TheaterWorks Hartford, under the direction of Artistic Director Rob Ruggiero and Managing Director Jeff Griffin, announces details for the final production of its 40th anniversary season, The Cannibals of McGower County by Drew Larimore. TheaterWorks audiences will be the first to experience this world premiere production – the opening chapter of Larimore’s Southern Gothic trilogy.
The cast is led by Annalee Jefferies whom audiences may recognize from her extensive work at Hartford Stage in The Orphans’ Home Cycle (Drama Desk and Tony Award, 2010), Streetcar Named Desire, Bad Dates, Night of the Iguana, and Seascapes. The cast also includes Constance Shulman (Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, and Imagining Brad, How I Learned to Drive, ‘Night, Mother, and The Swan at TheaterWorks Hartford), Gus Birney (Netflix’s Something Very Bad is Going to Happen, TWH debut), and Edward Hoke (TWH debut).
The creative team includes Tim Mackabee (Set Design), Alejo Vietti (Costume Design), Jiyoun Chang (Lighting Design), Bailey Trielweiler (Sound Design), Lauren Marina (Props Lead), and pau (Stage Manager).
The Cannibals of McGower County takes place in McGower County, West Texas – a ghost town lost to time. When two veteran salvagers casing an abandoned barbecue restaurant encounter an unexpected guest, sparks fly. What follows is a darkly comic reckoning that is long overdue.
“In The Cannibals of McGower County – as is the case in much Southern gothic work – beauty and rot exist in the same breath,” says playwright Drew Larimore. “This play is the beginning of a linked trilogy about the South—and more specifically, misguided Southern matriarchs. It’s a homecoming for me as a writer. I don’t just find solace in its cadence and humor, but an unapologetic pride of their reckoning and the wreckage left in the wake.”
“It feels especially fitting to close our landmark 40th anniversary season with the world premiere of this new work by Drew Larimore,” says TWH’s Artistic Director, Rob Ruggiero. “The piece beautifully reflects our ongoing commitment to championing new voices while also welcoming back old friends and collaborators.
I’m thrilled to welcome Annalee and Connie back to TheaterWorks, while celebrating Gus and Edward as they make their TheaterWorks debut. It’s a truly exciting and meaningful way to conclude this milestone season.”
Performances are on Tuesdays – Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays* – Sundays 2:30pm (*Saturday, Aug 1 – 7:30pm; *Saturday, Aug 29 – 4pm). Press is welcome Thursday, August 6 at 7:30pm.
Tickets are priced at $25 – 70 (fees not included). All tickets can be purchased online attwhartford.org or by calling the box office at 860.527.7838.
About the Artists:Drew Larimore (Playwright) is Brooklyn-based award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and librettist whose work has been described as ‘hilarious and slightly devastating.’ He’s thrilled to premiere the first play in his new trilogy, The Cannibals of McGower County, at TheaterWorks Hartford. Additional work includes Smithtown (The Studios of Key West); The New Peggy (featuring Ann Harada available on all streaming platforms); Out of Iceland (Walker Space, NYC); Upstate (honored as a Blue Ink Award Finalist, Oxford Scripts Award Winner, and Cambridge Script Festival Best Stage Play recipient); his work has been produced in the U.S. and internationally, featured Variety, The New York Times, Playbill, Instinct Magazine, Australian Stage, Sirius XM, and beyond.
Jen Wineman (Director) is a director/choreographer based in Brooklyn. Selected NYC credits: That Parenting Musical (TheatreRow); FIVE (Theater 555); Dog Man: The Musical (New World Stages/Lucille Lortel); Retraction (TheatreRow); Less Than 50% (59E59); My Heart is in the East (La Mama); F#%king Up Everything (Elektra Theater). Selected regional: The 25th Annual…Spelling Bee (Peterborough Players); Bye Bye Birdie (The Argyle); Dangerous Days (Miami New Drama); As You Like It (ASC); Tiny Beautiful Things (Merrimack Rep); Game On (Pittsburgh CLO); Shakespeare in Love (Virginia Rep); Baskerville (Dorset); The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (Asolo Rep/Miami New Drama); Sweeney Todd (Playmakers Rep). Tours: Dog Man (US/Canada/Australia/UK); Twelfth Night & Midsummer (Asolo Rep). Training: MFA Yale. Much love to Bedirhan/Melik/Esmeray.
About the Cast:
Gus Birney can currently be seen starring in the Netflix series Something Very Bad is Going to Happen, and recurring in Black Rabbit on Netflix, and in The Last Frontier for Apple TV+. Prior to that she starred in two seasons of the Starz series Shining Vale, for which she received a Saturn Award nomination. Her other television credits include ‘Jane Humphrey’ in all three seasons of the Apple TV series Dickinson and a series regular role on Spike TV’s The Mist.
