Shapeshifter
by Laura Schellhardt
directed by Halena S. Kays

Premiere: October 19, 2022 at 7:30pm ET
Live watch party premier hosted by Paula Vogel
Virtual doors open at 7pm.
Broadcast starts at 7:30pm.

On a remote island in a distant past, a young girl grapples with the mysterious loss of her mother. As the truth unfolds, two strangers arrive harboring secrets of their own. Laura Schellhardt’s contemporary folktale, Shapeshifter, highlights the consequences of restricting women’s agency — through gossip, the assumption of marriage and motherhood, or captivity in other forms. How much power is lost when one is forced to stifle their true nature to placate a community terrified of change?

The cast of SHAPESHIFTERS features Anita Abdinezhad, Gabriela Torres, Ora Jones, Francis Guinan, Stephen Plunkett, Robbie Tann and Calvin Leon Smith. Ms. Schellhardt’s play was previously produced at Brown University and Trinity Rep.

Buy Tickets

The play will debut on October 19, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. as part of a live watch party, hosted by Paula Vogel, and a Talk Back with members of the SHAPESHIFTER and BARD companies immediately following the premiere.

Tickets for Shapeshifter are now available through Broadway On Demand. Click the button below to order.

Bios

Laura Schellhardt is a Chicago-based playwright and adaptor. Her original works include Ever in the Glades (Distinguished Play Award, AATE), Digging Up Dessa (Distinguished Play Award, AATE), The Comparables, The Handbook, Upright Grand, Air Guitar High, Auctioning the Ainsleys (Jeff Award Nominee), The Apothecary’s Daughter, How to Remove Blood from a Carpet, The K of D (Jeff Award Nominee, NYC Fringe Best New Play Award), Courting Vampires, Shapeshifter, Inheritance, and Je Ne Sais Quoi. Adaptations include The Phantom Tollbooth, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, The Outfit (Jeff Award Nominee), and Creole Folktales. She is also the author of Screenwriting for Dummies. Schellhardt is a recipient of the AATE Distinguished Play Award, the New Frontiers Commission, the TCG National Playwriting Residency, the Jerome Fellowship, the New Play Award from ACT in Seattle, and a Dramatist Guild Playwriting Fellowship. She has participated in the SoHo Rep Writer/Director Lab, the Women Playwrights Festival at SRC, The Kennedy Center’s New Voices/New Visions Festival, The Bonderman TYA Symposium, The Ojai New Play Conference, The Denver Center New Play Summit, The Bay Area Theatre Festival, and the O’Neill National Playwright’s Festival among others. She received her graduate degree from Brown University, under the tutelage of Paula Vogel. Laura is a former Victory Gardens Resident Playwright and a current member of the MC-10 Playwrights Collective. She oversees the undergraduate playwriting program in the Department of Theatre at Northwestern University. 

Halena Kays is a theater maker from Chicago. She is an Artistic Associate with the Neo-Futurists where she has directed the world premieres of Wildcats, Comfortable Shoes, Pop/Waits, 44 Plays for 44 Presidents, Burning Bluebeard, Daredevils, Daredevils Hamlet and Fake Lake. Selected Chicago directing credits: Endgame, Ivywild, Six Characters in Search of an Author (The Hypocrites); The Magic Play (The Goodman), Lord of the Flies (Steppenwolf); How a Boy Falls (Northlight Theatre); On Clover Road (American Blues Theater); Feast (part of a collaboration) with The Albany Park Theatre Project (The Goodman). Regionally: The Welkin (Nashville Story Garden), The Magic Play (The Olney Theater Center, The Actor’s Theater of Louisville, Portland Center Stage and Syracuse Stage), Love Song (Nashville Story Garden), and Secretary (Nashville Rep’s Ingram New Works Festival). Halena is a founding member of The Ruffians, former member of the Big Apple Circus Clown Care unit, and past AD of The Hypocrites and Playmakers Lab. Halena is an assistant professor of MFA acting and directing at Northwestern University. She has been nominated for Jefferson awards for Best Supporting Actress, Best Direction, Best New Work, and Best Production, and is a recipient of the prestigious 3Arts award. Proud member, SDC.

