New York Theatre Guide
‘Prayer for the French Republic’ review — standing tall under the weight of history
“Thought-provoking, heart-wrenching and wickedly funny.”
– The New York Times
ABOUT
In 1944, a Jewish couple in Paris desperately awaits news of their missing family. More than 70 years later, the couple’s great-grandchildren find themselves facing the same question as their ancestors: “Are we safe?” Following five generations of a French Jewish family, Prayer for the French Republic is a sweeping look at history, home, and the effects of an ancient hatred.
This powerful world premiere comes from acclaimed playwright Joshua Harmon (Bad Jews, Significant Other) and director David Cromer, a Tony Award winner for The Band’s Visit.
Prayer for the French Republic is sponsored by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation’s Theatre Visions Fund program. Special thanks to The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for supporting Manhattan Theatre Club. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater. Prayer for the French Republic is a recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award and was commissioned by MTC through the Bank of America New Play Program.
RUNNING TIME:
3 hours with two 10-minute intermissions
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Last performance played on March 27, 2022.
“Moving and funny, with a brilliant group of actors!”
– The Daily Beast
★★★★★!“A brave, articulate, and necessary new play.”
– New York Stage Review
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General Info
Manhattan Theatre Club produces a wide range of theatre both on and off-Broadway. In a history spanning almost 50 years, they have won 27 Tony Awards, 7 Pulitzer Prizes, and developed into one of the country’s most acclaimed theatres.
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Click here for a seating chart. Stage I seats 300. All seats are on Orchestra level—all seating accessible by elevator. Stage I is accessible to people with disabilities and is equipped with both assistive listening and hearing-aid compatible devices. For more information on accessibility, please click here.
Cast
Betsy Aidem
Doubt @ Westport Country Playhouse, Romeo And Juliet Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Final Follies for Primary Stages at Cherry Lane. All The Way and Beautiful on Broadway. Nikolai And The Others and Road at Lincoln Center with David Cromer. The Metal Children and Mary Rose at the Vineyard. Celebration at the Atlantic. TV: “Bull”, “Blacklist”, “Madam Secretary”, “Law And Order Svu” (Recurring), “The Americans”, “Orange Is The New Black”, Etc. Film: Ikonophile Z, A Vigilante, The Greatest Showman, Margaret, Irrational Man. OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance. IRNE nom for All The Way, BWW AWARD for Mama’s Boy. Directing: A Doll’s House Part 2 at George Street Playhouse. For my family.
Yair Ben-Dor
Yair is an Israeli-American actor, residing in NYC for the past 10 years. After graduating from the Lee Strasberg Film & Theatre Institute, Yair began a tremendous journey in acting- participating in many theater performances around the city and shooting a wide variety of films and TV spots around the US.
Some of his proud credits include: “WeCrashed”, “Quantico”, “Blue Bloods”, Three Pregnant Men and many more.
Yair also writes, directs and appears in self-produced films and series such as Suddenly, Banana and Running Local.
For more information please visit www.yairbendor.com
If that isn’t enough, Yair is also lead narrative director for indie game developer We Create Stuff. Find out more at www.wecreatestuff.com
Francis Benhamou
Selling Kabul, The Profane (Playwrights Horizons); I Call My Brothers, INVASION! (PlayCo); Motel Cherry (Clubbed Thumb/New Georges); Three Women (59E59); C:10 (The CollectiveNY). Film: Women Who Kill, Listen Up Phillip, Breaking Upwards, Arranged, Neal Cassady. TV: “Life and Beth,” “Daredevil,” “Inside Amy Schumer,” “The Bronx is Burning.” Maggie Flanigan Studio. Ensemble member of The CollectiveNY.
@francisbenhamou
Ari Brand
MTC debut. NYC theater credits include: My Name Is Asher Lev (Off-B’way); The Neil Simon Plays (B’way); The Lucky One (Mint); Black Tie (Primary Stages); Romeo and Juliet (NYSF); Much Ado About Nothing (NYCT); Scenes From Childhood (written by Ari Brand, 14th St Y). Other theater: Bad Jews (Geffen Playhouse); Arabian Nights (Berkeley, KC Reps); Last Night of Ballyhoo (Bay Street); Diary of Anne Frank (Westport); Diner (DTC); My Name Is Asher Lev (Long Wharf). TV/Film: Fosse/Verdon; Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; The Other Two; FBI; White Collar; To The Flame; Listen. B.A. Wesleyan University; BADA; LABA Fellow. For Savta.
