Merry Me runs 90 minutes with no intermission.
CONTENT TRANSPARENCY: In an effort to care for our community, we’re sharing details about this production that may be sensitive for members of our audience. The following information may reveal plot points.
Merry Me contains strobe effects, flashing lights, loud sounds and simulated sexual acts.
New York Theatre Workshop strives to be both an active producing theatre, engaging in an ongoing conversation with our audiences, and a nurturing workshop, providing off-stage support to a diverse community of artists. Our workshop activities are designed to provide artists a space to experiment and are not open to the public. However, the development of the work we share with our audiences is an important part of the conversation around each production. To that end, we include information on the piece’s provenance, or beginnings, in our programs.
Playwright Hansol Jung and director Leigh Silverman both have long relationships with NYTW—Leigh’s beginning as an intern in 1996 and Hansol’s as a 2050 Playwriting Fellow in our 2015/16 season. Both have developed many pieces under the auspices of NYTW’s Workshop and Leigh has directed Oedipus at Palm Springs by the Five Lesbian Brothers in 2005 and Madeleine George’s Hurricane Diane in 2019.
Leigh and Hansol first collaborated on Hansol’s play Cardboard Piano at the 2016 Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville. They subsequently worked together on Hansol’s play Wild Goose Dreams (developed as part of her 2050 Fellowship) at La Jolla Playhouse and The Public Theater. As the rehearsal period for Wild Goose Dreams was coming to a close, Hansol asked Leigh what they should work on together next and Leigh proposed Hansol write a lesbian sex comedy.
Excited by Leigh’s request and inspired by the work of Euripides, William Wycherley and a panoply of queer iconic artists from the 20th and 21st centuries, Hansol set to work writing Merry Me. In the interceding years, Hansol and Leigh developed the text, nurtured by dramaturgs Jeanie O’Hare and Lexy Leuszler and a company of remarkable actors—many of whom are in the play tonight. We began working with Hansol & Leigh on Merry Me in March 2023 in advance of this production, providing opportunity for text workshops and a sound lab to develop the foley language used in the piece. The cast and creative team brings together frequent collaborators of both Leigh and Hansol to imagine the raucous world of Merry Me.
Off-Broadway: You Will Get Sick (Roundabout), Sandblasted (Vineyard), The Cake (MTC), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mobile Unit), Teenage Dick, Miss You Like Hell (The Public); The Treasurer, Bella: An American Tall Tale, A Life, Far from Heaven (Playwrights Horizons); Sex of the Baby (Access Theatre); Obama-ology (The Juilliard School). Regional: Airness (Humana); A Doll’s House (Huntington); Three Sisters (Playmaker’s Rep); Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Intimate Apparel (Dorset Theatre Festival); Fairfield (Cleveland Play House). TV: “A League of Their Own”,”Evil”,”Law & Order: Organized Crime”,“New Amsterdam,” “High Maintenance,” “Madam Secretary,” “Gotham.” BFA: Howard University. MFA: NYU Graduate Acting Program. marindaanderson.com
Theater: Catch As Catch Can, Log Cabin, Iow@ (Playwrights Horizons), Golden Shield (MTC), Tiny Beautiful Things (Long Wharf), The Great Immensity (The Civilians), Middletown (Vineyard), The Seagull, Antigone (NAATCO), Sugar House…(Ma-Yi), Making Tracks (2G), Sides: The Fear Is Real (Ma-Yi/MIYAGI).
TV/Film: The Sinner, The Flight Attendant, Thirteen Reasons Why, Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens, Billions, High Maintenance, The Good Fight, Bull, Blue Bloods, New Amsterdam, FBI, Kevin Can Wait, House of Cards, Elementary, Homeland, Love In Taipei, Mistress America, The Light of the Moon, Wolves, The Sunlit Night, A Kid Like Jake, Obvious Child, Children of Invention, Robot Stories, Lady In The Water. Proud community member of: AAPAC Steering Committee, MIYAGI, The Actors Center Workshop Company, E.S.T., The Civilians. Eddie and Walter – Be home soon.
Esco Jouléy is an actor, singer, dancer, clown, movement artist, and creator. Recent credits include Sundance STATE OF THE UNION, Starz BLINDSPOTTING, HBO’s HIGH MAINTENANCE, Netflix INVENTING ANNA, Hulu’s MONSTERLAND and Bravo’s IN A MAN’S WORLD, where they appeared as a movement coach. Esco’s theatre credits include: Twelfth Night, Wolf Play, As You Like It, Interstate, Runaways, Galatea, The Demise (Magic Theater Player), Beowulf. Esco was a resident actor at the historic Barter Theater for three and a half years and is an alum of the ABC Discovers Showcase.
