Ellen Burstyn, Aasif Mandvi, Denis O'Hare and More to Tackle Trump Hearings in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN?

New York's Public Theater and London's National Theatre announced initial casting today for the special one-night-only public staged reading of ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN? Scenes from the Senate Confirmation Hearings of President Trump's Cabinet on Thursday, May 11 at 8:00 p.m. at Town Hall (123 West 43rd Street).

Edited and directed by Nicolas Kent, this timely event will shed a spotlight on the gripping verbatim Senate sessions that gave startling insight and direction into the future of the Trump Presidency.

The National Theatre presented a public staged reading of ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN? on Monday, April 24 at the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End.

"Sometimes the most powerful theater is reality, distilled," said Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. "I'm immensely proud of All The President's Men?, Nicolas Kent's superb rendition of the Cabinet confirmation hearings which have just concluded. The theater is not always a rapid-response medium, but when it can be, it's electrifying. This is a real-time portrait of the American government, and it is as riveting as the headlines and far, far more revelatory. It's like reading the news lit by lightning."

Initial casting for ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN? includes Ellen Burstyn (Senator Elizabeth Warren); Staceyann Chin (Senator Mazie K. Hirono); David Costabile (Tom Price, Senator Chris Coons); Aasif Mandvi (Scott Pruitt, Senator Todd Young); Joe Morton (Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Senator James M. Inhofe, Senator Patrick J. Leahy); Denis O'Hare (Senator Orrin Hatch, Senator Lindsey Graham); New Yorker Editor David Remnick (Al Franken); and Ron Rifkin (Senator Bernard Sanders).

Tickets to ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN?, priced at $27, are available now online at www.TicketMaster.com, via phone at (800) 982-2787, or in person at the Town Hall Box Office (123 West 43rd Street). For more information, visit publictheater.org.

Responding to current events almost as they happen, this revealing new work takes us into the fierce fight between Senate Republicans and Democrats over the key cabinet members who will lead the Trump administration's policy on everything from Russia to civil rights, healthcare to climate change. Riveting documentary theater, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN? is composed of verbatim testimony from the nomination hearings of the most powerful of these cabinet appointees: Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxon/Mobil, nominee for Secretary of State responsible for America's foreign policy; Jeff Sessions, a leading campaigner for the President and now his chief law officer; Dr. Tom Price, a strident critic of Obamacare and nominee for Health Secretary; and Scott Pruitt, a climate change skeptic nominated as Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Subjected to tough and relentless cross-examination, each man was questioned forensically about his ethics, beliefs and political philosophies. Each had to fend off accusations ranging from corruption to deceit or racism. What they said-and what they didn't-gives vital insight into the future policies and direction of a Trump Presidency, and America itself.

Nicolas Kent (Director) has a long history of collaborating with The Public, beginning with the New York premiere of The Great Game: Afghanistan in December 2010. Kent was Artistic Director of the Tricycle Theatre, London, from 1984 to 2012. He is known for his political pieces at the Tricycle, where the verbatim plays he directed became known as the Tricycle Tribunal plays. Among them: Half the Picture, The Colour of Justice, Nuremberg, Srebrenica, and the Olivier Award-winning Bloody Sunday were all broadcast by the BBC. Two of them were also performed in the Houses of Parliament and one on Capitol Hill. In 2009, he directed the nine-hour trilogy The Great Game - Afghanistan in London, which subsequently toured the USA, and had two command performances for the Pentagon in Washington in 2011. He collaborated with Gillian Slovo on Guantanamo (2005) and The Riots (2011) as well as, most recently, Another World - losing our children to Islamic State (2016) which he directed at the National Theatre. He has produced and directed in London's West End, The Royal Court, The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Young Vic, Hampstead Theatre and the Donmar Warehouse, as well as numerous plays on BBC television and radio. In America, he has directed at the Chicago International Theatre Festival and at the Cort Theatre, and in New York at the American Jewish Theatre, The Culture Project and at The Public.

The Public Theater, under the leadership of Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham, is the only theater in New York that produces Shakespeare, the classics, musicals, contemporary and experimental pieces in equal measure.Celebrating his 10th anniversary season at The Public, Eustis has created new community-based initiatives designed to engage audiences like Public Lab, Public Studio, Public Forum, Public Works, and a remount of the Mobile Unit. The Public continues the work of its visionary founder, Joe Papp, by acting as an advocate for the theater as an essential cultural force, and leading and framing dialogue on some of the most important issues of our day. Creating theater for one of the largest and most diverse audience bases in New York City for nearly 60 years, today the Company engages audiences in a variety of venues-including its landmark downtown home at Astor Place, which houses five theaters and Joe's Pub; the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, home to free Shakespeare in the Park; and the Mobile Unit, which tours Shakespearean productions for underserved audiences throughout New York City's five boroughs. The Public's wide range of programming includes free Shakespeare in the Park, the bedrock of the Company's dedication to making theater accessible to all; Public Works, an expanding initiative that is designed to cultivate new connections and new models of engagement with artists, audiences and the community each year; and audience and artist development initiatives that range from Emerging Writers Group and to the Public Forum series. The Public is located on property owned by the City of New York and receives annual support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and in October 2012 the landmark building downtown at Astor Place was revitalized to physically manifest the Company's core mission of sparking new dialogues and increasing accessibility for artists and audiences, by dramatically opening up the building to the street and community, and transforming the lobby into a public piazza for artists, students, and audiences. The Public is currently represented on Broadway by the Tony Award-winning acclaimed American musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and in Spring 2017, Lynn Nottage's acclaimed new play Sweat. The Public has received 59 Tony Awards, 168 Obie Awards, 53 Drama Desk Awards, 54 Lortel Awards, 32 Outer Critics Circle Awards, 13 New York Drama Critics Awards, and six Pulitzer Prizes.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride