After its sold-out run at Brooklyn Academy of Music in winter 2024, the off-Broadway production Our Class, by Polish playwright Tadeusz Slobodzianek, will transfer to Classic Stage Company’s Lynn F. Angelson Theater (136 E. 13th Street between 3rd and 4th Avenues) in Manhattan for a limited run September 12-November 3. It will be immediately followed by Golyak’s adaptation of The Merchant of Venice November 22-December 22 featuring the same cast. Both productions are helmed by Ukrainian-born, Jewish director Igor Golyak. As wars rage in Israel and Gaza, and in Ukraine, neighbor fights neighbor, and antisemitism rises across the globe, these two plays are acutely relevant and timely, and together comprise a powerful four-month artistic residency Arlekin in New York, presented by MART Foundation.
The cast of Our Class features Gus Birney (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window) as Dora, Andrey Burkovskiy (Call DiCaprio!) as Menachem, José Espinosa (Take Me Out) as Rysiek, Tess Goldwyn (New Amsterdam) as Zocha, Will Manning (As Reaper in the Summer Gain) as Heniek, Stephen Ochsner (Chicks) as Jakub Katz, Alexandra Silber (Fiddler on the Roof) as Rachelka/Marianna, Richard Topol (Indecent; The Normal Heart) as Abram, Ilia Volok (Gemini Man, The Gaaga) as Władek and Elan Zafir (Hedda Gabler) as Zygmunt.
Much of the company will return for The Merchant of Venice. Richard Topol will play Shylock, joined by Birney, Espinosa, Goldwyn, Ochsner, and Alexandra Silber as Portia.
Tickets for Our Class are available at https://ourclassplay.com. Tickets for The Merchant of Venice are available at https://www.classicstage.org/venice.
