Grand Concourse
- A new play by Heidi Schreck
- Directed by Kip Fagan
Heidi Schreck is a playwright and two-time Obie Award-winning actor. Her first play Creature was produced in New York in by New Georges and Page 73 in a well-received production directed by Leigh Silverman; her second There Are No More Big Secrets, directed by Kip Fagan, premiered at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, and was a New York Magazine and Time Out New York’s Critic’s pick. Most recently, The Long Wharf produced her dark recession-era comedy, The Consultant, which was developed at Playwrights and also directed by Fagan. A former Page 73 Playwriting Fellow and Sundance artist, Heidi is currently working on commissions for South Coast Repertory Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club/Sloan Foundation, and True Love Productions. Grand Concourse marks her return to Playwrights Horizons after appearing as an actor in Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation (Theatre World Award) in 2010. She has also performed extensively at theaters such as The Public (Shakespeare in the Park), Manhattan Theatre Club, Two-Headed Calf, The Foundry, Clubbed Thumb, The Women’s Project, The Roundabout, Williamstown, Berkeley Rep and Center Theatre Group. On television, Heidi has appeared on The Good Wife, SVU, and Showtimes' Nurse Jackie, where she has also worked as a writer. Heidi is Playwrights Horizons’ first Tow Foundation playwright in residence.
NYC: Jenny Rachel Weiner's Kingdom Come (Roundabout Underground); Ike Holter's Exit Strategy (Primary Stages); Heidi Schreck's Grand Concourse (Playwrights Horizons); Jesse Eisenberg's The Revisionist and Asuncion, Halley Feiffer's How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them, Heidi Schreck's There Are No More Big Secrets, Sheila Callaghan's That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play (Rattlestick); Ariel Stess's The World My Mama Raised and I'm Pretty Fucked Up, Sheila Callaghan's Roadkill Confidential, Rachel Hoeffel's Quail (Clubbed Thumb); Carlos Murillo's A Thick Description of Harry Smith, Sam Hunter's Jack's Precious Moment (P73); Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith's Radio Play (PS 122). Regional: Alliance, Long Wharf, Woolly Mammoth, Williamstown, Humana, George Street Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, Marin Theatre Company, City Theatre. Taught and/or directed at Juilliard, NYU, SUNY Purchase, National Theatre Institute, Strasberg Center. NEA/TCG directing fellow, Clubbed Thumb affiliated artist, co-founder of Printer’s Devil in Seattle.
WORLD PREMIERE
Called to a life of religious service, Shelley is the devoted manager of a Bronx soup kitchen, but lately her heart’s not quite in it. Enter Emma: an idealistic but confused young volunteer, whose recklessness pushes Shelley to the breaking point. With keen humor and startling compassion, Heidi Schreck’s play navigates the mystery of faith, the limits of forgiveness, and the pursuit of something resembling joy.
Featuring
Quincy Tyler Bernstine
Ismenia Mendes
Bobby Moreno
Lee Wilkof
NY Theater (selected credits): Evanston Salt Costs Climbing; Marys Seacole (Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play); Our Lady of 121st Street (Lortel nomination); The Amateurs (Lortel nomination); As You Like It (Lortel nomination); Small Mouth Sounds; Peer Gynt; Grand Concourse (Lortel nomination); 10 out of 12; The Nether; Mr. Burns; Neva (Lortel nomination); We Are Proud to Present a Presentation…; born bad; Red-Handed Otter; Family Week; Ruined (2009 OBIE for Performance, Clarence Derwent, Audelco Awards); In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play); The Misanthrope; A Small, Melodramatic Story; Matt & Ben, ‘nami; (I am) Nobody’s Lunch; The Ladies. Film (selected credits): The Tender Bar, White Noise, Manchester By The Sea, Easy Living, Still Alice, Ned Rifle, Red Hook Summer, While We’re Young, Hungry Hearts, Rachel Getting Married. TV (selected credits): “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies,” “Evil,” “The Equalizer,” “Julia,” “Power Book II: GHOST”, “Ray Donovan”, “The Code”, “Modern Love”, “Power,” “High Maintenance,” “The Good Wife,” “The Blacklist,” “Elementary,” “Blue Bloods,” “Madame Secretary,” “The Leftovers,” “The Strain,” “Chappelle’s Show,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” Education: Brown (BA), UCSD (MFA). 2019 OBIE for Sustained Excellence in Performance, Cullman 3rd Award for Extraordinary Creativity (Lincoln Center Theater, 2019); 2015 Lilly Award, Charles Bowden Award from New Dramatists. She is represented by Cornerstone Talent Agency, The Burstein Company, and Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham.
Playwrights Horizons: Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra. Off-Broadway: The Wayside Motor Inn (The Signature), Much Ado About Nothing (The Public), Family Furniture (The Flea), Baby Screams Miracle (Clubbed Thumb). Regional: Katharine/Boy in Henry V (Two River Theater). Training: Juilliard.
