Cast and Creative Team Set for West Coast Premiere of PRIMARY TRUST at La Jolla Playhouse

La Jolla Playhouse has revealed the cast and creative team for its west coast premiere of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Primary Trust, by Eboni Booth, directed by Knud Adams, running September 24 – October 20 in the Mandell Weiss Forum.

For more information and tickets, visit LaJollaPlayhouse.org.
 
The cast features Caleb Eberhardt as Kenneth; Rebecca S’manga Frank (Playhouse’s Love All) as Corinna and others; James Udom as Bert; James Urbaniak as Sam, Clay and others; and Luke Wygodny (Playhouse’s Hundred Days) as Musician, along with understudies Kirk Brown, Scott Striegel and Dianne Yvette.
 
The creative team includes Marsha Ginsburg, Scenic Designer; Sophia Choi, Costume Designer; Masha Tsimring, Lighting Designer; Mikaal Sulaiman, Sound Design; Luke Wygodny, Original Music; tbd casting co.; Stephanie Yankwitt, CSA/Jacole Kitchen, Casting; Dean Remington, Stage Manager; and Alexa Burn, Assistant Stage Manager.
 
When Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust premiered in New York in 2023, The Observer raved, “It will restore your faith in theatre’s elemental storytelling powers.” Kenneth, a 38-year-old bookstore worker in a small upstate New York town, spends his evenings sipping mai tais at the local tiki bar with his best friend Bert. When he’s suddenly laid off, Kenneth faces challenges he has long avoided — with transformative and heartwarming results. Primary Trust is an extraordinary new work, a moving tale of new beginnings, old (and new) friends, and finding the courage to see the world for the first time.
 
“The moment I saw Primary Trust in New York, I knew I was witnessing something truly remarkable. I felt immediately compelled to bring it to the Playhouse, and I can’t wait for San Diego audiences to experience Eboni Booth’s deeply touching, life-affirming play, in the hands of this stellar cast and creative team,” said Christopher Ashley, the Rich Family Artistic Director of La Jolla Playhouse.
 
Eboni Booth is a writer and actor from New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre, Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Outer Circle Critics Award) and Paris (Atlantic Theater). For television, she has written for Hulu’s We Were the Lucky Ones and HBO Max’s Julia. As an actor, Eboni has appeared in productions at Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Manhattan Theater Club, Ars Nova, WP Theater, Page 73, Soho Rep., Clubbed Thumb, and more. Eboni is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, and the recipient of a Dramatists Guild Horton Foote Award, a Steinberg Playwright Award, and a Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting. She is a graduate of Juilliard’s playwriting program and the University of Vermont.
 
Knud Adams is an Obie Award-winning director of artful new plays, based in NYC. His practice combines design innovation with performances of subtlety and depth. His world-premiere productions include the consecutive Pulitzer Prize winners English and Primary Trust. His shows have been lauded by critics as “cinematically precise” and “customarily gorgeous,” and have been celebrated on Best of the Year lists by The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New Yorker and The Washington Post. Knud is an alumnus of the Drama League Next Stage Residency and Fall Directing Fellowship, the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, the Playwrights Horizons Directing Residency, and Kenyon College.
 
La Jolla Playhouse is a place where artists and audiences come together to create what’s new and next in the American theatre, from Tony Award-winning productions, to imaginative programs for young audiences, to interactive experiences outside our theatre walls. Founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, the Playhouse is currently led by Tony Award winner Christopher Ashley, the Rich Family Artistic Director of La Jolla Playhouse, and Managing Director Debby Buchholz. The Playhouse is internationally renowned for the development of new plays and musicals, including mounting 120 world premieres, commissioning 70 new works, and sending 36 productions to Broadway, garnering a total of 42 Tony Awards, as well as the 1993 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

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