Ann Dowd to Star in Solo Adaptation of Ibsen's Enemy of the People

Emmy winner Ann Dowd will return to the stage this summer in a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People, adapted and directed by Robert Icke. The production will run at the Park Avenue Armory June 22-July 25, with opening night set for June 30.

Commissioned by the Armory, developed during the pandemic, and with Dowd playing all the characters, the play centers on a small former manufacturing town that has been revitalized as a resort destination due to its natural hot springs. When a scientist, who is the sister of the town's Mayor, finds that the water is contaminated and the baths must be shut down, a democratic society confronts, in public and in private, a complex ethical crisis. The audience, sitting in pods of friends or family, will be invited to vote at critical moments of the story – and the majority vote will determine the play's direction at each juncture.

Enemy of the People will have sets and costumes by Hildegard Bechtler, lighting by Natasha Chivers, and sound by Mikaal Sulaiman. Tickets will be sold in pods of two to five attendees, with each pod seated at an individual table. There will be no single ticket sales for the production.

Dowd won a 2017 Emmy for playing Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid's Tale. Onstage, she has appeared in The Seagull, Night Is a Room, and many other productions.