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Video: THE FEARS Cast Explains What the New Play Is All About
May 17, 2024
Academy Award and Emmy Award winner Steven Soderbergh (sex, lies, and videotape, Traffic, Erin Brockovich), will make his New York City theatrical producing debut with the World Premiere of The Fears, a new play by Emma Sheanshang (Every Girl Gets Her Man, Greetings from Tim Buckley), and directed by Dan Algrant (“Sex and the City,” People I Know). The company of the play met the press this week! Check out photos of the event!
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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The Fears, the new play by Emma Sheen-Shang and directed by Dan Algrant
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will begin performances on April 25th at the Pershing Square Signature Center
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And I caught up with the company during a break in rehearsal. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪��
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I think if you've been alive on planet Earth in the past few years, you've been traumatized
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I think it's been sort of a traumatizing time to be alive
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And I've been really kind of wondering what's going to happen? How are we all going to deal with this collective thing
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that we've all been through and don't have any outlet for processing
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And I really, when I read the play, I thought this was like a vehicle for me
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to start kind of understanding how can we all kind of like think about it together
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You know, we're all in this place where we're all at home and we're all trying to figure out our emotion
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our lives with our loved ones. And sometimes you don't know how to share that
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And so what's really beautiful about this play is that these people come together to try to be brave
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and share their experiences, whether good or bad, and try to do it in a safe place
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with these people who they don't really know or who they've come to know
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And which is really beautiful because, and also kind of scary, because you can't really do it at home
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with your loved ones for whatever the reason is. And so for me, I was really attracted about that
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What a great metaphor for theater. You gotta get out of your house. You gotta go to the play
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You gotta get a little uncomfortable outside your home in order to come and kind of confront some things
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Also, one of the things I appreciate about the play is how funny it is. You know, it's a comedy about trauma
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And I think I find that to be very evocative of this moment in time
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You know, I've been watching a lot of TV and done a lot of film
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And what's extraordinary is to come into a room every day with live actors and work for six hours
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And every day, because it's not been done and in the can
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something changes, something comes alive. And when that happens, you can't predict when that happens
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And when it happens, you feel like you're in a sacred place
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where everything is possible and it changes every day. And these people I'm working with are so vulnerable
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to describe the assaults of the universe that are coming at them all the time
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And the play manages to resolve that and to be able to find a place to safely
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get them through the rehearsal period onto the stage is a challenge
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And it's also something I think that's gonna be very special. Well, let's talk about being in the rehearsal room
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with this incredible group of actors, what that's been like for you collaborating with them
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It's been extraordinary. We get so much from them and it's just been
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it's been, especially a play about a group of people. You know, it's wonderful to work with a group
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and see the group dynamics shift and change and get a lot from that and put it in the play
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I mean, it's a beautiful play. I love that Emma writes about things
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and all the characters talk about things that we don't actually usually talk about
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And that's something that I like to do in my real life
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and my pretend life. So, and also it's nice to talk about somebody
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pretend trauma instead of my own for a change. So yeah, it was an easy yes for me
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I like the vulnerability of the characters and the way Emma absolutely separates each character
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by their personalities and their traumas. And they're so relatable. They're just so, they're so open and believable
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and the honesty in the characters is amazing. It's also a beautiful ensemble piece, right
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With all of you together, right? Yes, which is really nice for, I mean, selfishly for me
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it's been a lonely COVID and even some of the workshops of new plays I've done
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have been on Zoom and to be in this rehearsal room with this group of actors
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An exciting group of young New York, prepared, ambitious. I wasn't talking about us
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You know, all these young, exciting actors. It's a thrill. I haven't been here in a while
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haven't done a play here in a while and it's really exciting. So much of what happens to people is unmentionable
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And I think Emma did a really, a stellar job of telling these people's lives
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in a way that's utterly believable and still manages to convey the stories
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of the insane things that happened to them. And then when you see all of these lives converge
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it plays out in this extreme way that is still incredibly real
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So in that regard, it's just an incredibly exciting thing to get to be a part of that
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to be a cog in that is just the most delicious thing
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in the entire world. Delicious. I love that word, delicious. It is delicious
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Well John, when you first read the play, what made you say, yes, I want to produce this? Well, I think I shared what Steven Soderbergh said to me
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is it's so refreshing to read something where you don't know the outcome
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And it surprised me. I think also it moved me greatly because, you know, emotional discharges of laughing
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or crying are the things that help us get over our dysfunction
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And the only way to really do that is with people that you're around
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that can encourage you to cry or when you're laughing, you start to cry
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Finding the humor and the things that are most terrifying to help you get through it and not have the dysfunction
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and allow you to live in the present, but mindful not to repeat the mistakes you've made
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Yeah. What do you hope audiences walk away with after seeing this play
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I think they, I hope they walk away feeling trusting in the decency and compassion of human beings
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to help us sort the things out we can't do by ourselves and to have a good time doing it. Yeah
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