Pittsburgh Public Theater has revealed the full cast and creative team for a new adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest, directed by Jenny Koons and featuring David Ryan Smith as the imperious Lady Bracknell.
Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy about two young men who adopt fictional identities to escape social obligations – Paul Deo Jr. as Jack and Dylan Marquis Meyers as Algernon – is at the O’Reilly Theater March 27-April 14.
The seven-member cast in Koons’ new adaptation includes Veronica del Cerro as Gwendolyn; Susan M. Lynskey as Miss Prism; Alex Manalo as Cecily Cardew; and Joseph McGranaghan as Lane, Merriman and Chasuble. Hope Anthony and Michael Patrick Trimm will serve as understudies.
Among his credits, David Ryan Smith was seen on Broadway in One Man, Two Guvnors and Passing Strange, and in off-Broadway roles for Public Theater, Signature Theater Company, Playwrights Horizons, City Center Encores! and more. In Pittsburgh, he will play Lady Augusta Bracknell, a character whose social standing and conservative views embody Wilde’s satirical representation of Victorian England’s new aristocracy.
On Instagram, Smith said of landing the role of Lady Bracknell, “DREAMS do come TRUE.”
“It feels amazing to come back to a comedy, especially at a time when there are so many serious issues that we are all grappling with,” said Koons, who directs her own adaptation in her Pittsburgh Public debut. “Despite how our senses of humor have changed culturally, this humor from the 1800s is still so funny, even now.”
As a director, Koons is known for innovative adaptations of classics, such as her 2022 adaptation of Oedipus at Deaf West Theatre, which featured Protactile ASL, a touch-centric language, and the theater company’s first DeafBlind cast member. She also co-directed an immersive “dance party” musical, Head Over Heels, with Sam Pinkleton at Pasadena Playhouse in 2022.
“When I saw it for the first time in high school in Minneapolis, I remember thinking that it was so wild that a play from 100 years ago could get teenagers laughing so many years later,” Koons said of The Importance of Being Earnest.
“I cannot wait to laugh alongside our audiences and staff,” said Pittsburgh Public Theater artistic director Marya Sea Kaminski.
Adaptations of the comedy have been done by The Public three times before, during season No. 4 (1978-79), No. 31 (2006); and, in 2020, a Zoom reading of the play was the second offering of Pittsburgh Public Theater’s online PlayTime series, the start of virtual theater in Pittsburgh during the pandemic.
The creative team for the upcoming co-production with Baltimore Center Stage, a frequent artistic partner of The Public, includes Emmy Award-winning set designer Jason Ardizzone-West, lighting designer Annmarie Duggan, costume designer Hugh Hanson, sound designer and composer Daniela Hart, and stage manager Natalie Hratko. B Klemeyer, a trans artist and theatermaker in Pittsburgh whose multimedia performance work was recently staged at Kelly Strayhorn Theater, joins as associate director.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
The Importance of Being Earnest is at the O’Reilly Theater, Downtown, March 27-April 14, 2024. Tickets: visit PPT.org/Earnest or call 412-471-6930.
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