Anita Abdinezhad is elated to be collaborating with McCarter Theatre and Bard at the Gate. Her previous theatre credits include: POTUS (Broadway- Shubert Theatre), Persian Pod (Ars Nova), Bismillah (Wild Project), The Welcoming Committee (The Lark), The Tempest and The Taming of the Shrew (New Swan Shakespeare Festival), A Christmas Carol (South Coast Repertory). Film credits: Eradication (Tubi Original). TV credits: Ahamed’s Ramadan Diary (Comedy Central). She is a 2022 Columbia MFA Acting graduate. anitaabdinezhad.com @awni.joon

Gabriela Torres is a proud first-generation Mexican American, born in El Paso, Texas and raised in its border “sister city” Juarez, Mexico. She is a recent MFA Acting graduate from The Juilliard School, where she co-founded the first LatinX student organization and sponsored events that encouraged students to share their culture through their art. Favorite Juilliard credits include: F***ing A (Hester), Macbeth (Lady Macbeth), and Anthony and Cleopatra (Cleopatra). She was a guest artist on the Lincoln Center project “You Are Here,” curated and directed by Andrea Miller, and starred in the podcast “Tejana” with Stephanie Beatriz, produced by “Sonoro.” She also worked on a 29-hour workshop of “How to Defend Yourself,” produced by New York Theater Workshop. She has performed in various Latino plays, including Cecilia in “Lydia” by Octavio Solis, for which she received the “Outstanding Performance in Acting” National Award from The Kennedy Center in 2018. Gabii is also a graduate of the Midsummer Program at BADA in Oxford, England, and received her BFA from UTEP.

Ora Jones’ most recent role was the Mother in True West, for the Galway International Arts Festival. She most recently appeared in Chicago as the Countess in All’s Well that Ends Well for Chicago Shakespeare Theater. She is a member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble, having performed the role of Rose in The Children. She also appeared in Familiar, The Roommate, and The Doppleganger in the past few seasons there. Other Steppenwolf productions include The Wheel, Middletown, The Brother/Sister Plays,Three Sisters, The Unmentionables, The Violet Hour, Carter’s Way, and Morning Star. Her Broadway roles include Madame de Volanges in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Booth, and Mrs. Phelps in Matilda the Musical, both at the Shubert and in the first national tour. Some Chicago roles include Katherine of Aragon in Henry VIII, Queen Charlotte in The Madness of George III, Maria in Twelfth Night, Lucienne in A Flea in Her Ear, and the Nurse in Sunday in the Park with George, for Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Essie Miller in Ah, Wilderness, Mrs. Rittenhouse in Animal Crackers, Claire in Proof, C Ana Seeking the Genesis, and Elizabeth I in The Beard of Avon, for the Goodman Theatre; Jaclyn in Joel Drake Johnson’s Rasheeda Speaking for Rivendell Theatre; Rita Jeffries in My Kind of Town for Timeline Theatre; the Stage Manager in Our Town for Writers Theatre; and Gwen in Execution of Justice for About Face Theatre. Regional and other New York credits include performances at Long Wharf Theatre, Yale Repertory, Manhattan Theatre Club, Public Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory, Next Act, The Weston Playhouse in Weston VT; she also played the role of Dr. Therese Stockman in the world premier of The Messenger for Pioneer Theatre Company in Utah. Some film and television appearances include We Grown Now, 61st Street, Somebody somewhere, Consumed, Were the World Mine, Stranger than Fiction, Betrayal, and Chicago Fire.

Francis Guinan has been a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble since 1979. He has appeared in more than 30 Steppenwolf productions including The Herd, The Night Alive, Tribes, The Birthday Party, The Book Thief, Time Stands Still, Endgame, American Buffalo, Fake, The Seafarer and August: Osage County. He has also appeared in productions for Northlight Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Writers Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, TimeLine Theatre Company and American Blues Theater. Television appearances include The Exorcist, Boss, Mike and Molly, Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Frasier and several Star Trek episodes. Film work includes roles in The Last Airbender, Typing, Low Tide and Constantine. For Kate.

Stephen Plunkett (Mike):  Notable acting credits include the lead in John Magary’s Independent-Spirit-nominated film, The Mend, opposite Josh Lucas; Drew Britton’s Back at the Staircase; and Aaron Schimberg’s Chained for Life, opposite Jess Wexler. He has also starred on Broadway in War Horse at Lincoln Center, and, on television, as Robert Saunders on NBC’s Rise. He currently recurs as Detective Desmond Troy in East New York on CBS. MFA, NYU Grad Acting.

Robbie Tann is a New York based actor who works in television, film and theater. Recent credits include Mare of Easttown, the upcoming feature film True Love and Black Mirror. Theatrical credits include productions at Berkeley Rep, Long Wharf Theater, Actors Theater of Louisville Rattlestick, Clubbed Thumb and the Pearl.

Calvin Leon Smith.  Off-Broadway: Fat Ham (The Public Theater) Regional Theatre: Several plays at the Actor’s Theater of Louisville and the Clarence Brown Theater; On The Grounds of Belonging at the Long Wharf Theatre, Macbeth at Shakespeare on the Sound. TV: The Underground Railroad (Amazon), The Deuce (HBO), High Maintenance (HBO). Film: Paper Friends, RSVP, Surprise. Calvin received his M.F.A. in Acting from the Juilliard School.