John J. Caswell, Jr.'s WET BRAIN Extended at Playwrights Horizons

Playwrights Horizons and MCC Theater have revealed a one-week extension of the world premiere of John J. Caswell, Jr.’s Wet Brain, directed by Dustin Wills, to July 2. 

An inventive look at addiction’s ability to transform one’s existence and relationships, Wet Brain offers an American family drama that is not only freed from realism, but also, perhaps unmoored from Earth itself. In a crumbling house in Arizona, a family haunted by addiction—and hardened into smart- asses—wrestles with the alcoholic ruin of its patriarch… who may or may not be repeatedly abducted by aliens. With humor and horror, John J. Caswell, Jr. brings us the transfixing story of a family mining the depths of loss, traveling lightyears to find a language for closure.

Caswell, Jr. began this semi-autobiographical play depicting events grounded in reality—at first, in a style and vision uncharacteristic of his offbeat authorial tastes and tendencies—until the playwright’s own reality presented him with a reason to explore perspectives beyond what we think we know and see. Caswell, Jr., whose recent Off-Broadway debut Man Cave was “a political drama wrapped in the spooky pleasures of the horror genre [that] works on both levels” (The New York Times), merged the work’s depiction of a family’s deep, wounded unknowns with those that hover just above all humanity.

Wet Brain’s cast includes Frankie J. Alvarez (Looking, to the yellow house) as Ron, Ceci Fernández (Men on Boats, Tiny Beautiful Things) as Angelina, Florencia Lozano (Playwrights: Placebo; Rinse, Repeat) as Mona, Julio Monge (Oedipus El Rey, On Your Feet!) as Joe, and Arturo Luis Soria (Ni Mi Madre, The Inheritance) as Ricky. The creative team includes Kate Noll (scenic designer), Haydee Zelideth Antuñano (costume designer), Cha See (lighting designer), Tei Blow (co-sound designer), John Gasper (co-sound designer), and Nick Hussong (projections designer). Stage management: Kasson Marroquin (production stage manager), Kelsey Vivian (assistant stage manager). 

With a background in devised theater, Caswell, Jr. pursued a process with Wills that emphasizes collaboration with and amongst the design team to create a cohesive, and insinuating, vocabulary of dread. Members of the creative team worked together in a room for a week, dissecting and discussing the play and future production, before going off and doing their individual design work. 

Performance Schedule and Ticketing

Wet Brain began previews on May 19, opened June 6, and now runs through July 2 in Playwrights Horizons’ Mainstage Theater.

Tickets can be purchased online.

About John J. Caswell, Jr. (Playwright)

Playwrights debut. John is a playwright originally from Phoenix. Recent honors include the L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award for Wet Brain, the 2020 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award from the Vineyard Theater, the 2020 Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, a 2018 MacDowell Fellowship, a 2018 SPACE on Ryder Farm Creative Residency, Play Group member at Ars Nova, and the 2017 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship. Education: Juilliard School, Hunter College, Arizona State University.

About Dustin Wills (Director)

Dustin Wills directs theater and opera. Upcoming: Jeremy O. Harris’ A Boy’s Company Presents: Tell Me If I’m Hurting You, Handel’s Alcina (Yale Opera). Recent: Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play (Soho Rep and MCC Theater), Kate Tarker’s MONTAG (Soho Rep), Keith Reddin’s Black Snow (Juilliard), Phillip Howze’s Frontières Sans Frontières (Bushwick Starr—named a Top Ten Theatrical Production of 2017 by New York Magazine), Will Arbery’s Plano (Paper Chairs, Austin TX), Casey Llewellyn’s O, Earth (Foundry Theatre — Off-Broadway Alliance Best Play 2016), and a 2018 Baryshnikov Arts Center Residency. Wills has devised new work with Teatro L’Arciliuto in Rome, Italy, created large-scale puppetry pageants with Creative Action, trained with Augusto Boal in Theatre of the Oppressed legislative performance, and for a couple of years gave rogue tours of the Vatican. He is a Princess Grace Award recipient, as well as a Drama League and Boris Sagal directing fellow. MFA: Yale School of Drama.

