Tom Stoppard's The Hard Problem Opens Off-Broadway

The New York premiere of Tom Stoppard's The Hard Problem opened at Lincoln Center Theater's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on November 19. Jack O'Brien directs.

In The Hard Problem, Hilary is a young psychology researcher at the Krohl Institute for Brain Science, where psychology and biology meet. If there is nothing but matter, what is consciousness? This is "the hard problem" facing science, and for Hilary, the possibility of genuine altruism, without a hidden Darwinian self-interest, depends on the answer. Meanwhile, she is nursing a private sorrow. She needs a miracle and is prepared to pray for one.

The production features Eshan Bay, Adelaide Clemens, John Patrick Doherty, Nina Grollman, Katie Beth Hall, Eleanor Handley, Olivia Hebert, Sagar Kiran, Chris O'Shea, Madeleine Pace, Robert Petkoff, Tara Summers, Jon Tenney, Baylen Thomas, Kim N. Wong, and Karoline Xu.

The Hard Problem will have sets by David Rockwell, costumes by Catherine Zuber, lighting by Japhy Weideman, sound by Marc Salzberg, and original music by Bob James.