Shakespeare Theatre Company has announced casting for Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, produced in association with Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA). Directed by STC Artistic Director Simon Godwin, from the adaptation by David Eldridge, the production begins its TFANA run in New York on September 2 before playing at STC’s Klein Theatre from October 18 through November 16.
“This is the first time that I’ve directed a play by Ibsen, and his plays’ moral interrogations feel very relevant right now,” says Godwin. “The play is urgently asking us, in the battle for moral certainty, who is the casualty? What is the price of truth?”
In The Wild Duck, the eccentric son of a wealthy businessman wreaks havoc when he embarks on a crusade to unveil the false foundations of his friend’s life. Ignorant of the adults’ machinations, a young girl tries to shield a fragile creature from the hurts of the world. This is a rare presentation of Ibsen‘s unflinching tale about truth’s tragic toll.
The production uses David Eldridge’s adaptation of the text. “There’s a timelessness to the tension the play explores that sits in all of us; simultaneously a need for the truth of our lives to be told and the need to maintain delusions about ourselves and our loved ones that makes coping with living possible,” said Eldridge. “That enduring relevance means that I’m drawn to presenting a lucid version of the play, faithful to Ibsen’s original, but that is immediate, alive, and can exist in the thrilling present tense of an act of theater.”
As previously announced, two recent actors from STC’s 24/25 season will return for The Wild Duck. Nick Westrate (Frankenstein) takes on the role of Hjalmar Ekdal, an idealistic but disillusioned photographer forced to confront the lies in his family, to tragic results. Melanie Field, who appeared to high acclaim as the lovelorn Sonya in Uncle Vanya, will play Gina Ekdal, Hjalmar’s wife and partner, caught up in the betrayals.
Alex Hurt takes on the role of Gregers Werle, the impassioned and idealistic son of Håkon Werle, whose quest to reveal and avenge the past sins of his father leads to the unraveling of the Ekdal home. Hurt makes his STC debut, having appeared on Broadway in Patriots, as well as numerous film, TV, and off-Broadway roles.
Veteran film and stage actor and musician David Patrick Kelly plays Old Ekdal. His extensive collaborations include the work of David Lynch and Spike Lee, and plays by Ibsen, Shakespeare, Chekhov, and more.
Also making STC debuts are Katie Broad (Tony-nominated An Enemy of the People at Circle in the Square) as Pettersen; Maaike Laanstra-Corn (Atlantic Theatre Company, Clubbed Thumb) as Hedvig; Mahira Kakkar (Broadway’s Life of Pi) as Mrs. Sørby; Bobby Plasencia (HBO’s Maria Full of Grace) as Mr. Flor; and Alexander Sovronsky (TFANA’s Othello directed by Arin Arbus, Broadway’s Cyrano de Bergerac with Kevin Kline) as Jensen.
Matthew Saldivar (STC’s Much Ado About Nothing, 2012) plays Relling and Captain Balle and has also appeared in numerous Broadway productions, including Junk, Peter and the Starcatcher, A Streetcar Named Desire, Saint Joan, and Bernhardt/Hamlet. Robert Stanton, who appeared in STC’s The Critic & The Real Inspector Hound (Emery Battis Award) and Strange Interlude, plays Håkon Werle. Stanton’s Broadway credits include Uncle Vanya, Ink, Saint Joan, Mary Stuart, and The Coast of Utopia.
The Production Stage Manager for STC is Laura Smith, and the Assistant Stage Manager is Dayne Sundman.
CAST BIOGRAPHIES (in alphabetical order)
KATIE BROAD*
Pettersen
STC debut. Credits include: Tony-nominated An Enemy of the People (Circle in the Square), Strategic Love Play (Audible Theater), Oblivion (Westport Country Playhouse), Karen O’s Stop the Virgens (St. Ann’s Warehouse, Sydney Opera House), Complicity (New Ohio Theater), Animals & Plants (NY Premiere). Proud alum of Circle in the Square Theatre School and repped by WEG Talent. Massive love and gratitude to their family and Jamesworth.
