Signature Theatre Presents World Premiere Of Samuel D. Hunter's A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

Signature Theatre presents the world premiere of Samuel D. Hunter's A Case for the Existence of God, April 12-May 15, concluding the organization's 30th Anniversary season with the launch of Hunter's Residency 5 at Signature.

Directed by David Cromer (Tony Award-winner, The Band's Visit) on The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W 42nd St), A Case for the Existence of God unfolds in a cubicle where two seated individuals unexpectedly choose to bring one another into their fragile worlds.

The production's cast includes Kyle Beltran and Will Brill, and the creative team features Arnulfo Maldonado (Scenic Design), Brenda Abbandandolo (Costume Design), Tyler Micoleau (Lighting Design), Christopher Darbassie (Sound Design), John Baker (Dramaturgy), Katie Young (Production Stage Manager), and Caparelliotis Casting (Casting).

Signature Theatre Artistic Director Paige Evans says of the beginning of Hunter's Residency 5, "Helping playwrights generate new plays and build their robust bodies of work is at the core of both Signature's mission and its one-of-a-kind Residency 5. We're thrilled that this humane and intimate play will be the first of three world premieres by the inimitable Sam Hunter that we'll share with our audiences over the next several years."

Hunter says, "My most recent plays prior to this were large-scale, and starting Residency 5 with A Case for the Existence of God feels like a great opportunity to hit reset. It's so exciting to feel like I can enter into this new community with a new audience who may not be familiar with my work, with the approach of, 'let's build these three plays together. Let's start at the beginning and see where this takes us rather than continuing on a treadmill I could otherwise stay on.'"

In Hunter's latest work, Keith, a mortgage broker, and Ryan, a yogurt plant worker seeking to buy a plot of land that belonged to his family many decades ago, realize they share a "specific kind of sadness." At this desk in the middle of America, labyrinthine loan talk opens into a discussion about the relentless chokehold of financial insecurity, and a bond over the precariousness of parenthood. With humor and wrenching honesty, Hunter commingles two lives and deftly bridges disparate experiences of marginality.

With A Case for the Existence of God, Hunter continues his career-long exploration of how setting, with its attendant social order, sculpts us. Hunter, a MacArthur Fellow whose recent work Greater Clements was named "the best new play" of 2019 by The Washington Post, has been described by The New York Times as depicting a "sense of place...richer and more particular than any other American playwright working today" (The New York Times) as he writes characters struggling against the stark social and physical backdrops of his home-state, Idaho. From within this neutral, fluorescent box floating somewhere in Twin Falls, Idaho, he offers a lucid portrait of America's particular alloy of majesty and desolation: a vast country of ever-constricting promise for its working and middle classes.

Hunter was compelled to write the play following his and his husband's grueling experience buying a two-bedroom co-op in New York for them and their daughter. "We're all really nervous to talk about money in this country-and sometimes our plays and films can also be really nervous to talk about money, and it's something we need to get over," he says. "The disparities right now are widening and widening, and the more that we're timid about being frank with one another about how hard it is just to participate in the American economy - especially as someone who might exist at the margins in some way - it just felt like a thing worth talking about in a play."

As Hunter wrote his characters, he thought through the bounds of masculinity and "the dearth of stories of platonic male love that aren't buddy comedies or war stories." Says Hunter, "In the play, there are moments of lashing out on both characters' parts - and I think it's because culturally we don't have a language for platonic male love, especially between a straight man and a gay man. The expectations of gender norms compacts men's-and especially straight men's-emotional and spiritual lives as they grow up. In the play, as their lives cave in and they lose the little control they have, the friendship they cultivate for one another is really through the condition of being bound up in a ball."

David Cromer, whose tightly-contained 2010 staging of A Streetcar Named Desire Samuel D. Hunter refers to as "one of the best, most heartbreakingly gorgeous productions [he's] ever seen," says of this production, "I was completely floored the first time I read the script; it carried me forward with such tension and precision and it has such hard-earned grace."

All performances take place on The Pershing Square Signature Center's (480 W 42nd St) Irene Diamond Stage. For a full performance schedule click here. Press performances are April 27, April 28 and April 29 at 7:30pm and April 30 at 2:00PM, for a Monday, May 2 opening with reviews embargoed until 10pm.

All tickets for the first five weeks of the run are $35, thanks to the Signature Ticket Initiative. In an effort to sustain access to affordable tickets, Signature now offers the choice between the subsidized $35 price, or new option Pay It Forward $52.50-$70 that includes a donation directly to the Signature Ticket Initiative. Ticket prices increase to standard dynamic pricing after the first five weeks, starting at $45 during extensions.

Signature will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for all visitors to The Pershing Square Signature Center. Additionally, masks must always be worn, except for when actively eating or drinking. See all of Signature's COVID-19 safety protocols and the latest updates at signaturetheatre.org/covid-19.Unsubscribe

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