Dowd is best known for her Emmy-winning portrayal of Aunt Lydia on the Hulu drama The Handmaid's Tale.
Park Avenue Armory has announced the fourth commissioned work in its Social Distance Hall series: the world premiere of Enemy of the People, written by Henrik Ibsen and adapted by the groundbreaking director and playwright Robert Icke (1984, The Doctor, Mary Stuart, Hamlet, Oresteia and Oedipus).
As conceived by Robert Icke, the play weaves a tale of morality, suspense, and controversy, with multiple characters represented by a single actor - Emmy award winning actor Ann Dowd (The Handmaid's Tale).
Commissioned by Park Avenue Armory and developed during the pandemic, the play centers on a small former manufacturing town that has been revitalized as a resort destination due to its natural hot springs. When a scientist, who is the sister of the town's Mayor, finds that the water is contaminated and the baths must be shut down, a democratic society confronts, in public and in private, a complex ethical crisis. The audience, sitting in pods of friends or family, will be invited to vote at critical moments of the story - and the majority vote will determine the play's direction at each juncture.As noted above, in Enemy of the People, the audience, arranged in pods of friends or family, is cast as the public. Each pod [bubble] is seated at their own table with a voting mechanism and will be invited as a group to vote at critical moments of the story. The majority vote will determine the play's direction at each juncture.
Tickets will be sold in pods of two to five attendees. Each pod will be seated at an individual table. There will be no single ticket sales for this production.Ann Dowd, a veteran stage and screen actress, was the recipient of the 2017 Emmy Award for 'Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series' for her performance as "Aunt Lydia" on Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale. For her work on the hit show, now in its fourth season, Dowd has also won a 2017 Critics' Choice Award and was nominated for a 2018 Golden Globe award and multiple Screen Actors Guild awards, plus a second Emmy nomination in 2018. Dowd also received a 2017 Emmy nomination for her portrayal of "Patty Levin" on the beloved HBO series The Leftovers, a role she portrayed for three seasons. On the Broadway stage, Dowd has appeared in "The Seagull" with Kristen Scott Thomas and Carey Mulligan, "Taking Sides" with Ed Harris, Elizabeth Marvel and Michael Stuhlbarg and "Candida" alongside Robert Sean Leonard and Mary Steenburgen for which she received the Clarence Derwent Award given to the season's most promising newcomer. Dowd has also starred in notable Off Broadway and regional productions of "Night Is A Room," "The Normal Heart," "Doubt," and "Blood from a Stone" with Ethan Hawke and Natasha Lyonne. For her work on the big screen, Dowd was the recipient of a Best Supporting Actress award from the National Board of Review for her performance in Craig Zobel's psychological thriller Compliance. She was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and Critics' Choice Award for the role. Additional film roles include Hereditary, American Animals, Captain Fantastic, St. Vincent, Marley & Me, Garden State, Flags of Our Fathers and Philadelphia. Her notable TV roles include the award-winning Foxtel series Lambs of God, Olive Kitteridge, recurring roles on Good Behavior, Masters of Sex, Quarry, Nothing Sacred, Judging Amy, Third Watch, Freaks and Geeks , and appearances on At Home with Amy Sedaris, True Detective, Louie, Girls, House, Chicago Hope, The X-Files, and NYPD Blue. Dowd will next be seen in the feature film MASS, written and directed by Fran Kranz, scheduled for release this fall.Learn more at armoryonpark.org
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