About the production
At a dinner party in a successful Pakistani-American lawyer’s Upper East Side apartment, a friendly conversation about art, faith and identity turns explosive, and everything he has built comes under threat.
“Senior's sure-handed production deftly swerves unexpectedly between domestic comedy and tragedy almost before we know what has hit us.”
— Theatre Mania, Evan Henerson
“Kimberly Senior, who directed 'Disgraced' on Broadway and has had a fruitful association with the playwright, is in top form at the Taper. This is an ideal forum for this intelligent play. The stage is at once intimate and expansive, drawing the audience into the kind of public-minded work Taper founder Gordon Davidson tirelessly championed.”
— LA Times, Charles McNulty
“Kimberly Senior, who has been with the play as director since its earliest incarnation in Chicago, masterfully stages her stellar performers around John Lee Beatty's impressively appointed set as though designing a world-class game of real-life chess, a stage picture complete when her players get knocked down and eliminated just like chess pieces.”
— Arts In L.A., Travis Michael Holder
“Director Kimberly Senior must have gotten into her actors with a larding needle to make them absorb their characters so fully. Senior's hand in staging is remarkably invisible, at least until we realize with a jolt that the actors have left their generous portions of fennel-and-anchovy salads on the dinner table and are now in the living room, prowling around one another like famished tigers. The play builds like a tsunami, and we are stunned into gawking at its devastation.”
— Los Angeles News, Danny Margolies
“Performances in director Kimberly Senior’s intimate production nicely simmer until events take a striking left turn into an act of rageful violence that is as shocking as it is surprising.”
— Stage and Cinema
“Under the highly skilled direction of Kimberly Senior, each of the actors gives a stunning performance as people with secrets that are revealed in the harshest manner, with the 90-minute play flying by in a flash.”
— WestsideToday
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Credits
Written by Ayad Akhtar
Directed by Kimberly Senior
Featuring Hari Dhillon (Amir), Emily Swallow (Emily), J. Anthony Crane (Isaac), Karen Pittman (Jory), Behzad Dabu (Abe)
Set John Lee Beatty
Lights Christine A. Binder
Sound Jill BC Du Boff
Costumes Jennifer von Mayrhauser
Photos by Craig Schwartz
