Curse of the Starving Class
by Sam Shepard
directed by Scott Elliott
with David Anzuelo, Kyle Beltran, Calista Flockhart, Cooper Hoffman, Jeb Kreager, Stella Marcus, Christian Slater
Performances begin February 4, 2025
Tickets start at $74
Includes a $3 ticket feeRomulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at
The Pershing Square Signature Center
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Overview
Sam Shepard’s fiercely funny, OBIE award-winning play returns to the stage. With their family home on the verge of collapse and the creditors closing in, the Tate family white knuckles to their past, while scratching and clawing their way towards a better future.
Told through a contemporary biting lens, this classic story dismantles the American dream in its look at a family fighting to stay alive.
Cast
David Anzuelo
Malcom/SlaterCredits with The New Group: Intimacy, Aunt Dan & Lemon. Other Off-Broadway: Shared Sentences (Houses On The Moon Theater); Halfway Bitches Go Straight To Heaven (Labyrinth Theater Company); Fish Men, Se Llama Cristina (Intar). Regional: Manning (Portland Stage), Mother Road (Arena), Oedipus El Rey (Woolly Mammoth), Frost/Nixon (St. Louis Rep), The Mother#cker With The Hat (Kitchen Theater), Stand-Up Tragedy (Body Politic, Joseph Jefferson Award for best supporting actor). TV: “The Americans,” “Succession,” “Blue Bloods,” "White Collar,” “Deadbeat,” “Elementary,” Law & Order CI,” “Mercy,” “The Sopranos.” Film: A Walk Among The Tombstones, Remember Me, A New York Christmas Wedding, You Won’t Miss Me.
Kyle Beltran
TaylorBroadway: The Cherry Orchard, In The Heights (& First National Tour). Off-Broadway: A Case for the Existence of God (Signature Theater, Drama Desk & Lortel noms), Find Me Here (Clubbed Thumb), Lessons In Survival (Vineyard Theatre), Blue Ridge (Atlantic Theater Company), Fire In Dreamland (Public Theater), Tin Cat Shoes (Clubbed Thumb), The Amateurs (Vineyard), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Public Theater), Head of Passes (Public Theater), The Flick (Barrow Street), Gloria (Vineyard Theatre), The Fortress of Solitude (Public Theater), Choir Boy (MTC, AUDELCO Award), 10 Things to Do Before I Die (2ST). Regional: Williamstown, Goodman, Dallas Theater Center, Steppenwolf, Yale Rep, The Old Globe. TV/Film: Ramon Fisher on American Rust: Broken Justice (Prime), American Horror Story (FX), Inventing Anna (Netflix), Olga Dies Dreaming (Hulu, pilot), American Rust (Showtime), David Makes Man (OWN/Max), The Shivering Truth (Adult Swim), Horace and Pete (Pig Newton), The Big C (Showtime), Unforgettable (CBS). BFA in Drama, Carnegie Mellon.
Calista Flockhart
Ella TateCalista Flockhart has a remarkable theater background, with Broadway and Off-Broadway credits including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Three Sisters, The Glass Menagerie, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Bash: Latterday Plays, Sophistry, The Loop, Sons and Fathers, Wrong Turn at Lungfish, The Imposter, Beside Herself, Bovver Boys, Death Takes a Holiday, and Mad Forest. On television, she starred in “FEUD: Capote vs. The Swans,” “Ally McBeal,” “Brothers & Sisters,” and “Supergirl.” Her film credits include The Birdcage, Telling Lies in America, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her.
Cooper Hoffman
Wesley TateCooper Hoffman burst onto the scene starring as Gary Valentine in Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Licorice Pizza. His performance earned nominations for both Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe Awards. Cooper can be seen in Saturday Night, directed by Jason Reitman. Cooper recently filmed Lionsgate’s The Long Walk, for director Francis Lawrence, where he holds the lead role. Cooper can also be seen in the feature Wildcat, directed by Ethan Hawke, which premiered at the 2023 TIFF to rave reviews. Cooper just wrapped Gregg Araki’s new film, I Want Your Sex, opposite Olivia Wilde. He is currently shooting Maude Apatow's Poetic License.