About the Cast

Frankie J. Alvarez 

(Ron). Playwrights and MCC debut. Off-Broadway: Othello (workshop, NYTW), Play On! Shakespeare Festival (CSC), Those Lost Boys: The Ten-Year Reunion (co-creator, Ars Nova). Regional: to the yellow house (La Jolla Playhouse); twenty50 (Denver Theatre Center); Bathing in Moonlight (McCarter Theatre); The Whipping Man (Actors Theatre of Louisville); Hamlet: Prince of Cuba/ Hamlet: Príncipe de Cuba (Asolo Rep); Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). TV/Film: HBO’s Looking & Looking: The Movie (as Augustín), Let the Right One In, Fantasy Island, The Blacklist, New Amsterdam, Law & Order: SVU, The Good Wife. 

Ceci Fernández 

(Angelina). Playwrights and MCC debut. Fernández has worked on stages all over the world, including The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Yale Repertory, and Bristol Old Vic Theatre Royal. TV and digital: WeCrashed, The Resident, The Good Wife, The Exorcist, Temporary Guardian. Ceci is the co-creator and head writer at @instaMiniSeries. 

Florencia Lozano 

(Mona). Playwrights: Placebo. MCC: Last Easter. Other NYC theater: NYTW, The Public/Shakespeare in the Park, LAByrinth, MTC, Clubbed Thumb, The Movement Theatre Company, Second Stage, Ensemble Studio Theatre, IATI Theater, Repertorio Español. Film: Life After You (also co-wrote and produced), Faraway Eyes, The Ministers, Veronika Decides To Die. TV: Keep Breathing, Narcos, Bull, The Baker and The Beauty, Kevin Can Wait, Blacklist, Mysteries of Laura, Blue Bloods, Lipstick Jungle, Ugly Betty, Royal Pains, Law & Order (CI&SVU), Gossip Girl, One Life To Live. Her play underneathmybed was produced at Rattlestick and won HOLA’s Best New Play Award.

Julio Monge 

(Joe). Playwrights and MCC debut. Broadway: On Your Feet, Lincoln Center’s Twelfth Night, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Fosse, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, Paul Simons’ The Capeman. Off-Broadway: Oediups El Rey, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra (The Public Theater). Film: Come Find Me, West Side Story. Television: For Life; Law and Order: Criminal Intent; Mad About You; Twelfth Night (PBS). 

Arturo Luís Soria 

(Ricky). Playwrights and MCC Debut. Broadway: The Inheritance. Off-Broadway: Ni Mi Madre (writer, and performer) (Obie Award for Best Performance); Hit the Wall (Barrow Street Theatre). Regional: The Kennedy Center, Yale Rep, The Guthrie Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Victory Gardens Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Milwaukee Rep, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Studio Theatre, The Inconvenience. TV: Insatiable (Netflix), The Blacklist (CBS), East New York (CBS). 

About the Creative Team

Kate Noll 

(Scenic Designer). Playwrights and MCC debut. Recent theater credits include The White Devil, Orlando, Gaslight, Peerless, Orange Julius, Stones on His Pockets, I & You, The Cherry Orchard, The Fatal Eggs, The Maids, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Tartuffe, and Cloud 9. Recent opera credits include Dido & Aneas, La Bohème, Arabella, Don Giovanni, L’Egisto, Die Zauberflöt, Carmen, Agrippina, Così fan tutte, and Xerse. She has worked at Berkeley Rep, Yale Rep, Juilliard, Boston Early Music Festival, Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, Theater Squared, and beyond.  

