Cast & creative Team Set for OUR CLASS at San Francisco's Strand Theater

Direct from sold-out New York performances at Brooklyn Academy of Music and a subsequent Off-Broadway run at Manhattan’s Classic Stage Company, Our Class will perform a limited engagement at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater beginning Thursday, February 13 and continuing through Sunday, February 23, 2025. 
 
Our Class follows ten Polish classmates, five Jewish and five Catholic, growing up as playmates, friends, and neighbors, who then turn on one another with life and death consequences. Inspired by real life events surrounding a horrific 1941 pogrom in a small Polish village, this shocking, timely story follows their lives from childhood through eight decades.
 
The piece comes at a time when the world is facing an increase in antisemitism across the globe. Our Class was a featured production of the 2024 Under the Radar Festival, and has received multiple award nominations: a Drama League Award Nomination for Outstanding Revival of a Play; an Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination for Outstanding Featured Performer in an Off-Broadway Play (Gus Birney, Dora); a Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Projection and Video Design (Eric Dunlap); and Henry Hewes Design Awards Nominations for Scenic Design (Jan Pappelbaum), Lighting Design (Adam Silverman), and Media Design (Eric Dunlap).
 
Critics raved about Our Class, both at The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and during its run at Classic Stage Company. The Wall Street Journal cheered, “an epic and intimate drama…stark and uncompromising. The entire cast is excellent!”. And the New York Times praised director Igor Golyak saying, “Igor Golyak is among the most inventive directors working in the United States."  The New Yorker mentioned, “The audience delivered an impassioned ovation!”
 
The cast of Our Class includes (in alphabetical order): Andrey Burkovskiy (Menachem), José Espinosa (Rysiek), Benjamin Evett (Abram), Tess Goldwyn (Zocha), Will Manning (Heniek), Masha Mashkova (Rachelka/Marianna), Delilah Napier (Dora), Stephen Ochsner (Jakub Katz), Gene Ravvin (Zygmunt), and Ilia Volok (Władek).
 
The creative team brought together artists from New York and across the world, including scenic designer Jan Pappelbaum of the Schaubuehne, сostume design by Sasha Ageeva, lighting design by Adam Silverman & revival lighting design by Seth Reiser, music by Oscar® winner Anna Drubich (Navalny), music direction by Lisa Gutkin, sound design by Ben Williams, projections design by Eric Dunlap, Igor Golyak, and Andreea Mincic, chalk drawings design by Andreea Mincic, choreography by Or Schraiber, intimacy design by Leana Gardella, hair & makeup design by Timur Sadykov, and dramaturgy by Dr. Rachel Merrill Moss. Kyra Bowie is the production stage manager. Helmed by Golyak, this cross-cultural collaboration between actors, designers, producers, artists and technicians represents an effort to untangle traumas of the past and wrestle with these same questions of today. Our Class is co-executive produced by MART’s Sofia Kapkova and Arlekin’s Sara Stackhouse, in association with Jadow Productions.
 
Golyak, founder of Boston’s Arlekin Player Theatre, was born in Kyiv and came to the US as a Jewish refugee at age 11. The New York Times praised him, saying “Igor Golyak is among the most inventive directors working in the United States and The Forward called Igor “a visionary theater maker [who] never thought he’d be ‘Jewish Director’ — then the times demanded it.’’ In 2022, Golyak conceived and directed The Orchard at Baryshnikov Arts Center starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jessica Hecht. Golyak received global acclaim during the pandemic as he conceived and directed WITNESS, chekhovOS/an experimental game/ and State vs. Natasha Banina, each playing virtually around the world and receiving multiple New York Times Critic’s Picks.

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