Jeb Kreager
Ellis/EmersonJeb Kreager’s numerous recurring and guest star credits include Mare of Easttown, The Undoing, Mindhunter, Marvel’s The Punisher, For Life, One Dollar, Outsiders, The Good Fight, Bull, Person of Interest, Chicago Med, Law & Order: SVU and Boardwalk Empire. Film credits include James Gray’s Armageddon Time, Gareth Edwards’ upcoming True Love (2023) , Hell House LLC, Animal Husbandry and Funny Bunny. Jeb has appeared onstage in the US, Europe and Latin America; recent work includes the world premiere and Broadway runs of JT Rogers’ Oslo and Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning at Playwrights Horizons), both of which earned him Obie Awards. He is a founding member of Philadelphia’s New Paradise Laboratories and has created 15 original works with the group.
Stella Marcus
Emma TateFilm: Redux Reduxx, When We Were Old, Astrophysics. Theatre: The Mountainbuilders (Theatre Row). Stella is a graduate of the William Esper Studio where she studied for two years with Suzanne Esper.
Christian Slater
Weston TateGolden Globe winner Christian Slater has led an impressive career spanning film, television, stage, and producing. He will next star as Harry Morgan in the prequel series ”Dexter: Original Sin,” for Paramount+. Recently, Slater appeared in Zoe Kravitz’s Blink Twice and Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted. Best known for his role in “Mr. Robot,” Slater won Critics Choice and Golden Globe Awards for his work. Other notable TV credits include “Dr. Death,” and his film work includes The Wife, Nymphomaniac, Heathers, and True Romance. On Broadway, he starred in The Glass Menagerie and on the West End, he starred in GlenGarry Glen Ross and Swimming with Sharks, among many others.
Creative Team
Sam Shepard
PlaywrightSam Shepard’s first New York plays, Cowboys and The Rock Garden, were produced by Theatre Genesis in 1963. For several seasons, he worked with Off-Off-Broadway theater groups including La MaMa and Caffe Cino. Eleven of his plays won Obie Awards, including Chicago, The Tooth of a Crime, and Curse of the Starving Class. Other award-winning plays include Fool for Love, True West, A Lie of the Mind, and Buried Child, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979. In 1986, Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy in 1992. He was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame two years later. As a writer and director, he filmed Far North and Silent Tongue. As an actor, he appeared in numerous films, including The Right Stuff, Days of Heaven and Resurrection. His final works of prose, The One Inside and Spy of the First Person, were published in 2017, the year of his death.
Scott Elliott
DirectorScott Elliott is the founding artistic director of The New Group theater and New Group Off Stage, a multi-media division of the company. He most recently directed Jessica Goldberg’s Babe, featuring Arliss Howard, Gracie McGraw and Marisa Tomei. Other recent productions include the world premieres of The Seven Year Disappear by Jordan Seavey, The Seagull/Woodstock, NY by Thomas Bradshaw, and the musical Black No More by John Ridley and Tariq Trotter.
Arnulfo Maldonado
Scenic DesignBroadway: A Strange Loop (Tony Nominee); Topdog/Underdog; Trouble In Mind. New Group: The Fever, one in two. Off-Broadway: Shhhh (Atlantic); Nollywood Dreams, School Girls… (MCC); The New Englanders, Sugar in Our Wounds [Lucille Lortel Award] (MTC); Dance Nation, Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons); To My Girls, Toros (Second Stage); The Comeuppance, A Case For The Existence of God [Lortel Nominee] (Signature). Regional: Alley Theatre, A.R.T., Berkeley Rep, CTG, Guthrie, Steppenwolf, Woolly Mammoth. International Tour: The Magnetic Fields: 50 Song Memoir. Obie Sustained Excellence in Set Design, Princess Grace Faberge Theater Award, Henry Hewes Design Award nominee. IG: @arnulfo.maldonado.design arnulfomaldonado.com
Catherine Zuber
Costume DesignBroadway: Moulin Rouge (Tony Award, Olivier Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award), Mrs. Doubtfire, My Fair Lady (Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award), Oslo, War Paint (Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award), The King & I (Olivier Award, Tony Award), Fiddler on the Roof, Golden Boy, South Pacific (Tony Award), The Coast of Utopia (Tony Award), The Light in the Piazza (Tony Award), Awake and Sing! (Tony Award), The Royal Family (Tony Award), Gigi (Drama Desk Award). Metropolitan Opera: Rigoletto, Porgy & Bess, Il Barbieri di Siviglia, Les Contes d’Hoffman, Comte Ory, L’elisir d’Amore, Otello, Dr. Atomic, Roméo et Juliette. 2016 Induction: Theater Hall of Fame.