Haydee Zelideth Antuñano 

(Costume Designer). Playwrights debut; MCC: Space Dogs. Haydee is a Chicana artist who enjoys sharing stories through what people wear. She grew up on both sides of the border and these experiences inform her point of view and how she approaches her work as a storyteller, giving depth, dimension and color to the specificities of someone’s life. 

Cha See

(Lighting Designer) is from Manila, Philippines. Playwrights: What to Send Up When It Goes Down. MCC: Soft. Other Off-Broadway: You Will Get Sick (Roundabout Theatre); Lucy and The Fever (Audible Theater); One in Two and The Seagull Woodstock, NY (The New Group); Exception to the Rule (Roundabout Underground). Regional: As You Like It (La Jolla Playhouse). Upcoming: Babbitt and Is It Thursday Yet? (La Jolla Playhouse); (pray) (Ars Nova); Rent (Paper Mill Playhouse). 

Tei Blow 

(Co-Sound Designer). Playwrights: The Trees. MCC debut. Tei Blow is a media designer and performer based in Brooklyn. Tei works with sound, video, computer and automation. He is the recipient of a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Sound Design for David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group’s I Understand Everything Better. Tei is a member of Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble, whose ongoing multipart series The Art of Luv is a recipient of Creative Capital and Franklin Furnace Awards.

John Gasper 

(Co-Sound Designer). Playwrights and MCC debut. John Gasper is a performer, musician, and sound designer. Highlights as performer/musician: Seagull (Elevator Repair Service), I Understand Everything Better (Advanced Beginner Group), The Art of Luv (Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble), A Tunnel Year (Karinne Keithly Syers), One Small Step (Saint Fortune), Playwrights Horizons’ podcast The Ms Phoenix Rising (by Trish Harnetiaux). As sound designer: Seagull (Elevator Repair Service), Willa’s Authentic Self (Lisa Clair Group), Events (Bailey Willams, dir. Sarah Blush); House Plant (Sarah Einspanier, dir. Jaki Bradley); Bonnie’s Last Flight (Eliza Bent, dir. Annie Tippe).

Nicholas Hussong 

(Projections Designer). Playwrights and MCC debut. Broadway: Skeleton Crew (Tony Nomination.) Off-Broadway: Skeleton Crew, These Paper Bullets (Atlantic); Until the Flood (Rattlestick). Regional: Cabaret (Atlanta Opera); to the yellow house (La Jolla); Kleptocracy (Arena); Haint Blu, Hair & Other Stories (Urban Bush Women); Grounded (Alley). Other work includes: Marc Jacobs, Complex Magazine, AMC+, San Diego Shell, Nashville Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Tony Awards (CBS), Ask Ronna Podcast. Creative Producer at Dwight Street Book Club. Co-Creator of FEAST, an immersive dining experience with Listen&Breathe. 

About the Stage Managers

Kasson Marroquin 

(Production Stage Manager). Playwrights: The Thin Place. MCC: Wolf Play, The Light, Charm. Other Off-Broadway: Montag (Soho Rep.); Hamlet, Oresteia (The Park Avenue Armory); Out of Time (NAATCO and The Public Theater). Regional: Quixote Nuevo (Hartford Stage), Kill Local (La Jolla Playhouse). Dance/Touring: The Big Five-OH!, Come to Your Senses, Shadowland, Shadowland the New Adventure, Pilobolus at The Joyce Theater (Pilobolus); On Their Bodies, Footprints(The American Dance Festival). Music/Opera: Path of Miracles, Tree of Codes (Spoleto Festival USA). 

Kelsey Vivian 

(Assistant Stage Manager). Playwrights and MCC debut. Off-Broadway: The Appointment (Lightning Rod Special); Montag (Soho Rep); Oratorio for Living Things (Ars Nova), The Mother (Atlantic Theater Company); Twelfth Night, We Rise: A Celebration of Resistance (The Public Theater). NYC: Hamlet Rehearsed, Lear: That Old Man I Used to Know (Smith Street Stage); The Mile-Long Opera (The High Line); 36 Juniper, Really Really (Wrong House). Regional: Long Wharf Theatre; Saint Michael’s Playhouse; Vermont Stage Company; Vermont Shakespeare Festival. 

