John is the writer of Wet Brain (Playwrights Horizons), Scene Partners (Vineyard Theater), and Man Cave (Page 73 Productions). He is the recipient of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Rita and Burton Goldberg Playwriting Prize, and the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award. His work has been recognized by The Drama League, the Outer Critics Circle, the Relentless Award, and the Obie and Lucille Lortel Awards. He was a recent fellow at Juilliard’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program after receiving an MFA from CUNY's Hunter College.
DUSTIN WILLS is a theatre and opera director based in New York City. Upcoming productions include Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (Heartbeat Opera), Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro with Anthony Roth Costanzo (Little Island NYC), Jeremy O Harris’ A Boy’s Company Presents: Tell Me If I’m Hurting You, and some unannounced secret stuff (!!) Recent theatre: Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play (2023 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Direction and Production), John J. Caswell Jr.’s Wet Brain (Playwrights Horizons/MCC), Kate Tarker’s Montag (Soho Rep), and Awful Event! (Baryshnikov Arts Center Residency). Recent opera: Handel’s Alcina, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Stravinsky’s соловей. Dustin has devised new work with Teatro L’Arciliuto in Rome, Italy, created large-scale puppetry pageants with Creative Action, trained with Augusto Boal in Theatre of the Oppressed legislative performance, and for a couple of years gave rogue tours of the Vatican. He is a 2023 Obie Award winner, SDCF Callaway Award finalist, Princess Grace Award recipient, a Drama League alum, and Boris Sagal directing fellow. He teaches in the Directing and Playwriting programs at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale with a focus on new play development and directing for opera.
Jerome, a ghost town in the secluded Arizona backcountry, is home to Con and Doane, an aging gay couple who’ve built a quiet life far from the chaos of cities and other people—until a stranger arrives, fleeing his damaged past, and falls into their arms. Set at the height of the AIDS epidemic, John J. Caswell, Jr.’s new play is an unexpectedly funny, delicately wrought story of survival, even in the harshest of deserts.
Ken Barnett
BruinTyrone Mitchell Henderson
DoaneStephen Spinella
ConPlaywrights Horizons: The Light Years. Broadway: Fun Home, Wonderful Town, The Green Bird. Off-Broadway: Mister Halston; Novenas for a Lost Hospital (Rattlestick); Plenty, Fortress of Solitude, February House (Public Theater); Too Much Sun (Vineyard); America is Hard to See (Life Jacket/HERE). Regionally: The Waves (NY Stage & Film); Private Lives, Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder - world premiere (Hartford Stage); True West (Pittsburgh Public); Burn This (Mark Taper); Next Fall (Geffen); Merrily We Roll Along (Guthrie); Glass Menagerie (Delaware). Film: The Housemaid, Lavender, Admission. TV: Starfleet Academy, FBI, Equalizer, Godfather of Harlem, Good Fight, House of Cards, High Maintenance, Mozart in the Jungle, Mad Men, The Knick, Grey’s Anatomy. www.kenbarnett.net, @kbnyc.
Broadway: The Skin of Our Teeth, Bring in ‘Da Noise Bring in ‘Da Funk. Off-Broadway: Prince Faggot (Playwrights Horizons/Studio Seaview) Rancho Viejo (Playwrights Horizons), Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, Two Noble Kinsmen, The America Play (The Public), Redwood (EST), Yellowman (Billie Holiday Theatre), The Piano Lesson (Signature Theatre). Film: Theater Camp, The Upside, and Funny Pages. Television: “Sneaky Pete,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “Search Party,” “God Friended Me,” and “The Blacklist.” Recurring roles: Partner Barry on “The Good Fight” and Supreme Court Judge Arnold Pappas on “Law and Order.” “Suits”- Pilot.
won two Tony Awards and two Drama Desk Awards for the original Broadway productions of Tony Kushner’s epic Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, which marked his Broadway debut.
Mr. Spinella was most recently seen for over 2,200 performances on Broadway in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child playing Snape as well as, for various periods, Dumbledore, Amos Diggory, Voldemort and Vernon Dursley! He has previously starred on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening; revivals of A View from the Bridge, Electra, and Our Town (with Paul Newman); The Velocity of Autumn, co-starring Estelle Parsons; and James Joyce’s The Dead (with Christopher Walken), originally produced by Playwrights Horizons, for which he won a third Drama Desk Award, as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award, and was again a Tony nominee.
Off-Broadway Mr. Spinella won an Obie in Love! Valour! Compassion! He also appeared in An Iliad (Lucile Lortell and Obie awards); alongside Meryl Streep in The Seagull directed by Mike Nichols; and in Tony Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. He was in the critically acclaimed 2016 production of Coriolanus, and in 2012 played the title character in Ben Johnson's play Volpone, both produced by the Red Bull Theater.
Among his many feature film credits: Alfonso Cuaron’s Great Expectations; Tim Robbins’ Cradle Will Rock; Gus Van Zant’s Oscar-winning Milk; Quentin Dupieux’s cult hit Rubber; Bad Education as Hugh Jackman's husband; Can You Ever Forgive Me? with Melissa McCarthy; and Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning Lincoln.
Mr. Spinella has multiple TV credits and can currently be seen in a recurring role on MGM+ series American Classic starring Kevin Klein and Laura Linney as well as Fox’s new hit show Best Medicine with Josh Charles and Annie Potts.
Dustin Wills
Scenic DesignRodrigo Muñoz
Costume DesignBarbara Samuels
Lighting DesignLeah Gelpe
Sound DesignMatt Carlin
PropsKasson Marroquin
Production Stage ManagerTyler Crow
Assistant Stage ManagerAlldaffer and Donadio Casting
Dustin Wills is a theatre and opera director based in New York City. Upcoming productions include Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (Heartbeat Opera), Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro with Anthony Roth Costanzo (Little Island NYC), Jeremy O Harris’ A Boy’s Company Presents: Tell Me If I’m Hurting You, and some unannounced secret stuff (!!) Recent theatre: Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play (2023 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Direction and Production), John J. Caswell Jr.’s Wet Brain (Playwrights Horizons/MCC), Kate Tarker’s Montag (Soho Rep), and Awful Event! (Baryshnikov Arts Center Residency). Recent opera: Handel’s Alcina, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Stravinsky’s соловей. Dustin has devised new work with Teatro L’Arciliuto in Rome, Italy, created large-scale puppetry pageants with Creative Action, trained with Augusto Boal in Theatre of the Oppressed legislative performance, and for a couple of years gave rogue tours of the Vatican. He is a 2023 Obie Award winner, SDCF Callaway Award finalist, Princess Grace Award recipient, a Drama League alum, and Boris Sagal directing fellow. He teaches in the Directing and Playwriting programs at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale with a focus on new play development and directing for opera.
is a NY based Costume Designer, Originally from Mexico City, recent credits: Sally & Tom (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel Nominee), Plays for the Plague Year (The Public Theatre), Richard II (Astor Place Theatre), Beau the Musical (St. Luke's Theatre); What Became of Us (Atlantic Theatre), The Counterfeit Opera, The Tune Up (Little Island), Sorry for Your Loss (Minetta Lane Theatre), RENT (Paper Mill Playhouse), Torera (WP Theatre, Alley Theatre), House of India (The Old Globe), Mother Road (Berkeley Rep), The Bluest Eye (Huntington Theatre), Red Velvet (STC), Dial M for Murder (Alley Theatre). www.rodrigomunozdesign.com
Playwrights Horizons: Dance Nation; Select: Soho Rep, NAATCO, Ma-Yi, Little Island, MCC, Lincoln Center, The Public, Ars Nova, NYTW, TFANA, Primary Stages, Signature, 2ST, WP, Target Margin, Monica Bill Barnes & Co., Bushwick Starr, New Georges, Clubbed Thumb, Pig Iron, Bard, Alley, Woolly Mammoth, Playmakers, KCRep, and Trinity Rep. 2023 Obie & Henry Hewes Awards. BA: Fordham; MFA: NYU. Proud Member USA829. www.barbarasamuels.com
Playwrights Horizons: Log Cabin, Antlia Pneumatica, Grand Concourse, The Big Meal and Circle Mirror Transformation. Broadway: Mary Jane (MTC). Off-Broadway: Scene Partners (also by John Caswell, Vineyard), Curse of the Starving Class (New Group), My Broken Language (Signature), California (Clubbed Thumb), The Invisible Hand (NYTW), Cardinal (Second Stage), Slowgirl (LCT3). Regional: ACT, Guthrie, Longwharf. Honors: Tony nomination (Mary Jane), two Lortel Awards, multiple Hewes Nominations and a Connecticut Critics Circle Award.
Matt has been the Props Supervisor at Playwrights Horizons since 2022. Broadway: Becky Shaw (2ST), Home (Roundabout), Stereophonic (Original Props). Select Off-Broadway credits include Teeth (New World Stages), Walden (2ST), Buena Vista Social Club, A Simulacrum (Atlantic), The Comeuppance (Signature) and american (tele)visions (NYTW). He received his B.F.A. from Pace University. @mattcarliin
Playwrights Horizons: Jerome, The Dinosaurs, Wet Brain, The Thin Place. Off-Broadway: Tartuffe, Becoming Eve (NYTW); Orlando (Signature Theatre); Wolf Play, The Light (MCC); Cymbeline, Out of Time (NAATCO); Montag (Soho Rep.); Hamlet, Oresteia (The Park Avenue Armory). Regional: Camino Real (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Your Local Theater Presents…, Kill Local (La Jolla Playhouse); Quixote Nuevo (Hartford Stage). Dance/Music: Pilobolus; Kinetic Light; The Counterfeit Opera, The Marriage of Figaro (Little Island); Path of Miracles, Tree of Codes (Spoleto Festival USA). Education: MFA, UC San Diego.
John J. Caswell Jr.’s Wet Brain is a very funny, pitch-black comedy about addiction and obligation, love and abandonment, and patterns of poisonous behavior lodged so deep they seem encoded.
Wet Brain by playwright John J. Caswell Jr. is the kind of play that forces you to reckon with the singular nature of what theater can do.
Special thanks to Rick Hendrix and Shane Jordan, and Andrew Tobias for being production sponsors for Jerome.