Photo Coverage: Public Theater Celebrates Opening Night of A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY

A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner and directed by Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, just celebrated opening night.

The complete cast for A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY features Linda Emond (Annabella Gotchling), Michael Esper (Vealtninc Husz), Grace Gummer (Paulinka Erdnuss), Jonathan Hadary (Xillah), Nikki M. James (Agnes Eggling), Crystal Lucas-Perry (Zillah), Nadine Malouf (Rosa Malek), Mark Margolis (Gottfried Swetts), Estelle Parsons (Die Älte), Danielle Skrastaad (Understudy), Michael Urie (Gregor Bazwald), Kerry Warren (Understudy), and Max Woertendyke (Emil Traum).

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?

A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY features scenic design by David Rockwell, co-costume design by Susan Hilferty and Sarita Fellows, lighting design by John Torres, sound design by Bray Poor, projection design by Lucy Mackinnon, and fight direction by Thomas Schall.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski