Severance Innies and Theater Outies: Which of Them Have You Seen Onstage?

Fans of Apple TV+’s Severance are champing at the bit for answers to the show’s most enigmatic questions. What does Lumon really do? How did Gemma end up on the testing floor? What’s with the goats? But for theater aficionados, we’ve got the answer to the question that’s been plaguing them episode after episode: Which play or musical was that actor in?

From Tony winners to off-Broadway regulars, Severance is teeming with stage veterans. Read on to reintegrate your innie Severance stan with your outie theater buff.

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers through season 2, episode 7, of “Severance.”

THE REGULARS

• Karen Aldridge

Her Role on Severance: Asal Reghabi, the renegade Lumon surgeon who has now performed exactly two reintegration procedures.

Where We’ve Seen Her Onstage: Tough as she acts on Severance, Karen Aldrige is best known as the tender-hearted librarian Mrs. Phelps in the original Broadway cast of Matilda. Most of her stage credits come from Chicago where she’s an ensemble member with A Red Orchid Theatre and a frequent artist at Steppenwolf, including in the company’s recent production of POTUS (in the role Vanessa Williams played on Broadway).

• Sydney Cole Alexander

Her Role on Severance: Natalie Kalen, Lumon’s no-nonsense Board liaison … unless … there is no Board?

Where We’ve Seen Her Onstage: Sydney Cole Alexander may not have many New York credits under her belt, but she made a major impression in the central role of Eleanor, a light-skinned enslaved woman who dresses as a white man in Ray Yamanouchi’s incisive and explosive The American Tradition which ran off-Broadway in 2019.

• Michael Chernus

His Role on Severance: Ricken Hale, the self-help guru and Lumon’s latest work ethic consultant.

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: Though Chernus hasn’t been back to New York stages post-pandemic, he’s had a number of off-Broadway roles, including an Obie-winning performance opposite Deirdre O’Connell and Marin Ireland in the Public’s production of Lisa Kron’s In the Wake in 2010. Most recently, he was one of the one-night-only performers in the unrehearsed solo show Nassim in 2018.

• Jen Tullock

Her Role on Severance: Devon Scout, Mark’s supportive sister who’s met both innie and outie Marks.

Where We’ve Seen Her Onstage: Been on a boat lately? You may have caught Jen Tullock performing in the Vineyard Theater’s site-specific The Wind and the Rain aboard the floating Waterfront Barge Museum this past October. Though she’s spent the past few years focusing on her film writing and producing, alongside television acting, she’s no stranger to the off-Broadway ecosystem, also appearing at 59E59 in On the Head of a Pin back in 2013.

• Tramell Tillman

His Role on Severance: Seth Milchick, newly promoted to manager of the severed floor of Lumon in season 2.

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: Tillman most recently appeared off-Broadway in MCC’s shit. meet. fan. last year. Appearing alongside an all-star cast including Jane Krakowski, Neil Patrick Harris, and Constance Wu, Tillman played Logan, the only Black and queer member of a toxic friend group engaged in mutually destructive games. Tillman made his Broadway debut in 2019 in The Great Society, Robert Schenkkan’s second LBJ play, portraying a number of historical roles including the civil rights activist Bob Moses. His most recent musical in NYC came a year earlier in John Doyle’s revival of Carmen Jones for Classic Stage Company in which Tillman played the supporting role of Sergeant Brown.

• John Turturro

His Role on Severance: MDR’s lovable, prickly seniormost team member Irving Bailiff.

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: Turturro bared all in his own co-adaptation of Philip Roth’s no-holds-barred novel Sabbath’s Theater, which The New Group produced in late 2023. He hasn’t acted on Broadway since Yasmina Reza’s Life (x) 3 in 2003, but he did direct three Ethan Coen one-acts in 2011. Perhaps his most feted theater credit to date came over 40 years ago in the title role of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea at the no-longer-extant Circle in the Square Downtown.

• Christopher Walken

His Role on Severance: Burt Goodman, head of Optics and Design, and Irving’s adorable love interest … or, rather, Irving’s innie’s love interest.

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: With 13 Broadway credits, the first as a teenager in 1959 under the name Ronnie Walken, Christopher Walken’s theater history is a bit of a delight for Broadway aficionados to uncover. Two of his early credits (back to back in 1965) were in the choruses of the musicals High Spirits and Baker Street. But he received his two Tony nominations decades later for his work in the musical James Joyce’s The Dead in 2000 and Martin McDonagh’s A Behanding in Spokane in 2010. Cultured Burt would surely have appreciated seeing Walken as Macbeth, Trigorin, and Iago in Public Theater productions in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.

THE GUESTS

• Bob Balaban

His Role on Severance: Mark W., a new MDR team member with an unhelpfully confusing name, in the season 2 opening episode.

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: Bob Balaban plays a sweet role in theater history: He originated the role of Linus off-Broadway in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1967. More recently, however, he starred in the Broadway revival of A Delicate Balance in 2015, his first major NYC stage appearance in many years. He earned a Tony nomination for The Inspector General in 1979.

• Alia Shawkat

Her Role on Severance: Gwendolyn Y., who served a brief stint on the MDR team in the season 2 opener.

Where We’ve Seen Her Onstage: Shawkat, most recognizable from her breakout role on Arrested Development, seems to like to keep her theater stints brief but memorable. She’ll star alongside Marisa Tomei in a dance theater piece called Sissy at the Baryshnikov Arts Center for the last weekend of April. Most notably, she gave a one-day performance at BAM of The Second Woman, in which she played the same scene 100 times in a row with a different scene partner each time for 24 hours in 2019.

