December 2022
Greta's study, an Upper West Side apartment
80 Minutes
There will be no intermission.
Matthew Freeman (he/him) is a New Dramatists alum, where he proudly received the Joe A. Callaway Award, and a MacDowell Colony Fellow. He was awarded the Kesselring Prize in 2021. His plays and monologues have been published by Concord, Applause, Smith & Kraus, and Playscripts. Plays include Silver Spring, That Which Isn't, Steve Burns Alive (co-writer), When Is A Clock, The Listeners, Why We Left Brooklyn, The Most Wonderful Love, and Glee Club. His audio pieces have been a part of the HearNow Festival, New Dramatists Active Listening, Atlanta Fringe Radio. Freeman is a graduate of Emerson College. He divides his time between the Western Catskills and Brooklyn with his wife, the magical author Pam Grossman. Freeman is the Producing Artistic Director of Theater Accident.
(she/her) Director of SMALL - 2024 Nominations for Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award. New York Theatre includes: New York Theatre Workshop, Public Theater/Joe’s Pub, Playwrights Horizons, Primary Stages, LAByrinth Theater Company, Rattlestick, The Women’s Project, 59E59 Theaters, P73, The New Group, Keen Company, Clubbed Thumb, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Musical Theatre Factory, The Acting Company, The Barrow Group, New Dramatists, Playwrights Realm, New Georges. Regional Theatre includes: A.R.T, Old Globe, People’s Light, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Diversionary, TheatreSquared, Orlando Shakes and others. Her work has been seen internationally in Edinburgh, London, New Zealand, Berlin, Hamburg, Brussels, Ukraine and Rome. She currently teaches directing at Fordham and Barnard/Columbia University. MFA Directing: Yale. Website: www.jessidhill.com
BROADWAY: Prayer For The French Republic (Tony, Drama League, Lucille Lortel, OCCA nominations and Richard Seff Award) at City Center and Broadway. Leopoldstadt (Tony, Best Play) All The Way (Tony, Best Play) Beautiful. OFF-BROADWAY: Nikolai and the Others and Road (Lincoln Center Theatre) Metal Children and Mary Rose (Vineyard) Celebration (Atlantic) Crooked (WP) Final Follies (Primary Stages) Stone Cold Dead Serious (Edge) Balm In Gilead, Lie Of The Mind and Steel Magnolias. Many regional and international appearances. TV AND FILM: Upcoming: Savant and Babka. Margaret, Irrational Man, A Vigilante, Greatest Showman, Inside Amy Schumer, Bull, Law and Order: SVU, The Americans, Madame Secretary. OBIE AWARD: Sustained Excellence of Performance. DIRECTING: A Doll's House Part 2.
Colleen Litchfield (she/they) recently made their Broadway debut originating the role of Hanna in Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt (Tony Award for Best Play). Regional: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. TV: The Crowded Room on Apple TV+. Training: BFA NYU Tisch, RADA
Natalie Rose Ibarra (she/her/ella) is a general manager and producer who has supported productions on- and off-Broadway with Signature Theatre Company (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Confederates; A Case For The Existence of God), DR Theatrical Management (The Fears; Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical), and Alchemy Production Group (Melissa Etheridge: My Window; A Sign of the Times). She is delighted to be back downtown, where the creativity in the air is palpable. MFA, Performing Arts Management, Brooklyn College. rcp.natalie@gmail.com
Moira Stone is a multi-disciplinary theater artist who specializes in genre- and gender-bending new work. Moira won the 2017 NYIT Award for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role, was a 2013 inductee into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame, and is a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA. https://www.moirastone.com/
Cody Hom is a Brooklyn based theater technician and is delighted to be bringing The Ask to life. Cody is an alumnus from Brooklyn College and works as a freelance sound designer, stage manager, lighting/sound programmer and is getting his feet wet in playwrighting and production management. Outside of theater, Cody is a cartoonist, graphic designer, D&D content creator on TikTok, and manages wholesale for a local chain of cafés. Cody’s goal is to become a jack-of-all-trades, master of some. All socials: @C7Animatics
Daisy Long is a lighting designer for theater, opera, concert and dance. Originally from Cambridge, MA, she now lives in New York City. New York credits include: The Shed, Keen Company, BAM, Atlantic, The Barrow Group, Primary Stages, Abingdon Theater Company, Mason Holdings, HERE Arts Center, LaMaMa, NYU, AMERINDA, TADA! Youth Theater (National Youth Arts Award for Outstanding Lighting for The Perfect Monster), Manhattan School of Music. Regional credits include: Hartford Stage; Westport Country Playhouse; Everyman Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Alliance, Speakeasy Stage Company (IRNE Award for Best Lighting for The Scottsboro Boys), Kitchen Theatre Company, Yale, Connecticut College, Middlebury, Smith, Interlochen. She is the lighting director for Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana, a Roundabout teaching artist, and a USA 829 member.
