The Qualms
- A new play by Bruce Norris
- Directed by Pam MacKinnon
NEW YORK PREMIERE
Thou shalt covet thy neighbor's wife. And thy neighbor, too, at this suburban get-together for partner-swapping couples. Drawn in by The Lifestyle's promise of freedom and titillation, newly married Chris and Kristy attend an alcohol-fueled party for swingers, only to find themselves at odds with the idea of free love and, suddenly, each other. Idealism devolves into chaos in this sharp, sardonic assault on the struggle for power, and the sexual politics of getting laid.
Featuring
Kate Arrington
Donna Lynne Champlin
Noah Emmerich
Sarah Goldberg
Julian Leong
Andy Lucien
Chinasa Ogbuagu
John Procaccino
Jeremy Shamos
Kate Arrington incredibly happy to be making her debut with Playwrights Horizons. She most recently appeared as Cora in The Iceman Cometh with Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy. Other New York work includes Grace and The American Plan on Broadway and work at Primary Stages, Lincoln Center, 59E59, Mint Theater, CSC, HERE and BAM Off-Broadway. Kate is a member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, where she has appeared in The Qualms, Belleville, Detroit, A Parallelogram, Hot l Baltimore, The Pain and Itch and The Violet Hour, among others. She is a graduate in Performance Studies at Northwestern University. Kate is also the very proud mother of two wonderful girls, Sylvie and Marion. (As of May 2015)
Playwrights Horizons: My Life with Albertine, James Joyce’s the Dead (on Broadway). Other Broadway: Billy Elliot, Sweeney Todd, Hollywood Arms, By Jeeves. Off Broadway: Working (Drama Desk Award), Dark at the Top of the Stairs (Obie Award), Shakespeare in the Park’s As You Like It, And Away We Go, Almost Maine, Bloomer Girl at Encores!, Carnegie Hall’s Very Warm For May, See Rock City, Bury the Dead, First Lady Suite, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (NYMF Award). Film/TV: Birdman, “The Good Wife,” “Younger,” “Law & Order,” “Submissions Only.” Training: Carnegie Mellon (BFA) and Oxford University. A Princess Grace Grant Winner, DL is married to actor Andrew Arrow. www.donnalynnechamplin.com (As of May 2015)
Noah Emmerich last appeared on stage in Stephen Belber’s Fault Lines at the Cherry Lane Theater and A Streetcar Named Desire at The Kennedy Center. He can currently be seen as FBI Agent Stan Beeman in “The Americans” on FX. Film work includes Beautiful Girls, The Truman Show, Cop Land, Little Children, Super 8, Miracle, Pride and Glory, Fair Game, Blood Ties and the soon-to-be-released Jane Got a Gun. (As of May 2015)
Playwrights Horizons: The Great God Pan, Clybourne Park (Broadway). Off-Broadway: Look Back in Anger, The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin. In London: Apologia, Clybourne Park (Olivier nomination, Best Supporting Actress), Six Degrees of Separation, Miss Lilly Gets Boned, Member of the Wedding. Film: The Dark Knight Rises, Gambit, A Bunch of Amateurs, Drifters. Series regular on the TV show “Hindsight.” Other TV includes “Any Human Heart,” “Elementary” and “Black Box.” (As of April 2015)
Playwrights Horizons debut. Off-Broadway/New York: Here Lies Love (Public), disOriented (Peter Jay Sharp). Regional: Life Science (Berkshire Playwrights Lab), 100 Years (Mahaiwe). Television/Film: “The Slap”; No Pay, No Nudity; The Humbling; Kilimanjaro. For Melody, my beloved. Maranatha. (As of May 2015)
Playwrights Horizons debut. Previous New York City credits: City of Conversation (Lincoln Center) and The Last Seder (Theatre Three). Regional theater credits: Cry Old Kingdom, 27 Ways I Didn’t Say Hi to Laurence Fishburne (Actors Theater of Louisville); Clybourne Park (Dorset Theater Festival and Barrington Stage). Film: Seven Lovers. For Karen. (As of May 2015)
