Tony winner Michael Cerveris, Tony winner John Glover, Dale Place and more will star in the Lincoln Center Theater production of Richard Nelson’s new play Nikolai and the Others. Directed by David Cromer, performances are scheduled to begin April 4, with an official opening night on May 6 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. Additional casting will be announced shortly.
Set in 1948 on a spring weekend in Westport, CT, Nikolai and the Others tells the story of a close-knit group of Russian emigres who gather to eat, drink and talk. Over the course of the weekend, Nelson reimagines the creation of Balanchine (Cerveris) and Stravinsky’s (Glover) historic collaboration, the ballet Orpheus, and explores the interesting and controversial ways American art was funded at the outset of the Cold War. Throughout the play, moments of Balanchine’s original Orpheus choreography will be staged.
In addition to Cerveris, Glover and Place as conductor Serge Koussevitsky, Nikolai and the Others stars Alvin Epstein (Marcel Marceau and Company) as painter/set designer Sergey Sudeikin and Stephen Kunken (The Columnist) as composer Nikolai Nabokov, as well as Betsy Aidem (A Lie of the Mind), Blair Brown (Copenhagen), Anthony Cochrane (The Coast of Utopia), Lauren Culpepper (Really Really), Kathryn Erbe (A Month in the Country), Jennifer B. Grace (Our Town), Katie Kreisler (The House of Blue Leaves), Haviland Morris (Tartuffe: Born Again), John Procaccino (The Light in the Piazza), Gareth Saxe (The Lion King) and Alan Schmuckler (Rent).
Cerveris earned a Tony Award for Assassins and additional nominations for The Who’s Tommy, Sweeney Todd, Lovemusik and Evita. His other Broadway credits include In the Next Room, Hedda Gabler, Cymbeline and Titanic. Glover earned a Tony Award for Love! Valour! Compassion! and an additional nomination for Waiting for Godot. His other Broadway credits include Death of a Salesman, The Royal Family, The Drowsy Chaperone, Tartuffe, Design For Living, Whodunnit, Frankenstein and The Importance of Being Earnest. Place’s off-Broadway credits include Happy Birthday, Wanda June, Hedda Gabler and The Water Engine.
Nikolai and the Others features sets by Marsha Ginsberg, costumes by Jane Greenwood, lighting by Ken Billington, sound by Daniel Kluger, choreography by George Balanchine and ballet staging by Rosemary Dunleavy. Jeff Edwards serves as Ballet Master.