Nikki M. James, Grace Gummer, and More to Lead Tony Kushner's A Bright Room Called Day

The Public Theater has announced complete casting and an extension for the upcoming revival of Tony Kushner's A Bright Room Called Day, directed by Oskar Eustis. Performances are set to run in the Anspacher Theater from October 29-December 15 (beyond the originally planned closing date of December 8), with an official press opening on November 19.

The cast includes Michael Esper (Vealtninc Husz), Grace Gummer (Paulinka Erdnuss), Nikki M. James (Agnes Eggling), Crystal Lucas-Perry (Zillah), Nadine Malouf (Rosa Malek), Mark Margolis (Gottfried Swetts), Michael Urie (Gregor Bazwald), and Max Woertendyke (Emil Traum), joining the previously announced Linda Emond (Annabella Gotchling), Jonathan Hadary (Xillah), and Estelle Parsons (Die Älte).

The play is described as follows: "Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, reunites with longtime collaborator and Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis in a scorching new version of his first play, the prescient 1985 masterwork suggesting the possibility of the Reagan counter-revolution eventually giving rise to American fascism. Agnes, an actress in Weimar Germany, and her cadre of passionate, progressive friends, are torn between protest, escape, and survival as the world they knew crumbles around them. Her story is interrupted by an American woman enraged by the cruelty of the Reagan administration, and a new character, grappling with the anxiety, distraction, hope, and hopelessness of an artist facing the once unthinkable rise of authoritarianism in modern America. Funny, brilliant, and devastating, this new production of A Bright Room Called Day revisits an epic work that takes a piercing look at the vulnerability of American democracy, and demands to know: when the devil takes up residence in your country…will you act?"

The creative team will feature scenic design by David Rockwell, co-costume design by Susan Hilferty and Sarita Fellows, lighting design by John Torres, sound design by Bray Poor, and projection design by Lucy Mackinnon.