Jeff Croiter
Lighting DesignThe New Group: more than 15 shows including: Black No More, Jerry Springer the Opera, Sweet Charity. Broadway: Gutenberg The Musical, Cost of Living, Freestyle Love Supreme, Bandstand, Falsettos, Holiday Inn, Something Rotten, Penn&Teller, Newsies, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Pee-wee Herman Show, Disaster, Jekyll and Hyde, Next Fall, among others. Off-Broadway includes: The Fears, Only Gold, Hyprov, Beyond Babel, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Tiny Beautiful Things. Received Tony, Hewes, Bass awards, and Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Lortel, NAACP, Ovation, IRNE, and AUDELCO nominations. Jeff is a producer of Light Humor and has been the designer for Jennifer Muller The Works for 25 years.
Leah Gelpe
Sound DesignerNYC: Mary Jane (Broadway – Tony Nomination) My Broken Language and Night is a Room (Signature), Log Cabin, Antlia Pneumatica, Grand Concourse, The Big Meal and Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons), Mary Jane and The Invisible Hand (New York theater Workshop), The Harvest, Slowgirl, and What Once We Felt (LCT3), Cardinal (Second Stage), God’s Ear (The Vineyard), Saved (TFANA) and more. Regional: ACT, Guthrie, Long Wharf, Berkeley, Yale Rep, ART, Intiman. Honors: Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Sound Design (Mary Jane and Slowgirl). Connecticut Critics Circle Award (January Joiner), NEA/TCG Career Development Program.
Five Ohm
Production SupervisorBridget Klapinski, Seven17 PR
Press AgentJudy Henderson, CSA
CastingJudy Henderson has been honored as one of the top 20 US Film Casting Directors. Highlights: Emmy Award, 6 ARtios Awards. 9 Artios nominations. Select Film credits: L.I.E. (6 Spirit Award Nominations) Before Sunrise. Select TV credits: “Homeland” (Emmy Award and 2 Artios Awards), “City On A Hill.” Broadway: Barefoot In The Park, Anna Karenina (4 Tony Nominations). Off-Broadway: Forever Plaid (MAC Award for best cast album), Invasion (Obie Award), Lie Of The Mind, The Kid (5 Drama Desk Nominations), Hurlyburly and Daddy. Member of CSA and the Teamsters Theatrical Union. New Group CD since the beginning.
Valerie A. Peterson
Production Stage ManagerValerie A. Peterson (Production Stage Manager) This is Valerie’s 26th season with The New Group. The Seven Year Disappear, Sabbath’s Theater, The Seagull/Woodstock, NY; Black No More; The Fever; Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice; Happy Talk; The True; Peace for Mary Frances; Good for Otto; Downtown Race Riot; The Whirligig; Evening at the Talk House; Sweet Charity; Buried Child; Steve, Mercury Fur; The Spoils; Rasheeda Speaking; Sticks and Bones; Annapurna; Intimacy; Clive; The Jacksonian; Bunty Berman Presents…, A Lie of the Mind; The Kid; Things We Want; Rafta, Rafta…; Marie and Bruce; Abigail’s Party; Hurlyburly; Aunt Dan; and Lemon. Broadway: Barefoot in the Park and The Women.
Performance Schedule
Tuesday, February 11 at 7:00 PM - Patron Night
Sunday, February 16 at 2:00 PM - Masks will be required at this performance
Wednesday, March 5 at 7:00 PM - Pick Your Price
Group Sales
Interested in bringing a group of 10 or more? Please contact Anthony Colòn, our Manager of Ticketing and Audience Services at [email protected]
Accessibility at The Theater
The Pershing Square Signature Center is wheelchair accessible. Please email our box office at [email protected] with any questions.
Box OFfice Hours
The New Group’s Box Office is available by phone Tuesdays-Thursdays from 12 PM - 5 PM. Closed Saturday-Monday.
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Support for The New Group’s 30th Anniversary Season is provided by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation.