MTC announces complete casting for world premieres of We Had A World and Dakar 2000
Posted by: Official_Press_Release 10:14 am EST 11/21/24

MANHATTAN THEATRE CLUB
ANNOUNCES COMPLETE CASTING FOR
OFF-BROADWAY SEASON AT NY CITY CENTER

ANDREW BARTH FELDMAN JOINS
TONY AWARD WINNER
JOANNA GLEASON
AND DRAMA DESK NOMINEE
JEANINE SERRALLES
IN
WE HAD A WORLD
THE WORLD PREMIERE
OF A NEW PLAY BY
JOSHUA HARMON
DIRECTED BY TRIP CULLMAN

ABUBAKR ALI AND MIA BARRON WILL STAR IN
DAKAR 2000
THE WORLD PREMIERE
OF A NEW PLAY BY
RAJIV JOSEPH
DIRECTED BY
MAY ADRALES

(New York, NY – November 20, 2024 – Manhattan Theatre Club—Lynne Meadow, Artistic Director and Chris Jennings, Executive Director—is pleased to announce complete casting for the company’s Off-Broadway season at NY City Center.

Andrew Barth Feldman, Joanna Gleason and Jeanine Serralles, the cast
of We Had A World, a world premiere play by Joshua Harmon, directed by Trip Cullman.

World Premiere
We Had A World
By Joshua Harmon
Directed by Trip Cullman
Featuring Andrew Barth Feldman, Joanna Gleason, Jeanine Serralles
Performances begin Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Opening Night Wednesday, March 19, 2025
NY City Center Stage II, 151 West 55th Street

Andrew Barth Feldman (Broadway: Dear Evan Hansen; Off-Broadway: Little Shop of Horrors) will join Tony Award winner Joanna Gleason (Broadway: Into the Woods, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; Film: Crimes and Misdemeanors, Hannah and Her Sisters, Boogie Nights) and Drama Desk Award nominee Jeanine Serralles (Television: “Apples Never Fall,” “Hightown,”; Film: Inside Llewyn Davis, Hot Summer Nights) in the world premiere of We Had A World, written by Tony Award nominee Joshua Harmon (Broadway: Prayer for the French Republic (MTC), Bad Jews, Significant Other ) and directed by Tony Award nominee Trip Cullman (Choir Boy at MTC, Lobby Hero, Murder Ballad at MTC, Six Degrees of Separation).

We Had A World is MTC’s first production at NY City Center Stage II (131 West 55th Street) since the pandemic shutdown began.

A dying woman (Gleason) calls her grandson (Feldman) and asks him to write a play about their family. “But I want you to promise me something,” she says. “Make it as bitter and vitriolic as possible." In this searing, funny and deeply personal play, the author of last season's Tony Award-nominated Prayer for the French Republic recreates thirty years of family fights, monstrous behavior, enormous cruelty, and enduring love.

Major support for Stage II is provided by The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. Additional support is provided by The Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater.

Abubakr Ali and Mia Barron, the cast of Dakar 2000,
a world premiere play by Rajiv Joseph, directed by May Adrales.

World Premiere
Dakar 2000
By Rajiv Joseph
Directed by May Adrales
Featuring Abubakr Ali, Mia Barron
NY City Center Stage I
Performances begin Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Opening Night Thursday, February 27, 2025
NY City Center Stage I, 151 West 55th Street

Abubakr Ali (Film: Anything’s Possible; Television: “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” “Walking Dead: World Beyond”) and Lucille Lortel and Obie Award winner Mia Barron (Off-Broadway: The Coast Starlight , Hurricane Diane) will star in the world premiere of Dakar 2000, written by Pulitzer Prize finalist and two-time Obie Award winner Rajiv Joseph (Broadway: Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo; Off-Broadway: King James at MTC, Guards at the Taj, Describe the Night) and directed by May Adrales (Vietgone and Poor Yella Rednecks at MTC). Joseph and Adrales previously collaborated on Letters of Suresh at Second Stage.

In Senegal on the eve of Y2K, an idealistic Peace Corps volunteer (Ali) survives a mysterious car accident. An imposing State Department operative (Barron) arrives at his hospital where she immediately takes command of the situation and his safety. Though they couldn’t be more different, they form an unlikely relationship. But when it becomes clear that they both have secrets, the volunteer is roped into a darker side of public service – one he can’t come back from. Unpredictable at every turn, this world-premiere thriller was commissioned by Manhattan Theatre Club.

Tickets for Dakar 2000 are on sale now. Tickets for We Had A World go on sale Monday, December 9 at 12:00 pm. To purchase single tickets, visit nycitycenter.org.
Subscriptions for MTC’s 2024-25 season are available by visiting
manhattantheatreclub.com/join, or by calling the MTC Clubline at 212-399-3050.

MTC’s 2024-25 Season

MTC’s 2024-25 Broadway season features the premieres of The Hills of California by Jez Butterworth, directed by Sam Mendes at the Broadhurst Theatre (235 West 44th Street); Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector, directed by Tony Award winner Anna D. Shapiro at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street); and Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, produced in association with CMI and Daryl Roth, starring Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, devised by Cameron Mackintosh, with choreography by Stephen Mear, musical staging and direction by Matthew Bourne, side by side with Julia McKenzie, also at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

MTC’s remaining Off-Broadway season also includes the world premiere of Bad Kreyòl by two-time Tony Award nominee Dominique Morisseau (Skeleton Crew at MTC; Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations), directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene in a co-production with Signature Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street).

BIOGRAPHIES - WE HAD A WORLD

ANDREW BARTH FELDMAN (Joshua) won the 2018 National High School Musical Theater Award as a high school sophomore, going on to make his Broadway debut in the titular role in Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway, then starring as Percy in the film No Hard Feelings opposite Jennifer Lawrence. More Film/TV: Saturday Night, “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” A Tourist's Guide to Love, Poetic License (Upcoming). More Theatre: Rent: In Concert (Kennedy Center), Little Shop of Horrors (Westside Theatre). Andrew's original album, Penn Station, can be streamed everywhere. And yes, that was him in Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical.

JOANNA GLEASON (Renee) has appeared in fifteen Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-off Broadway shows, winning the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical for Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. She has three Drama Desks and two Outer Critics nominations and wins. Additional Broadway credits include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Joe Egg, The Real Thing, I Love My Wife, and Nick And Nora. Joanna has performed Off-Broadway at The Public Theater in The Normal Heart, at The Roundabout in Sons Of The Prophet, and at Manhattan Theatre Club in It’s Only A Play and Eleemosynary. Her film work includes Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors and Hannah and Her Sisters; as well as in Boogie Nights, Last Vegas, and The Skeleton Twins. Television credits include “The Affair,” “West Wing,” “The Newsroom,” “Friends,” “Bette,” “Murphy Brown,” “Blue Bloods,” “The Girls On The Bus,” and many more. Joanna has written and directed two films—Morning Into Night (a short), and the recently completed The Grotto (feature), which won Best Narrative Feature at the Heartland International Film Festival, along with 4 more prizes in festivals around the U.S.

JEANINE SERRALLES (Ellen). For her work on stage in New York, Jeanine Serralles has been nominated on several occasions for Drama Desk, Drama League, and Lucille Lortel Awards, performing in productions at Lincoln Center, The Atlantic, BAM, Labyrinth, The Vineyard, Williamstown, Red Bull, Playwrights Horizons, and New York Theatre Workshop, to name a few. On screen, Jeanine can currently be seen as Detective Camacho in the Peacock Limited Series “Apples Never Fall” and as Rachel in Season 3 of the Starz series “Hightown”. Other screen credits include opposite Timothée Chalamet in Hot Summer Nights, Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis, Gabriel Byrne in No Pay, Nudity, and Amy Adams and Gary Oldman in The Woman in the Window. She was also a series regular on Amazon’s “Utopia” created by Gillian Flynn. Jeanine is a graduate of Yale School of Drama.