About Playwrights Horizons

Playwrights Horizons is a writer's theater dedicated to the development of contemporary American Playwrights, and to the production of innovative new work. In a city rich with cultural offerings, Playwrights Horizons' 51-year-old mission is unique among theaters of its size; the organization has distinguished itself by a steadfast commitment to centering and advancing the voice of the playwright. It’s a mission that is always timely, and one that’s necessary in the ongoing evolution of theater in this country.

Playwrights Horizons believes that playwrights are the great storytellers of our time, offering essential contributions to civic discourse and illuminating life’s greatest paradoxes. And they believe in the singularity of a writer’s voice, valuing the broad, eclectic spectrum and diversity of American writers. At Playwrights Horizons, writers are supported in every stage of their growth through commissions (engaging several of today’s most imaginative playwrights each year), New Works Lab, POP Master Class series, Soundstage audio program, the Lighthouse Project, and Almanac, the organization’s literary magazine. 

Playwrights Horizons presents a season of productions annually on their two stages, each of which is a world, American, or New York premiere. Much like Playwrights Horizons’ work, their audience is risk-taking and adventurous; and the organization is committed to strengthening their engagement and feeding their curiosity through all of its programming, onsite and online.

About MCC Theater

MCC Theater is one of New York’s leading nonprofit Off-Broadway companies, driven by a mission to provoke conversations that have never happened and otherwise never would. Founded in 1986 by Bob LuPone (1946-2022) and Bernie Telsey, and later joined by co-Artistic Director Will Cantler, as a collective of artists leading peer-based classes to support their own development as actors, writers and directors, MCC fulfills its mission of through the production of world, American, and New York premiere plays and musicals that challenge artists and audiences to confront contemporary personal and social issues, and robust playwright development and education initiatives that foster the next generation of theater artists and students.

MCC Theater’s celebrated productions include Soho Rep’s Wolf Play by Hansol Jung, Kate Nash’s Only Gold with a book by Andy Blankenbuehler and Ted Malawer, Donja R. Love’s soft; Ross Golan’s The Wrong Man; Aziza Barnes’ BLKS; Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play; Penelope Skinner’s The Village Bike; Robert Askins’ Hand to God(Broadway transfer; five 2015 Tony Award® nominations including Best Play); John Pollono’s Small Engine Repair; Paul Downs Colaizzo’s Really Really; Sharr White’s The Other Place (Broadway transfer); Jeff Talbott’s The Submission (Laurents/Hatcher Award); Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty (Broadway transfer, three 2009 Tony Award® nominations, including Best Play), Some Girl(s), Fat Pig, The Mercy Seat, and All The Ways To Say I Love You; Michael Weller’s Fifty Words; Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride; Bryony Lavery’s Frozen (Broadway transfer; four 2004 Tony Award® nominations including Best Play, Tony Award® for Best Featured Actor); Tim Blake Nelson’s The Grey Zone; Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living (2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist); Margaret Edson’s Wit (1999 Pulitzer Prize); and musicals including Alice by Heart, Ride the Cyclone, Carrie, and Coraline.  Many plays developed and produced by MCC have gone on to productions throughout the country and around the world. 

Over the years MCC has worked with thousands of students through the innovative MCC Youth Company, school partnerships, and student matinee programs.

Executive Director Blake West joined the company in 2006. MCC opened the doors to its new home in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, on January 9, 2019, unifying the company’s activities under one roof for the first time and expanding its producing, artist development, and education programming. MCC founding Co-Artistic Director Bob LuPone sadly passed away on August 27, 2022. MCC continues to honor his fierce need for engagement with the art, the artists, and the audience and remember the profound impact he had on everyone who entered its spaces.