Onstage, Gus made her Broadway debut in the Tony-nominated revival of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window opposite Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan, following a critically acclaimed run at BAM. She returned to the BAM stage in the New York premiere of Our Class and received an Outer Critics Circle nomination for her performance; she also reprised the role in its commercial run at Classic Stage Company, for which she and the cast won a Lucille Lortel Award for Best Ensemble. Other theatre credits include Seagull True Story at the Public, Petra at the Park Avenue Armory, CSC’s production of The Merchant of Venice, Williamstown Theater Festival’s production of The Rose Tattoo opposite Marisa Tomei, and Connected at 59E59. Gus’s film credits include Netflix’s Happiness for Beginners, Plan B, Giving Birth to a Butterfly, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Here & Now, The Man in the Woods, A Rainy Day in New York, Three Birthday’s, and Asleep in my Palm. Gus is also a singer/songwriter who has played at the Bitter End, Arlene’s Grocery and The Listening Room. She lives in New York City.
Edward Hoke is tremendously grateful to make his TheaterWorks debut. An actor and filmmaker, his first film, WOOF., premiered at Palm Springs Shortfest where it competed for Best Comedy. He wrote, directed and starred in it. He is also a co-founder and executive director of the west coast theater series FRANKS. As an actor, he recently performed twice as Prince Hamlet at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, understudying Patrick Ball. He is currently in pre-production on his first feature.
Annalee Jefferies: is thrilled to be back at TheaterWorks Hartford where she was last seen in The Year of Magical Thinking in 2009. Originally from Houston, TX, at age 11 she moved with her family to Brisbane, Australia, where she first took the stage at the Twelfth Night Theatre. She never stopped performing, eventually earning acceptance to London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (1975-77). Jefferies spent three years as a resident company member at Washington, DC’s, Arena Stage (1978-81), and had a 20-year residency at Houston’s Alley Theatre (1986-2007). Notable roles during residency included Blanche in Streetcar Named Desire, Hedda in Hedda Gabler, Harper in Angels in America, Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Marion in Robert Wilson’s Danton’s Death. In 2000, Jefferies took an 18-month sabbatical to bring to life Clytemnestra, Andromache and Helen of Troy in John Barton’s 10-hour epic Tantalus which originated at the Denver Center. Directed by Sir Peter Hall and his son Edward, the production then toured the UK for five months ending its run at The Royal Shakespeare Company, London.
After leaving the Alley, she brought four characters to life in Horton Foote’s nine-hour Orphan’s Home Cycle. Directed by Michael Wilson at Hartford Stage, the production moved to New York’s Signature Theatre in 2010 winning the Drama Desk and Tony Awards for Theatrical Event of the Season. Other Hartford Stage CT credits include Violet Venable in Suddenly Last Summer at Westport Country Playhouse, and Blanche in Streetcar Named Desire, Haley in Bad Dates, Hannah in Night of the Iguana, and a lizard in Seascapes all at Hartford Stage. Recent film and TV credits include “Queen Sugar,” Reina in Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick’s soon to be released “A Family Movie.”
Constance Shulman just finished a run of Well, I’ll Let You Go at Studio Seaview, following a sold out run at Irondale Center. She will be returning to TheaterWorks after 30 plus years. She performed in Night Mother, The Swan, and Imagining Brad at TWH, with Rob Ruggiero! Broadway: Rose Tattoo (with Marissa Tomei), Bobbie Clearly at Roundabout (Drama Desk nomination), The Best We Could at MTC, Shhhh at Atlantic Theater, Barbecue at the Public Theater, and Original cast of Steel Magnolias (Annelle) at the Lucille Lortel Theater. Her TV credits include: Orange is The New Black (three time SAG award winner for Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series); The Curse, Broad City, Search Party, Will Trent, Blacklist, Florida Girls, upcoming Furious. Film: From Fried Green Tomatoes to Strawberry Mansion (Reversal of Fortune, Men Don’t Leave, Fletch, Weekend at Bernies…you get the idea), Voice of Patty Mayonnaise in Nickelodeon’s animated series, Doug.
About TheaterWorks Hartford:
TheaterWorks Hartford, led by Artistic Director Rob Ruggiero and Managing Director Jeff Griffin, has produced relevant, engaging, contemporary theater for 40 years at their historic Pearl St. address. Founded in 1985, TWH is committed to the power of storytelling in creating community and has produced over 200 plays and musicals, including the world premiere of High (with Kathleen Turner), Relativity (with Richard Dreyfuss), and Make Me A Song: The Music of William Finn, among others. Visit us at twhartford.org.