JOSHUA HARMON (Playwright). Joshua Harmon’s plays include Bad Jews, Significant Other, Admissions, Skintight, and Prayer for the French Republic at MTC. He and Sarah Silverman co-wrote the libretto for The Bedwetter based on her memoir. His plays have been produced on Broadway and the West End; Off-Broadway at Roundabout Theatre Company, Lincoln Center Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club and Atlantic Theater Company; across the country at Geffen Playhouse, Speakeasy, Studio Theatre, Theater Wit, About Face, Actor's Express, and The Magic, among others; and internationally in a dozen countries. He is a two-time MacDowell fellow and an Associate Artist at Roundabout. Graduate of Juilliard.

TRIP CULLMAN (Director). Broadway: The Rose Tattoo; Choir Boy; Lobby Hero; Six Degrees of Separation ; Significant Other. Select Off-Broadway: Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow; Yen; Punk Rock (Obie Award); A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City (MCC Theater); Days of Rage; The Layover; The Substance of Fire; Lonely, I’m Not; Bachelorette; Some Men; Swimming in the Shallows (2nd Stage); Unknown Soldier ; The Pain of My Belligerence; Assistance; A Small Fire (Drama Desk nomination); The Drunken City (Playwrights Horizons). Choir Boy (Manhattan Theatre Club). Murder Ballad (Manhattan Theatre Club and Union Square Theatre). The Mother; I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard (Atlantic Theater Company). Roulette (Ensemble Studio Theatre). The Hallway Trilogy: Nursing (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater). The Last Sunday in June (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and Century Center). Dog Sees God (Century Center). U.S. Drag (stageFARM), and several productions with The Play Company. London: The Colby Sisters of Pittsburgh; Pennsylvania (Tricycle Theatre). Select regional: Alliance Theatre, The Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, Bay Street Theater, Williamstown Theatre Festival.

BIOGRAPHIES - DAKAR 2000

ABUBAKR ALI (Boubs) starred in Anything’s Possible (MGM/Orion) director Billy Porter and was the titular lead in Netflix/Dark Horse's series, “Grendel.” Additional selected credits include Kathryn Bigelow's upcoming Netflix film, “Law & Order: Organized Crime” (NBC), “Walking Dead: World Beyond” (AMC), “Power Book II” (Starz), and “Katy Keene” (CW). Theatre credits include Toros (2nd Stage), Inherit the Wind (Pasadena Playhouse), We Live in Cairo (A.R.T.), Kiss (Yale Rep), Twelfth Night (Yale Rep) and work with The 24 Hour Plays, Primary Stages, NYTW, Atlantic Theater Company, The Public, and others. Abubakr is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

MIA BARRON (Dina Stevens) won a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Performer in The Coast Starlight at Lincoln Center, an Obie Award for her performance in Hurricane Diane at New York Theatre Workshop, and an Obie and Drama Desk Award for her work in the ensemble of The Wolves at Playwrights Realm/ Lincoln Center. She appeared on Broadway in Tom Stoppard’s Tony Award-winning production of The Coast of Utopia and in QED (Lincoln Center), as well as in many premieres Off-Broadway, including The Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizons, Atlantic Theater Company, and New York Theatre Workshop. She starred in the international tour of Joan Didion's The White Album, which premiered at BAM’s Next Wave Festival and internationally at the Sydney Festival. She co-created and starred in Off-Broadway’s Big Times, directed by Leigh Silverman. Television work includes “Get Shorty,” “NCIS,” and “Law and Order: True Crime,” “Shameless,” “Newsroom,” “Elementary,” “Glee,” “Blue Bloods,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Medium,” “Numb3rs,” “Bones,” “Modern Family,” as well as the voice of Molotov on Adult Swim’s “The Venture Brothers” (Cartoon Network). Mia is a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop and a recipient of the Joan and Joseph Cullman Award for Extraordinary Creativity at Lincoln Center Theater. MFA NYU.

