Playwright Adam Rapp is a master of the small moments that define a character. He created beautiful portraits in his earlier play Red Light Winter which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2006. He has done so once again in his new play, THE SOUND INSIDE. Here we meet Yale creative writing professor Bella Baird and her brilliant, guarded, challenging student Christopher Dunn. Bella starts by addressing the audience in direct, brutally open narration. She is his professor, his mentor, alone by choice, supremely confident. She is drawn to him, somehow compelled to know him. And also there is something she wants from him. Something that she may not be able to ask. The tension of their encounters builds quietly, provocatively as the playwright drives forward to a stunning conclusion.
THE SOUND INSIDE premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival last summer to great acclaim. Reviewing for The New York Times, Jesse Green called it “an astonishing new play. For its entire 90 minutes you are dying to know what will happen even while hoping to forestall the knowledge.”
The Sound Inside
Studio 54 Broadway
First Preview 14, Sep 2019
Opening Night 17, Oct 2019
GET TICKETS HERE
Cast
Will Hochman – Christopher
Mary-Louise Parker – Bella
Creative
Written by Adam Rapp
Original Music by Daniel Kluger
Directed by David Cromer
Scenic Design by Alexander Woodward
Costume Design by David Hyman
Lighting Design by Heather Gilbert
Sound Design by Daniel Kluger
Projection Design by Aaron Rhyne
Adam Rapp – Playwright
Adam Rapp (born June 15, 1968) is an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, musician and film director. His play, Red Light Winter, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2006.
Rapp attended the O’Neill Playwrights Conference in 1996. His play Finer Noble Gases was staged by the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in 2000, by Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2001, by Carolina Actors Studio Theatre in Charlotte in 2003, and by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in New York City in 2004. In 2001, Nocturne was premiered by the New York Theatre Workshop. It has also been staged at by American Repertory Theater and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. His play Stone Cold Dead Serious was produced in 2002 by the American Repertory Theater.
Rapp’s Red Light Winter received the Joseph Jefferson Award (Best New Work) in 2005 for its production at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. The play was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2006. Rapp directed a production of Los Angeles, by Julian Sheppard, in 2007 at the Flea Theatre. As of 2007, he was Resident Playwright at the Edge Theatre Company in New York City.[citation needed]
He has taught at the Yale School of Drama. In 2011, Rapp’s The Metal Children was given its regional debut by Swine Palace on Louisiana State University’s campus.
The majority of Rapp’s plays feature small casts and are set in small spaces. Many characters in the plays are lower-class Americans. His plays often combine stories of Midwestern longing with the idea of finding escape in New York. He combines humor with gloom, preferring dark themes
In a conversation with fellow playwright Gina Gionfriddo published in The Brooklyn Rail, Rapp says: “When you see something powerfully acted on stage, it hits a nerve in the way music hits a nerve … Watching someone twelve feet from you falling in love or being abused … There’s something raw about that experience that you don’t get from film or TV.”
Plays
- The Sound Inside (2018)
- The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois (2016)
- Wolf in the River (2016)
- Through the Yellow Hour (2012)
- Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling (2011)
- The Edge of Our Bodies (2011)
- The Hallway Trilogy (2011), Part One: Rose, Part Two: Paraffin, Part Three: Nursing
- Ghosts in the Cottonwoods (2011)
- The Metal Children (2010)
- Classic Kitchen Timer (short play, 2009)
- Kindness (2008)
- American Sligo (2008)
- Bingo with the Indians (2007)
- Essential Self-Defense (2006)
- Red Light Winter (2005)
- Members Only (short play, 2005)
- Gompers (2004)
- Blackbird (2004)
- Stone Cold Dead Serious (2003)
- Trueblinka (2002)
- Faster (2002)
- Finer Noble Gases (2002)
- Train Story (short play, 2001)
- Animals and Plants (2001)
- Nocturne (2000)
- Dreams of the Salthorse (2000)
Studio 54
Studio 54 was a popular and world renowned nightclub from 1977 until 1981 when it was sold by founders and creators Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. It was called the most famous nightclub of all time and was a sophisticated, groundbreaking multi-media visual extravaganza.
It continued to operate as a nightclub until 1991 by other owners. Located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, New York City, the space was originally the Gallo Opera House, opening in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming CBS radio and television Studio 52. Since November 1998 it has been a venue for the Roundabout Theatre Company and is still called Studio 54, but is no longer a nightclub. A separate restaurant and nightclub, called 54 Below, operates in the basement of the famed venue.
| Address |
| 254 W 54th St (between Broadway & 8 Ave) New York, NY 10036 |
| Transport |
| Subway: N, Q, R to 57th St; 1 to 50th St |
| Phone |
| (212) 719-1300 |
| Box Office |
| Sun & Mon 10am-6pm Tues – Sat 10am – 8pm |
| Access Information |
| All Roundabout Theatre Company venues are accessible to patrons with mobility disabilities. |
| Fully accessible on both the Orchestra and Mezzanine levels |
| There is a wheelchair accessible restroom |
Mary-Louise Parker
Broadway and Off Broadway: Prelude to A Kiss, Proof, How I Learned To Drive, Heisenberg, The Snow Geese, The Sound Inside, Reckless, Hedda Gabler, Four Dogs And A Bone and more. Television: Angels in America, The West Wing, Weeds, When We Rise, Mr. Mercedes, Billions, Sugartime, The Robber Bride, Saint Maybe, A Place for Annie and more. Film: Red Sparrow, Red and Red 2, Behaving Badly, The Portrait of A Lady, Golden Exits, The Client, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Assassination of Jesse James, Boys on the Side, Red Dragon, The Five Senses, R.I.P.D, Howl, Solitary Man, Romance & Cigarettes, and more. Recipient of the Tony Award, the Emmy, two Golden Globes, the Satellite Award, two Obies and two Lucille Lortel Awards, as well as the Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Drama League Awards, the Clarence Derwent and Theater World Awards, and more. Mary-Louise was an on-staff contributor to Esquire magazine for over a decade and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, O, the Oprah Magazine, Bullett, Bust, The Riveter, In Style, Hemispheres, and others. Her first book, “Dear Mr. You,” was published in November 2015 and translated into five languages. Her humanitarian efforts have been recognized by the Los Angeles Country Commission, GLAAD, and OUT Magazine, and her work on behalf of the LGBTQ community has been recognized by the Hetrick Martin Institute and the NY LGBTQ Center.
Will Hochman
Broadway debut. Theatre: Sweat (Mark Taper Forum), The Sound Inside (Williamstown Theatre Festival, original cast), Dead Poets Society (Classic Stage Company, original cast). Film: Let Him Go (Focus Features), Critical Thinking (directed by John Leguizamo), Paterno (HBO), Love (short film). TV: The Code (CBS). Will was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. @willhochman
