“Waiting for Lefty” revived Off-Broadway: first look at the cast led by Steven Pasquale

Clifford Odets’ classic, “Waiting for Lefty”, will be revived Off-Broadway this autumn, and audiences can already see the first portraits of the cast, as Playbill reports. The new Classic Stage Company (CSC) production, directed by Steven Pasquale, will begin performances on October 15 and will remain on stage until November 22 at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater, with the opening night set for November 2.

The cast, which has undergone slight changes from the earlier announcements, includes well-known names of the New York stage: Tony nominee Tala Ashe (“English”), Adam Kantor (“The Band’s Visit”), as well as other newly announced members — Raffi Barsoumian, Austin Durant (“Moulin Rouge! The Musical”), Greg Hildreth, Doireann Mac Mahon, Zach McNally, Sahar Milani, Cameron Scoggins and Henry Stram, Playbill writes.

The play, premiered in 1935, focuses on a group of exhausted New York taxi drivers of the Great Depression era, who gather to make a decision that will change their lives. In Pasquale’s version, the CSC stage will be transformed into a high-tension union hall, with original music written by the duo Yeller Tooth (Sahar Milani and Cameron Scoggins) and stage movement by Susan Misner.

“I wanted to do a full, Brechtian evening of ‘Waiting for Lefty’ that felt multidisciplinary,” Pasquale told Playbill, explaining that he gathered “some of my favourite actors — and they all jumped immediately at this opportunity, to do this play at this moment, in this place”. The creative team is completed by set designer Scott Adam Davis, costume designer Márion Talán de la Rosa, lighting by Mextly Couzin and sound by Palmer Hefferan.