The Understudy

Franz Kafka's undiscovered masterpiece in its Broadway premiere is the hilarious setting for Theresa Rebeck's exploration of the existential vagaries of show business and life ...

Charged with running the understudy rehearsal for the production, Roxanne finds her professional and personal life colliding when Harry, a journeyman actor and her ex-fiancé, is cast as the understudy to Jake, a mid-tier action star yearning for legitimacy

As Harry and Jake find their common ground, Roxanne tries to navigate the rehearsal with a stoned lightboard operator, an omnipresent intercom system, the producers threatening to shut the show and her own feelings about both actors and her past

Will the show go on?

REVIEWS

" ... delivers a clever indictment of contemporary theatre while making the characters' personal circumstances ever more Kafkaesque: They are no more in control of the forces of celebrity, art, money, and Broadway than they are of their own fates" ~ The New Yorker