• Michael Cumpsty

His Role on Severance: Doug Graner, head of security but not so skilled at keeping his own head secure … (see season 1, episode 7)

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: Cumpsty has a whopping 17 Broadway credits to his name, dating back to 1989: He earned a Tony nomination for playing Judy Garland’s pianist in End of the Rainbow in 2012. He also had a string of leading Shakespeare roles at the Public. But for musical theater fans, his most memorable performance is as producer Julian Marsh on the 2001 revival cast album of 42nd Street. Maybe his “Lullaby of Broadway” would have persuaded even the rogue MDR team to get back to work.

• Nikki M. James

Her Role on Severance: Alexa, the doula who goes on two dates with Mark, each ending in disappointment.

Where We’ve Seen Her Onstage: Where haven’t we seen Tony winner Nikki M. James onstage? She just wrapped up her Tony-nominated turn in Suffs as Ida B. Wells in January, and she’s best known for playing Nabulungi (who dreams of “Sal Tlay Ka Siti”) in The Book of Mormon. In between, she’s been a de facto star-in-residence at the Public (where Suffs began), taking on some more serious drama, including as Portia in Oskar Eustis’s controversial Julius Caesar in 2018 and in his revival of Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day the year after. She also dazzlingly sang the role of Viola in Shaina Taub’s PublicWorks’ musical adaptation of Twelfth Night in 2018. And if you’re missing James on Severance this season, there’s a hack: She’s one of the pre-recorded offstage voices audible in Maybe Happy Ending on Broadway right now.

• Robby Benson

His Role on Severance: We met Robby Benson’s über-creepy Doctor Mauer in episode 7 of season 2 being super-icky in every single one of Gemma’s experimental rooms on the testing floor.

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: Benson’s name is most recognizable for another performance in which we don’t see his face: as the voice of the Beast in Disney’s original animated Beauty and the Beast. But hard-core Broadway fans will know that voice from one of his earliest performances: young Solomon in The Rothschilds, 14-year-old Benson delivers an utterly adorable voice-cracking squeak on “I will remember that I bear the name of Rothschild” in the song “Sons” on the cast album.

• Annie McNamara

Her Role on Severance: Danise, the friend of Devon and Ricken in season 1 who shows up at a dinner party in the pilot and then at Ricken’s pivotal book reading event late in the season.

Where We’ve Seen Her Onstage: Annie McNamara’s best known for originating the role of the exhaustingly performatively progressive Alana in Slave Play: She earned a Tony nomination in 2020. McNamara stayed in the show through both Broadway runs and the West End production, too. But if she looks like someone you’ve seen even more recently onstage perhaps for many, many hours, you may have caught her in November’s final run of Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz at the Public Theater, in which she played Myrtle’s sister Catherine, a role she also originated in 2010.

• Michael Siberry

His Role on Severance: Lumon CEO and Helena’s overbearing father Jame Eagan.

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: If you’ve seen a play about the Murdochs lately, you’ve seen Michael Siberry: He appeared in both Ink on Broadway in 2019 and Corruption off-Broadway at Lincoln Center last season. In between, you may have caught him at Encores! playing the benevolent Mr. Brownlow in Oliver! in 2023. While he has 11 Broadway credits, musical theater fans will know him best for playing Captain Georg von Trapp in the 1998 revival of The Sound of Music opposite Rebecca Luker.

• Donald Webber Jr.

His Role on Severance: Patton, another friend of Devon and Ricken’s in both their season 1 gatherings.

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: It’s been quite the season for Donald Webber Jr. In March, he starts performances on Broadway in another corporate drama, Glengarry Glen Ross, as John Williamson (the role portrayed by David Harbour in the most recent revival). But he also played the tragic Simon Stimson in Kenny Leon’s Our Town, which closed in January. He’s used to keeping busy, though: In recent seasons, he was Leslie Odom Jr.’s standby in Purlie Victorious and he’s understudied pretty much every major male role in the Broadway company of Hamilton, most recently starring as James Reynolds/Philip Schuyler in 2018. 

• Gwendoline Christie

Her Role on Severance: Lorne, the muddily charismatic head of Mammalians Nurturable, in that giant goat room…

Where We’ve Seen Her Onstage: If you haven’t left New York, your best bet for catching the Game of Thrones star onstage may have been in Cheek by Jowl’s 2007 tour stop of Cymbeline at BAM, opposite Tom Hiddleston. The bulk of her theater work has taken place in the UK, with her most notable role post-GOT stardom as Titania/Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at London’s Bridge Theatre in 2019.

CAMEOS

• Jeff McCarthy

His Role on Severance: Remember Mark watching a nature documentary in the Severance pilot? Not really? Well, the narrator’s voice was actually Drama Desk nominee Jeff McCarthy.

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: McCarthy’s been on our minds most recently, in the wake of the latest Encores! revival of Urinetown, as that show’s original Officer Lockstock 24 years ago. He also originated the role of Terry in Side Show (he sings the thrilling “Private Conversation” on the Broadway cast album) and also replaced as the Beast and Billy Flynn in the Broadway companies of Beauty and the Beast and Chicago, respectively.

• Keanu Reeves

His Role on Severance: Don’t remember Keanu Reeves in Severance? We don’t blame you for missing him. He’s been confirmed as the uncredited voice of the Animated Lumon Administrative Building in the first episode of season 2 when Mr. Milchick plays the “Lumon Is Listening” video for MDR.

Where We’ve Seen Him Onstage: Probably nowhere yet! Keanu Reeves will make his Broadway debut this fall alongside his Bill & Ted co-star Alex Winter, in Jamie Lloyd’s upcoming production of Waiting for Godot. Reeves will play Estragon.