New York: Nothing But the Truth (Lincoln Center), The Overwhelming (Roundabout), ;Phoebe in Winter (Clubbed Thumb), A Family Of Perhaps Three (Target Margin), 365/365 (The Public), The Deepest Play Ever (New Ohio & NY Fringe). Regional: Ruined (OSF); Orpheus Descending (Williams Project/Intiman); The Seven (La Jolla Playhouse), Breath, Boom(Huntington Theatre), Venus (Olney Theater), The Story (ACTCo); Film/TV: A Walk Among the Tombstones, Jack Ryan, Nobody Asked Me, “Line of Sight,” “The Following,” “Golden Boy,” “Nurse Jackie,” “Fringe,” “Rescue Me,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: SVU.” (As of April 2015)
Broadway: A Time to Kill, An Enemy of the People, An American Daughter, A Thousand Clowns, Conversations with My Father, Art. Off-Broadway: Love and Information (NYTW), Blood and Gifts, Nikolai and the Others (Lincoln Center). National tour: The Light in the Piazza. Regional: The Normal Heart (Arena); Art, Good Boys and True (Steppenwolf); Death of a Salesman (Old Globe); A Prayer for My Enemy, Curse of the Starving Class, A Moon for the Misbegotten (Long Wharf); All the Kings Men, Arms and the Man (Intiman); Tartuffe, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Long Day’s Journey into Night (Seattle Rep); Dinner with Friends, Side Man, The Crucible (ACT). Film/TV: A Most Violent Year, The Runner Stumbles, Three Fugitives, Born to Be Wild, “Law & Order,” “NYPD Blue,” “Northern Exposure,” “Smash,” “The Good Wife.” (As of May 2015)
Broadway: Clybourne Park (Tony, Drama League and Lortel nominations), The Assembled Parties, Glengarry Glen Ross, Elling, Reckless, The Rivals. Off-Broadway: Dinner with Friends (Lortel Award), Engaged (Obie Award), Animals Out of Paper (Drama Desk nomination), We Live Here, Corpus Christi, The New York Idea, 100 Saints You Should Know, Miss Witherspoon, Gutenberg!, Observe the Sons of Ulster…, Shakespeare (Abridged), Race, The Alchemist, Hamlet, Cymbeline. Television: Recurring roles on “Better Call Saul” and “Nurse Jackie,” guest appearances on “Happyish,” “Elementary,” “The Good Wife,” “Unforgettable,” “Fringe,” “L&O: SVU” and "Criminal Intent,” “Damages.” Film: Alejandro Gonzales’s Birdman, Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight, Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock. (As of April 2015)
Creative Team
Todd Rosenthal
Scenic DesignerJessica Pabst
Costume DesignerRussell H. Champa
Lighting DesignerRick Sims
Sound DesignerCole P. Bonenberger
Production Stage ManagerRecent 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.
Broadway: In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play (Lyceum Theatre/Lincoln Center), and Julia Sweeney's God Said Ha!(Lyceum Theater), Off-Broadway: Lincoln Center Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theater Club, Second Stage, Public Theater
Playwrights: Aubergine, Familiar, The Qualms, Stage Kiss, The Great God Pan. Broadway: Dividing the Estate. Other Off-Broadway: Napoli, Brooklyn (Roundabout); Linda (MTC); The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, The Comedy of Errors (The Public/Delacorte); February House, Yellowface, Wrecks (The Public); He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, Tamburlaine Parts I & II, The Killer (TFANA); Night Is a Room, The Liquid Plain, The Old Friends, The Dance and the Railroad, The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Landscape of the Body, The Trip to Bountiful (Signature). Regional: Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, The Acting Company, Trinity Rep, Westport Country Playhouse.
Buoyant, amusing, vivid, tangy, beguiling, engaging, and rawly funny.
★★★★ Critic’s Pick! Bruce Norris is a master of peevishness and acrimony with bravura dialogue, perfectly set-up jokes, and juicy jeremiads. Pam MacKinnon directs a strong and frisky ensemble with her usual flair.
A thrilling ride! Norris is a source of complicated pleasure. Very well acted and spiced up by smuttiness.
More like a massacre than an orgy, and very possibly Bruce Norris’ best! The Qualms is as fully alive as Clybourne Park but dares to cut even deeper.