Broadway: One Man Two Guvnors, Passing Strange. Off Broadway: Malvolio (Classical Theater of Harlem) Epiphany (Lincoln Center); Merry Wives, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry V, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, The Comedy of Errors, Pericles (Public Theater/NYSF); Where We Stand (Women’s Project); Passage (Soho Rep); The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (Signature Theater Company); Mankind (Playwrights Horizons); Gone Missing (City Center Encores!); The Glory of the World (BAM); Arden of Faversham (Red Bull Theater); Candida (Gingold Theatrical Group) Regional: Berkeley Rep, Repertory Theater of Saint Louis, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Barrington Stage Company, American Conservatory Theater, Dallas Theater Center, California Shakespeare Theater, among others. Film: Relay (upcoming), The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Medal of Victory, Bee Season. Other Credits: Member of Project Number One at Soho Rep 2020/21 Season and serves on the Acting Faculty at The Playwrights Horizons Theater School/NYU.
RYAN SPAHN (he/him). NYTW debut. Ryan can currently be seen on FX’s “American Horror Story: Delicate,” written by Halley Feiffer. Recent New York theater credits include Yilong Liu’s Good Enemy at the Audible Theatre and Talene Monahon’s Jane Anger at the New Ohio. Other notable productions: How To Load A Musket, Daniel’s Husband, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Mr. Toole, Summer & Smoke, Still at Risk, Exit Strategy, and Gloria, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Ryan has performed at some of the nation’s acclaimed theaters including: Goodman Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Berkshire Theatre Group, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Vineyard Playhouse, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. TV: “Succession”, “Modern Love”, “The Bite”, “The Blacklist,” and “Chicago P.D”. On film, he will appear in the upcoming feature Parachute, written and directed by Brittany Snow. As a filmmaker, Ryan co-wrote the feature comedy He’s Way More Famous Than You, as well as wrote and produced the films Grantham & Rose, Woven, Who We Were, Router, and The Other John. Streaming: “What’s Your Emergency,” directed by Michael Urie. His films have collectively played 20+ film festivals worldwide. Ryan received his BFA from Juilliard. IG: @ryanspahn
Nicole Villamil, Actor, Member of The Pack Company. Recent Credits: Wolf Play (MCC Theatre), Wolf Play (Soho Rep), How to load a Musket (59E59), Network (Broadway), Queens (LCT3), Lessons in Survival (Vineyard Theatre -Online Series), MUD (Boundless Theatre), Shakespeare’s R&J (Hangar Theatre), De Profundis (PlayMakers Rep), Tell me I’m not Crazy, The Rose Tattoo (Williamstown Theatre Festival) The Hunchback of Seville, The Love of the Nightingale (Trinity Repertory Co.); TELEVISION: New Amsterdam, The Last OG; [Edu] M.F.A., Brown/Trinity Repertory Co.; B.A., University of Pennsylvania. She is the 2023 Lucille Lortel Award Recipient for Outstanding Ensemble. @nicoleavillamil @the_pack_company
Shaunette is thrilled to be making her NYTW debut. Previous theater credits include La Race Page 73/Working Theatre (Off-Broadway), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Yale Rep), Cymbeline (Yale Rep), The House That Will Not Stand (Yale Rep). Shaunette was most recently seen in Disney/Luscasfilm’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” Wilson will next be seen in Hulu’s continent-crossing limited series “Washington Black,” opposite Sterling K. Brown as well as the lead in Kahlil Joseph’s upcoming feature, “BLKNWS” for A24. She recently wrapped filming the indie, “Press Your Luck” opposite Paul Walter Houser. Following her first film appearance as a Dora Milaje in Marvel’s “Black Panther,” she was fan favorite ‘Dr. Mina Okofor’ on four seasons of FOX’s “The Resident”. Other TV credits include “Billions” and Hulu/Blumhouse’s “Into the Dark” anthology series. Wilson was honored at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival by Variety and Golden Globes with their ‘Breakthrough Award’. Shaunette is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and a recipient of the Princess Grace Award.
Join us in community at one of our many free pre- and post-show events with our partners including Cubbyhole, RISE, The Gray Mare, LAMBDA Literary, Sidney's Five, Babetown, The Center, National Queer Theater, Henrietta Hudson and more!
As writer Merryn Johns puts it, “The moment a Black Sapphic angel introduces us to Lieutenant Shane Horne as “God’s gift to lady parts of all shapes, colors, and vintages,” Merry Me promises a wild ride centering on lesbian eros. And it delivers."