Playwrights Horizons: Grand Concourse. New York Theater: Fulfillment Center, Alligator, Lazarus, The Year of the Rooster (Drama Desk nomination), Hand to God, Luther, Phoebe in Winter, I.E. – In Other Words. Film/Television: L.V.J., Five Nights in Maine, How He Fell in Love, Private Romeo, Kings, “Homeland,” ‘Elementary,” “The Good Wife,” “Law & Order.”
Playwrights Horizons: Assassins (Drama Desk nomination), Glance of a Landscape. Broadway: Kiss Me, Kate (Tony, Drama Desk nominations), Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Wicked, The Odd Couple, Democracy, The Boys from Syracuse. Other Off-Broadway: The Present Tense (Obie Award, Drama Desk nomination), Little Me (Encores!), The Underpants, Chaucer in Rome, The Front Page, June Moon, original Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors.
Creative Team
Rachel Hauck
Scenic DesignJessica Pabst
Costume DesignMatt Frey
Lighting DesignLeah Gelpe
Sound DesignSunneva Stapleton
Production Stage ManagerRachel Hauck is a Tony Award winning scenic designer based in New York City.
Broadway credits include Hadestown, The Avett Brothers’ Swept Away, Doug Wright’s Good Night Oscar, Paula Vogel’s How I Learned To Drive; Heidi Schreck’s What The Constitution Means To Me; and John Leguizamo’s Latin History For Morons. Most recently, she designed the scenery for Cats: The Jellicle Ball; Galileo: A Rock Musical; and the Avett Brothers’ Swept Away on Broadway.
Rachel is honored that her designs have been recognized. She has received the Tony Award for her design of Hadestown, as well as a Tony Nomination and Jeff Award for Good Night Oscar. Rachel is the recipient of Drama Desk, Lortel, Helen Hayes, Audelco and Ovation Nominations. She is extremely honored to have received the Princess Grace Award, Lilly Award, an OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence and the Distinguished Alumni Award from UCLA where Rachel received her BA.
Rachel was the Resident Set Designer at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference for ten years where she worked with more than 70 playwrights. She remains dedicated to new work and new play development.
She is a member of the American Theater Wing Advisory Board, the 1/52 Grant Administration Committee and a co-founder of Design Action. She was an elected leader of her union, USA 829 for 12 years, and has taught at Princeton, Brown, Vassar and Cal Arts.
Recent theatre design projects: LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD by Samuel D. Hunter directed by Joe Mantello and starring Laurie Metcalf; INHERIT THE WIND by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, directed by Henry Godinez, at the Goodman’s Albert Theatre. THE COST OF LIVING by Martyna Majok, directed by Jo Bonney on Broadway at the Samuel Friedman Theatre; Other Broadway credits include The Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of MARVIN'S ROOM by Scott McPherson directed by Anne Kauffman starring Lili Taylor, Celia Weston, and Janeane Garofalo and THE HEIDI CHRONICLES by Wendy Wasserstein, directed by Pam MacKinnon starring Elisabeth Moss, Jason Biggs, and Bryce Pinkham.
Playwrights Horizons: The Profane, Rancho Viejo, A Life, Placebo, This, Grand Concourse, The Call, Go Back to Where You Are, She Stoops to Comedy. Other Off-Broadway: Everybody (Signature), All the Ways... (MCC), War (LCT3), Gloria (Vineyard), The Way We Get By (Second Stage), Buzzer (The Public), An Octoroon (Soho Rep., TFANA), Generations (Soho Rep.). Regional: For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday (Humana Festival 2016, Berkeley Rep).
Award winning sound and video designer for live performance, including theater, musicals, opera and dance. Based in NYC and working on and off-Broadway, downtown, at regional theaters, and in Europe. Director collaborators have included Scott Elliot, Anne Kauffman, Rachel Chavkin, Pam MacKinnon, Will Davis, Steve Cosson, Ken Rus Schmoll, Kate Whoriskey, Davis Mccallum, Eric Ting, Bill Rauch, Wendy Goldberg, Evan Yionoulis, Doug Fitch, and Robert Woodruff. Nominated for a Tony Award for her sound design for Mary Jane at MTC. Other honors include two Lortels for Outstanding Sound Design, a Connecticut Critics Circle Award, and multiple Hewes nominations.
Heidi Schreck is the Playwrights Horizons Tow Foundation Playwright-in-Residence.
Grand Concourse is the recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New American Plays award.
Grand Concourse may well break your heart. You may need tissues by the end.
Insightful with a moving, even shocking epiphany.
Quincy Tyler Bernstine is ever-excellent. Lee Wilkof is moving. Bobby Moreno brings welcome jolts of energy whenever he’s onstage.