Pierre Epstein
PIERRE EPSTEIN PUBLIC THEATRE: The Singing Forest (Freud), Little Black Sheep, Soapy Smith, Museum, others. DELACORTE: Comedy of Errors, Henry V. BROADWAY: Filumena (director: Laurence Olivier), Plenty (director, David Hare), Thieves (1974), Fun City (Joan Rivers), Black Comedy, Enter Laughing (Alan Arkin), A Shot in the Dark (Julie Harris), Sly Fox, Bajour, Baker’s Wife, others. OFF-BWAY: SIN, (Baruch Thtr.) Threepenny Opera, Room Service, Promenade, Second City, Breakfast Conversations in Miami, The Front Page, Dwarfman (Goodman, Chicago), etc. FILMS: She’s Lost Control (New Directors MOMA 2014), Gigantic, Indecent Proposal, LA Story, Splash, Love and Death (Woody), HIstoires d’Amerique, (Chantal Akerman), Five Corners, others. TV: “ER”, “LA Law”, “Lonesome Dove”, “Frasier”, “Law and Order”, “Sex and the City” (Rabbi Minsch), “The Honeymooners”, (Jackie Gleason), “Beverly Hills 90210”, etc. AWARDS: Obie,1970 The Lesson, Fringe First Edinburgh Festival 1989 – one man show, Dramalogue Award (LA 1991), SAG Comedy Ensemble Award (LA 2003). THE MOTH (Igor).
Author: The Forgotten Father of Social Security, University of Missouri Press 2007.
Emma Geer
Off Broadway/ Regional: NYC premiere of Mary Page Marlowe (Second Stage), How To Transcend a Happy Marriage (Lincoln Center Theater); Hindle Wakes and The Price of Thomas Scott (Mint Theater Company); Hamlet and Macbeth (Utah Shakespeare Festival); 4,000 Miles (Shakespeare & Company); Up the Hill (The O’Neill) Film: In The Treetops (LA Film Festival). TV: “Elementary”; “The Good Fight”. UNCSA, 2016. emma-geer.com. Proud to be represented by BRS/Gage. For Gus, as always.
Peyton Lusk
Peyton is thrilled to be making his MTC debut! Peyton’s theatre credits include Lincoln Center Theatre’s Broadway production of Falsettos, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (The Signature Theatre), Bar Mitzvah Boy (The York Theatre), The Winter’s Tale (New York Classical Theatre), and A Christmas Carol (The Greene Space). Television/film credits include Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Blindspot, The Path, Nightcap, The Affair, and Law & Order: SVU. Podcasts/voiceovers include Jerry Craft’s Class Act and New Kid, Too Scary For Kids, and The Home Game. Much love to his amazing family, to John, Mallory, and David, and to the Prayer For The French Republic creative team and cast.
Nancy Robinette
Nancy Robinette has worked in New York off-Broadway in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, at the New York Theatre Workshop in Trestle At Pope Lick Creek, and at the Roundabout. She is a recipient of the Helen Hayes Tribute, having performed in Washington DC for more than 40 years, including work at Woolly Mammoth, Arena, Ford’s, Round House, Studio, Scena, Signature, Theatre J, Shakespeare Theatre and the Folger. She has performed regionally at the Old Globe, Williamstown, Everyman, McCarter, Key West Waterfront, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, and Papermill playhouses. Film work includes The Three Christs, Serial Mom, and Soldier Jack.
Jeff Seymour
Jeff Seymour started his 42-year acting career in 1979 in television, appearing as “Gang Kid #1” in Knott’s Landing. Early on in his career, Jeff designed and built The Gnu Theatre, one of Los Angeles’s most awarded and respected theaters. Jeff worked in Canada for fifteen years, where he co-created and co-wrote his own half-hour comedy series, Jeff Ltd. He was nominated four times for the Gemini Award (Canadian Emmy) and won for his performance as Kamal Azizi in The Eleventh Hour. More recently, Jeff has appeared on shows including The Expanse, Suits, Seal Team and Homeland. Jeff currently hosts a top-rated podcast, Real Life Actor.
Kenneth Tigar
Broadway: Fish in the Dark. Off-Broadway: The Revolving Cycles, Secret Order, Treasure Island, Nourish the Beast. Regional: Freud’s Last Session, The Price, Death of a Salesman, The Coming of Stork (Los Angeles Drama Critics Award), All My Sons (Carbonell Award), Uncle Vanya, Kvetch (Dramalogue Award). Vienna: Old Wicked Songs, Wir Spielen Frieden (in German). Film: The Avengers, Lethal Weapon 2&3, Primal Fear, Phantasm II, Just One of the Guys. TV: “Barney Miller”, “The Man in the High Castle”, “Dopesick”, “Hunters”, “House of Cards”, “Bull”, “The Blacklist”, “Elementary”, “The Good Wife”, “Magnum PI”, “Hill Street Blues”, “Star Trek: Voyager”, “Dallas”, “Dynasty”, “Cheers”.
Richard Topol
Richard Topol’s appearances on Broadway include as Lemml in Indecent for which he was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award, Fish in the Dark with Larry David, Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino and the Tony Award winning revivals of Awake & Sing and The Normal Heart. Off Broadway appearances include at MTC in Regrets, as well as at The Public, Lincoln Center, The Atlantic, CSC, Playwrights Horizons, The Vineyard, Primary Stages, The New Group and TFANA. On film and TV he has appeared in Lincoln, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, “The Blacklist”, “Elementary”, all the Law & Orders and recurring on “Godfather of Harlem”, “Billions”, “Manifest”, “Genius: Einstein”, “The Practice”, “Covert Affairs”, and “Perception” among others.
Joshua Chessin-Yudin
JOSHUA CHESSIN-YUDIN Broadway: The Sound Inside. Regional: Golden Thread Productions, Theatre 22, ArtsWest, Seattle Shakespeare Company. Film: Chasing 24, A Prayer. Thank you DGRW, Saks&, LAPAZ, and the whole cast and crew. www.joshuacy.com IG: joshua_zev
Lauriel Friedman
LAURIEL FRIEDMAN Theater: Tech Support (59E59), Fire (Theatre 54), Vanity Fair, The Dingdong, Winter’s Tale (Pearl), Merchant of Venice, Two Gentlemen of Verona (Drilling Company), The Immigrant (George Street Playhouse), The Diary of Anne Frank (Shakespeare Theatre NJ), Pride and Prejudice (Guthrie). Television: “FBI: Most Wanted”, “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”. Training: Guthrie B.F.A.
Dale Place
DALE PLACE (U/S Adolphe, Pierre) Broadway: Heisenberg (MTC). National Tour: The Humans. New York: King Lear (New York Shakespeare Festival), and Nikolai and the Others (Lincoln Center Theatre). Regional: Huntington Theatre, Cleveland Play House, The Barnstormers. Film: The Fighter, The Proposal, Joy, Gone Baby Gone, and What’s Your Number?. Upcoming TV: WeCrashed, Julia.
Stephen Schnetzer
STEPHEN SCHNETZER Broadway: Waverly Gallery, Osolo, Wit, The Goat, Filumena. Theatre: Awake and Sing (Huntington), Tribes (Barrow Street), We Live Here (MTC), Quality of Life (Arena Stage), Mankind (Playwrights Horizons), Fallen Angels (Roundabout), Cymbeline (NYSF). Television: Endgame, Blue Bloods, Billions, The Path, Blacklist, The Affair, Homeland, Rubicon, Good Wife, Damages, The Wire, Another World.
Lori Wilner
LORI WILNER MTC:The Assembled Parties Bwy: Fiddler on the Roof (2005 & 2015), A Catered Affair, On a Clear Day, The Diary of Anne Frank, Domesticated, Beautiful, Awake and Sing!, People in the Picture, Those Were the Days, Everett Beekin. Drama desk nom -Hannah Senesh. Off Bwy/Reg: lots.