RAJIV JOSEPH (Playwright). Rajiv Joseph’s play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama. He has twice won the Obie Award for Best New American Play, first in 2016 with Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for Best Play) and then in 2018 with Describe the Night. Other plays include King James, Letters of Suresh, Archduke, The North Pool, Gruesome Playground Injuries and Animals Out of Paper. He also wrote the libretto for the opera Shalimar the Clown, based on the novel by Salman Rushdie. He has written for TV and film and has been awarded artistic grants from the Whiting Foundation, United States Artists, and the Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal.

MAY ADRALES (Director) is a director, artistic leader, teacher, and mother; she has directed over 30 world premieres. Her work has been seen most recently at Manhattan Theatre Club (Anchuli Felicia King’s Golden Shield, Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone and Poor Yella Rednecks), Second Stage (Rajiv Joseph’s Letters of Suresh), Yale Rep (falcon girls), Guthrie Theater, Huntington Theater, Signature Theater, Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, WP, New York Theater Workshop, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep and South Coast Rep. She was awarded the prestigious Ammerman Award at Arena Stage and Theater Communications Group’s Alan Schneider Award for freelance directors. She is a finalist for the SDCF Zelda Fichandler Award, Drama League Directing Fellow, Van Lier Directing Fellow, WP Lab Director, SoHo Rep Writers/Directors Lab and New York Theater Workshop directing fellow, TCG New Generations Grantee, SDC Denham Fellowship and Paul Green Directing Award. She served as an Associate Artistic Director at Milwaukee Rep; Artistic Associate at The Playwrights Center; Artistic Associate at The Public Theater; and Director of Artistic Programs and Artistic Director at The Lark. She serves on the board of Theater Communications Group. May has directed and taught at Juilliard, Harvard/ART, ACT, Fordham, NYU and Bard College. She is currently the Director of the Theatre Program and Assistant Professor at Fordham University. May has served on faculty at the Yale School of Drama and Brown/Trinity MFA program. MFA, Yale School of Drama. www.mayadrales.net.

ABOUT MANHATTAN THEATRE CLUB

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Director Chris Jennings, Manhattan Theatre Club produces seasons of new work for the theatre both on and Off-Broadway, and in the 2023-24 season, all three of its Broadway shows were nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, representing three of the five nominees in the category. MTC’s not-for-profit mission, which Meadow created in 1972 and has implemented over five decades of award-winning productions, is to develop and present new work in a dynamic, supportive environment; to identify and collaborate with the most promising new as well as accomplished artists; and to produce a diverse repertoire of innovative, entertaining, and thought-provoking plays and musicals by American and international playwrights. Since 1989, MTC Learning and Community Engagement, which uses the power of live theatre and playwriting to awaken minds, ignite imaginations, open hearts, and change lives, has also been an important corollary to MTC’s work. MTC’s over 600 world, American, New York and Broadway premieres have earned 7 Pulitzer Prizes, 30 Tony Awards, 51 Drama Desk Awards and 49 Obie Awards amongst many other honors. MTC has homes on Broadway at its Samuel J. Friedman Theatre and Off-Broadway at New York City Center. MTC is an anti-racist organization that respects and honors all voices and upholds the values of community and equity. For more information, please visit www.manhattantheatreclub.com.

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

World Premiere
We Had A World
By Joshua Harmon
Directed by Trip Cullman
Featuring Andrew Barth Feldman, Joanna Gleason, Jeanine Serralles
Performances begin Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Opening Night Wednesday, March 19, 2025
NY City Center Stage II, 151 West 55th Street

World Premiere
Dakar 2000
By Rajiv Joseph
Directed by May Adrales
Featuring Abubakr Ali, Mia Barron
NY City Center Stage I
Performances begin Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Opening Night Thursday, February 27, 2025
NY City Center Stage I, 151 West 55th Street

WEBSITE & SOCIAL MEDIA

Website: manhattantheatreclub.com
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Facebook: facebook.com/ManhattanTheatreClub
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YouTube: youtube.com/user/mtcbroadway
Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/mtc-nyc.bsky.social
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