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (Julie White, The Little Dog Laughed); the 2005 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical (Rachel Sheinkin, …Spelling Bee) and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Dan Fogler, …Spelling Bee); the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director of a Play (Mary Zimmerman for Metamorphoses); the 2002 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work, 29 Obie Awards, 11 Outer Critics Circle Awards, four Clarence Derwent Awards, 20 Drama Desk Awards, 11 Theatre World Awards, one Dorothy Louden Award, 20 Lucille Lortel Awards, the Drama Critics Circle Award and 23 AUDELCO Awards.

In 1999, Second Stage Theater opened The Tony Kiser Theater, its state-of-the-art, 296-seat theater, designed by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. In 2002, Second Stage launched “Second Stage Theater Uptown” to showcase the work of up-and-coming artists at the 99-seat McGinn/Cazale Theater. The Theater supports artists through several programs that include residencies, fellowships and commissions, and engages students and community members through education and outreach programs.

In 2018, Second Stage began producing at its 581 seat Broadway home, The Hayes Theater. Originally named “The Little Theater” and built in 1912, the city landmark has been remodeled by David Rockwell of Rockwell Group.

For more information, please visit www.2ST.com.