Professor Robert O'Hara ’96 and Alumnus Torrey Townsend ’13 Collaborate in 'Off Broadway'

Professor Robert O'Hara ’96 and alumnus Torrey Townsend ’13 unite for a creative collaboration in Off Broadway, a biting new satirical comedy.

Written by Townsend, Off Broadway is set in 2020 as American theatre shuts down amid the pandemic. The play follows the staff of a non-profit theatre as they come together on Zoom and scramble to stave off extinction. The play has been called “a lacerating, wickedly funny portrait of a struggling New York company whose leaders are willfully oblivious of their racial and gender biases” by the New York Times and stars Dylan Baker, Becky Ann Baker, Jessica Frances Dukes, Jason Butler Harner, Hal Linden, Jillian Mercado, Richard Kind, and Kara Wang.

Jeremy O. Harris, Slave Play creator and producer of Off Broadway, presented the virtual premiere of Townsend’s new play on June 24, 2021. The play was pre-recorded and available to stream for free via Broadstream. O’Hara, who previously directed Harris’ Broadway debut, directed the virtual production of Off Broadway.

Townsend updated the script of Off Broadway from the version originally used for its 2019 industry reading to reflect the changes and challenges of theatre in the time of COVID-19.

“The script lent itself to an update because it was already about the catastrophization of the theater,” Townsend said to the Times. “A lot of behavior that we witnessed in theaters during the pandemic has been totally absurd and deranged, and we wanted to honor that.”

O’Hara agreed that it was an essential change to make in light of the pandemic. “I feel that it would be ridiculous to create a new piece about Off Broadway that doesn’t acknowledge that it was gone for a year,” O’Hara said. “That, to me, led to an even deeper sense of satire: you’re still holding on to these beliefs, but you don’t have a theater.”

You can watch a recording of Off Broadway’s virtual production here.

Robert O'Hara has received the NAACP Best Play and Best Director Award, the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play, two Obies and the Herb Alpert Award. Broadway: Slave Play. Off Broadway: He directed the world premieres of Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play, Nikkole Salter and Dania Guiria’s In the Continuum, Tarell McCraney’s The Brother/ Sister Plays (Part 2), Colman Domingo’s Wild with Happy, Kirsten Childs’ Bella: An American Tall Tale, as well as his own plays, Mankind, Bootycandy and Insurrection: Holding History. His plays Zombie: The American and Barbecue world premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theater and The Public Theater, respectively. His recent directing projects include, Baum and Cheri’s Gun and Powder at Signature Theater, Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun at Williamstown Theater Festival, Aziza Barnes’ BLKS at MCC, Inda Craig-Galvan’s Black Superhero Magic Mama at The Geffen Theater, the Universes’ Uni/Son, inspired by the poetry of August Wilson at OSF and Shakespeare’s Macbeth at Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Torrey Townsend is a playwright based in New York City. Townsend’s play The Workshop was a New York Times Critics Pick, Voice Choice, and TONY Recommended when it premiered in New York in 2017. In 2020, his short work Executioners was featured in the collection One Room, which garnered another New York Times Critics Pick. His plays have been developed at The New Group, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre and Weston Playhouse.