Betsy Aidem
Yair Ben-Dor
Francis Benhamou
Ari Brand
Pierre Epstein
Emma Geer
Peyton Lusk
Nancy Robinette
Jeff Seymour
Kenneth Tigar
Richard Topol
Joshua Chessin-Yudin
Lauriel Friedman
Dale Place
Stephen Schnetzer
Lori Wilner
Creative
Joshua Harmon
Playwright
JOSHUA HARMON (Playwright) plays include Bad Jews (Roundabout Underground; Roundabout/Laura Pels; West End), Significant Other (Roundabout; Broadway/Booth Theatre), Admissions (Lincoln Center Theater; West End), and Skintight (Roundabout). His plays have been produced across the country at Studio Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, Speakeasy, Actor’s Express, The Magic, and Theater Wit, among others, and internationally in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, and throughout the U.K. He is a two-time MacDowell fellow and an Associate Artist at Roundabout. Graduate of Juilliard.
David Cromer
Director
DAVID CROMER (Director) director and actor originally from Chicago, currently based in New York. As a director, his New York credits include The Sound Inside (Broadway); The Band’s Visit (Atlantic Theater Company, Broadway & National Tour); the Broadway revivals of Brighton Beach Memoirs and The House of Blue Leaves; The Treasurer (Playwrights Horizons); Man from Nebraska (Second Stage Theatre); The Effect, Orson’s Shadow, and Tribes (Barrow Street Theatre); Women or Nothing (Atlantic Theater Company); Really Really (MCC Theater); When the Rain Stops Falling and Nikolai and the Others (Lincoln Center Theater); and Adding Machine (Minetta Lane Theatre). Other directing credits include BUG (Steppenwolf Theatre Company) Next to Normal (Writers Theatre); Come Back, Little Sheba (Huntington Theatre Company); The Sound Inside (Williamstown Theatre Festival); and Our Town in London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and Kansas City. As an actor, he recently appeared on Broadway as Howard Fine in the 2018 production of The Waverly Gallery. Prior to that, he appeared on Broadway as Karl Lindner in the 2014 revival of A Raisin in the Sun, and Off-Broadway as the Stage Manager in Our Town, which he also directed, at the Barrow Street Theatre. He appeared in the HBO series “The Newsroom,” the Showtime series “Billions,” and in the motion picture The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected). Cromer has received a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, three Obie Awards, three Lucille Lortel Awards, a Joe A. Callaway Award, four Jeff Awards, and in 2010 was made a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.
Takeshi Kata
Scenic Design
TAKESHI KATA (Scenic Design). Broadway: Clyde’s (Helen Hayes), Derren Brown’s Secret (Cort). Recent Off-Broadway: Man From Nebraska (Second Stage), Cambodian Rock Band (Signature), Office Hour (The Public), Until the Flood (Rattlestick), Forever (NYTW), Gloria (Vineyard), Through a Glass Darkly (Atlantic). Regional: Alley, Berkeley Rep, Geffen, Goodman, Hartford Stage, La Jolla, Taper, The Old Globe, Steppenwolf and more. Obie and Jeff Awards. Drama Desk, Ovation, San Francisco Critics Circle, TBA and Barrymore Award nominations. Kata is an associate professor at University of Southern California, School of
Dramatic Arts.
Sarah Laux
Costume Design
SARAH LAUX (Costume Design). Broadway: The Band’s Visit, Fully Committed, The Humans. Selected Off-Broadway: Blue Ridge, This Ain’t No Disco, On the Shore of the Wide World, The Band’s Visit (Atlantic Theater Company); The Humans (Roundabout Theatre Company); Superhero, Man From Nebraska (Second Stage Theater); Downstairs (Primary Stages); Jerry Springer: The Opera (The New Group, Obie Award); Ultimate Beauty Bible (Pg 73); The Effect (Barrow Street Theatre); The Half Life of Marie Curie (Audible). Regional: A Play Is a Poem (Taper Theater); Before The Meeting (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Bad Dates, Come Back, Little Sheba (Huntington Theatre Company); Bad Jews (George Street Playhouse); Thresh/Hold (Pilobolus Dance Theater). Film: Freakshow, The Sixth Reel, Not Okay. Television: “High Fidelity,” “Godfather of Harlem” season two. Sarahlauxdesign.com. IG: @lauxy123
Amith Chandrashaker
Lighting Design
AMITH CHANDRASHAKER (Lighting Design). The Public, Second Stage, TFANA, Playwrights Horizons, Signature Theatre, Williamstown, Ars Nova, Soho Rep, Berkeley Rep, The Atlantic, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Omaha, Opera Colorado, The Atlanta Opera. Dance works by Alexander Ekman, Liz Gerring, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Rennie Harris. Recipient of the Drama Desk and Henry Hewes awards. Assistant professor of lighting at The University of Maryland.