Regional credits Sunday In the Park With George, Santa Fe Playhouse, 39 Steps, Virginia Stage Company, River Ditty, Peter and the Starcatcher, VA Rep, I Am My Own Wife (Robert Fulton Award—Best Scenic Design), Witness For The Prosecution, Fulton Theatre, The Music Man-In Concert, Two River Theater. Off-Broadway The Ask, Wild Project, I Forgive You, Ronald Regan, Beckett Theatre, The Bardy Bunch, St. Clement’s Theatre, Touch, 59E59, Sexual Healing, Rattapallax. Scenic & Costume Design The Exes, Midnight Street, Theatre Row Come Light My Cigarette, St. Clement’s Theater Death of the Moon, Jerry Orbach Theatre. https://www.napoliellodesign.com/
(she/her) - National Tour: Martin Luther on Trial and The Great Divorce (Fellowship for the Performing Arts). Off-Broadway: Medea Re-Versed (Red Bull Theater), Desperate Measures (New World Stages), Closer Than Ever, and Storyville (Henry Hewes and Audelco nominations - Outstanding Costume Design, York Theatre Co.), Surely Goodness and Mercy (Keen Co.). Regional: Seascape (The Alley), The Great Leap (Portland Center Stage), Vietgone (Geva Theater Center), The White Snake (Baltimore Center Stage), Indecent (Chautauqua Theater Co.). Director: Playwrights Horizons Theater School. MFA: New York University. https://www.nicolewee.com/
“Curly” Karen Schleifer - Favorite / Selected Credits (*denotes world premiere): Off-Broadway: POOF! (Drama League’s Directorfest/Keen Company, Theatre Row) SMALL (@59E59, Penguin Rep & Chita Rivera in assn. w/ Ted Snowdon & Flying Carpet Theatre Co.), The Panic of ’29* (LessThanRent/59E59). Reg
Theater Accident is dedicated to the creation and realization of live and digital performances that examine the collision between an audience and its expectations. Notable productions included Why We Left Brooklyn, The Zebra Shirt of Lonely Children, That Which Isn’t and The Sea The Mountains The Forest The City The Plain. Audio Dramas including Back At The Start (with David Greenspan) and Places I Have Heard Voices (with Moira Stone, directed by Jessi D. Hill). @theateraccident
Incorporated in 2003, Adam Koplan (Founding Artistic Director) created The Flying Carpet Theatre Company (FCT) after spending formative time training at Playwrights Horizons in New York City and at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Over 20+ years, The Flying Carpet Theatre Company has created and/or premiered 25+ original plays including early works by artists who continue to shape the American Theatre such as Robert Lopez (Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon, Frozen) and Geoff Sobelle (All Wear Bowlers, The Object Lesson, Elephant Room). We have performed our new works in our home bases of New York, NY and Atlanta, GA and have toured nationally to 17 states, and internationally to Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Dublin, Prague and Rome.
