Second Stage to Present New Plays by Russian Doll Co-Creator Leslye Headland and Pulitzer Winner Donald Margulies

Second Stage Theater has announced two new fall productions for its upcoming season, including the New York premiere of a play by Russian Doll co-creator and Emmy nominee Leslye Headland, opening on Broadway in December. 

In Headland's Cult of Love, four adult children return to their childhood home with partners in tow. The family’s holiday traditions include singing carols in harmony at the drop of a hat, but the gathering is anything but harmonious. Old conflicts resurface, new issues battled, and dinner is taking absolutely forever to be served. Will the love the Dahls have for each other be enough to get them through, or will this be their last Christmas together? Trip Cullman (Lobby Hero) will direct the play, beginning performances at Broadway's Hayes Theater on November 20 with an official opening set for December 12.

In October at off-Broadway's Tony Kiser Theater, Second Stage will also present Lunar Eclipse, a play about the fragility of memory and the passage of time by Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies, starring Tony Award winner Reed Birney and Ozark actress Lisa Emery. Late on a summer night, in a field on their Kentucky farm, a long-married couple, George (Birney) and Em (Emery), have come to watch a lunar eclipse. As the seven stages of the celestial phenomenon unfold, the two sip bourbon and reflect on land and legacy, and children and dogs. But as more and more is revealed, they realize they are as much a mystery to each other as the heavens above. Lunar Eclipse is the universal story of a couple reckoning with the time they’ve spent on earth and the time they have left.

Birney won the Tony for his performance in The Humans and has had screen roles in The Menu, Gossip Girl, House of Cards and The Blacklist. Emery, best known for playing the role of Darlene Snell in Netflix’s crime drama Ozark, last appeared on Broadway in Six Degrees of Separation. Kate Whoriskey (Clyde’s) will direct the play, which begins performances on October 9, with an official opening set for October 30.