Lee Kinney
Sound Design
LEE KINNEY (Sound Design) is a sound and music artist working in theatre, film and events. Broadway: Is This A Room. MTC: Morning Sun. Off-Broadway: Selling Kabul (Playwrights Horizons); “Daddy” (The New Group/Vineyard); Thom Pain (Signature); Sunday (Atlantic); Gnit (Theatre for a New Audience). Other projects include work with Google, Virgin Voyages and The Dance Cartel. Awarded Outer Critics Circle Honors for Outstanding Sound Design, nominated for Lucille Lortel Award, Drama Desk Award and Henry Hewes Design Award.
Daniel Kluger
Sound Design & Original Music
DANIEL KLUGER (Sound Design & Original Music). Broadway: Oklahoma! (new arrangements and orchestrations), The Sound Inside, Seawall/A Life, revival of Marvin’s Room, world premiere of Significant Other. Off-Broadway: premieres of I Was Most Alive With You, Animal, The Village Bike, Man From Nebraska, Tribes and Women or Nothing. Film scores: A Christmas Carol (2021), The Courtroom (2021), Duolo (2017), Health to the King (2020), Hello Again (2017, Orchestrations). In 2021, Kluger launched the music label Archie & Fox Records. danielkluger.com
J. Jared Janas
Hair and Makup Design
J. JARED JANAS (Hair and Makeup Design). Broadway: Jagged Little Pill, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Gettin’ the Band Back Together, Bandstand, Indecent, Sunset Boulevard, The Visit, The Real Thing, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, Motown, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and All about Me. Recent Off-Broadway: Kimberly Akimbo, Seven Deadly Sins, Sing Street and Yours Unfaithfully (Mint Theatre, Drama Desk nomination). Recent TV: “And Just Like That,” “The Gilded Age” and “Gotham.”
James Latus
Production Stage Manager
(Production Stage Manager). Broadway: Oklahoma!; True West; Farinelli and the King; Time and the Conways; Indecent; Jitney; All the Way; A Time to Kill; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Clybourne Park; The Peewee Herman Show; Elaine Stritch at Liberty; How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Stones in His Pockets; Bells are Ringing; The Capeman. The Public Theater: 20 productions downtown, most recently The Visitor, with David Hype Pierce, directed by Dan Sullivan and 14 productions at Delacorte Theater. Also numerous Off-Broadway and Regional productions.
Lindsay Eberly
Stage Manager
(Stage Manager) MTC: Bella Bella. Off-Broadway: A Sign of the Times (LDK), By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, Paradise Blue (Signature), Tell Hector I Miss Him (Atlantic), Intractable Woman (PlayCo), Carnegie Hall’s West Side Story. Regional: Three seasons at Baltimore Center Stage including A Civil War Christmas and Amadeus. Nine seasons at CATF including Antonio’s Song and The Niceties. Recent Alien Abductions (ATL). Queens For A Year (Hartford Stage).
Gigi Buffington
Vocal Coach
Joshua Harmon
Playwright
David Cromer
Director
Takeshi Kata
Scenic Design
Sarah Laux
Costume Design
Amith Chandrashaker
Lighting Design
Lee Kinney
Sound Design
Daniel Kluger
Sound Design & Original Music
J. Jared Janas
Hair and Makup Design
James Latus
Production Stage Manager
Lindsay Eberly
Stage Manager
Gigi Buffington
Vocal Coach
Photos
Nancy Robinette, Kenneth Tigar, Ari Brand, Pierre Epstein, Peyton Lusk, Richard Topol in
Prayer for the French Republic (2022)
Photo by Matt Murphy
Francis Benhamou, Jeff Seymour, Yair Ben-Dor, Betsy Aidem in
Prayer for the French Republic (2022)
Photo by Matt Murphy
Peyton Lusk in
Prayer for the French Republic (2022)
Richard Topol in
Prayer for the French Republic (2022)
Photo by Matt Murphy