Production Stage Manager | "Curly" Karen Schleifer |
| Assistant Stage Manager | Daren A.C. Carollo |
| Sound & Light Board Operator | "Curly" Karen Schleifer |
| Lead Electrician | Jack Bebinger |
| Assistant Electrician | Oziel Jimenez Santos |
| Wardrobe Supervisor | Peter Chan |
| Scene Shop | BNG Industries |
| Lighting Equipment Rental | Christie Lites |
| Graphic Design | Lara Antal |
| Press | Emily Owens PR |
| Venue | wild project |
This production was made possible by
The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
Susan Aberth Jesse Bartel Peter Bebergal Kate Bittman & Nick Traverse Emily Bohannon Pete Boisvert Andy Bragen Jesse Bransford Steven M. Burns Kerry Lee Chipman Tyler Christie Maggie Cino Djahari Clark Angela Colasanti Jason Consolacion Kate Cortesi David Cote Michael Criscuolo Rachel Dakarian Rebecca Davis Jessica deLisser Laura Desmond Kristoffer Diaz Jessie Dickey Allyson Dwyer Edward Einhorn Sean & Rohana Elias-Reyes Matthew Ellis Tim Errickson Paul Ford Julia C. Fox Robert Franzblau Max Freeman (and his parents) Leonard & Lindsay Freeman Carlos Garcia Michael Gardner Anne Gibson Natalie Gold Jennifer Gordon Thomas Morgan Gould Ian Gould Rich & Nina Grossman Virginia Hall Heidi Hart Moira Stone and Robert T. Honeywell Arlene Hutton Joanna Jeros C. Julian Jiménez Danielle Johnson David Johnston Amanda Jones Jerrod Jordahl & Rachel Dakarian Donna Jorgensen Elliot Joseph | Lena Kaminsky Aditi Brennan Kapil Michael Lasky Susan & Joseph LeClair Emily Lee Jay Leibowitz Shelley & David Lemmond Kate Luhr Whit MacLaughlin Cheri Magid and Ron Riley Kori Markel James McElwain Questy McQuestington Peter Meysenburg & Amanda Morgan Opus Moreschi Emily Morse Martha Mountain Thomas Neenan Stephen Nelson & Peter Vitale Maureen O'Boyle Eileen A O'Connor John Oddy Aya Ogawa Matthew Paul Olmos Brian Olsen Doc Anthony Pennino Caitlin Perry Eric Pfeffinger Jennifer Lynn Phillips Jerry Polner Megha Ramaswamy Kari Adelaide and Max Razdow Davis Robinson Lynn Rosen Amie Rotruck Alessandra Ruiz Tammy Ryan Tom Schantz Imran Sheikh Crystal Skillman Stephen Speights & Gary Shrader Alisha Spielmann Ariel Stess Marguerite Stimpson & Gerry Rodriguez Cori Thomas The Trumbull Family Jane Turk David Valdes Will Verchereau Megan Walker Benjamin Warfield Nicole White Sean & Jordana Williams Susan Wilson Brenda Withers Emily Zemba |
And our anonymous Donors! Thank You!
Dedicated to Ellen Moncure Wong, who hired me.
Although this play draws heavily on my work as a fundraiser at the ACLU, THE ASK is an imagining – a work of fiction. Neither of these characters is drawn from a real person I have met or an individual I work with at the ACLU. Even the “ACLU” in the play is the subject of dramatic license: the ACLU did not experience mass layoffs in the fall/winter of 2022, for example. I do here what so many writers have done before: employ my experience of employment to talk about something that goes, I hope, beyond it.
I also hope THE ASK displays my admiration and reverence for those that work at the ACLU - and the thousands of nonprofits, big and small, that help shape our country. And I hope it shows my empathy for, and love of, those individuals that are privileged to, and tasked with, keeping the lights on at those organizations.
Among its thicket of themes, THE ASK is about money. Money provides the outline (sometimes the chalk outline) of our lives. Even the institutions that seem to rise above the values of the marketplace wouldn’t exist without money: museums, theaters, poetry foundations, human rights organizations, food banks. People work at those places, in those fields, the work they do costs money, and that money has to come from somewhere. And so, there is an exchange of energy, of earnings, of intention, and yes, a transfer from the privileged to the less so.
Money, as much as experience, seems to define this generation’s divide. It has ever been thus, maybe, but I’m intrigued by the shape that divide takes today. There’s something stubborn and painful about it: self-defeating, heartbreaking, and energizing. I hope that in the ‘private-made-public’ in which theater excels, we can let the stage lights illuminate how we stumble through ego, emotion, duty and doubt as we try to do good in this world.
Thank you for coming to see THE ASK. And for the good you do in this world.