MELANIE FIELD*
Gina Ekdal
STC: Uncle Vanya. TV: “A League of Their Own” (Amazon), “American Horror Stories” (Hulu), “Heathers” (Paramount), “Florida Girls” (POP TV), “The Angel of Darkness” (TNT), “Shrill” (Hulu), “You” (Netflix), “Killing It” (Peacock). Theater: Sonya in Uncle Vanya (Berkeley Repertory Theatre & Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington DC). Broadway: The Phantom of the Opera, Evita. National Tour: Wicked. Proud graduate of NYU and Yale School of Drama. For my Kitty Girl and Mr. Wells.
ALEX HURT*
Gregers Werle
Alex recently starred in the lead role in Larry Fessenden’s film Blackout and was also recently seen in Maria Schrader’s film She Said. In television, he was a regular in the hit Netflix series “Bonding.” Other TV credits include “Homeland,” “Super Pumped,” “Billions,” “Law & Order: SVU,” and “The Good Fight.” He was nominated for an Emmy for Lead Actor in a Digital Drama Series for “The Rehearsal.” Alex has been a mainstay on the NY stage. Most recently, he played Alexander Litvinenko on Broadway in Peter Morgan’s Patriots opposite Michael Stuhlbarg and starred off-Broadway in Scenes from a Marriage directed by Ivo Van Hove, Hamish Linklater’s The Whirligig, Placebo directed by Daniel Aukin, Mike Bartlett’s Love, Love, Love directed by Michael Mayer, and Continuity directed by Rachel Chavkin.
MAHIRA KAKKAR*
Mrs. Sørby
STC: Debut. TFANA: The Winter’s Tale. Mahira is an award-winning actor and a writer. A recent recipient of a NYSCA grant, Mahira has written for publications in India and the US. As an actor: Broadway – Life of Pi. Off Broadway – Waterwell, LCT3, Primary Stages, Atlantic, NYSF, Ripe Time, Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick, NAATCO. Regional – Huntington Theatre, Old Globe, Denver Center, OSF, Baltimore Center Stage, Hartford Stage, McCarter and others. Film and TV – “Manifest,” “A Suitable Boy,” Hank and Asha, (Slamdance Best Actress award), Sweet Refuge, “Law and Order:CI,” “New Amsterdam,” and others.
DAVID PATRICK KELLY*
Old Ekdal
David has appeared in films by Walter Hill, David Lynch, Spike Lee, Wim Wenders and Clint Eastwood. Onstage he has appeared in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Gogol, Euripides, Buchner, Pirandello, Moliere, Brecht and Ibsen, directed by Richard Foreman, Nicholas Hytner and Karin Coonrod. He was awarded an Obie for Sustained Excellence.
MAAIKE LAANSTRA-CORN*
Hedvig
Maaike is a New York City-based actor. Recent credits include: Grief Camp (Atlantic Theater), Homofermenters (ARS NOVA ANTfest), When The Other Mary Celeste Sank (WP Theater), Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California (The Tank), Button Lake Band Camp (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks), and Ms. Lily (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks). BA: Brown University.
BOBBY PLASENCIA*
Mr. Flor
Bobby is excited to be making his STC and TFANA debut and sharing the stage with such a talented group ofartists! NY Stage: La Paloma Prisoner (Chelsea Factory); Orchid Receipt Service (MITU580); La Negra (BRIC Brooklyn); La Ruta (Working Theater); American Jornalero (INTAR); Luz (LaMama); Julius Caesar (Drilling Company). Regional Theater: In her Bones (FAC), Somewhere Over The Border (Syracuse Stage, Geva Theater, City Theatre, People’s Light), American Mariachi (Goodman Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Denver Center, Old Globe, Alabama Shakes, Cleveland Playhouse, Two River Theater); Recent Alien Abductions (Humana Fest, Actors Theater of Louisville); Water & Power (San Diego Rep, Craig Noel Award); Vesuvius (South Coast Rep); Blood Wedding (La Jolla Playhouse); Down Past Passyunk (Interact Theater); The Tempest, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (ISCLA, Los Angeles); Water & Power (Understudy, Mark Taper Forum). Film & TV: “House of Cards” (Netflix), “General Hospital” (ABC Television), “Fidel” (Showtime), Maria Full of Grace (Sundance, HBO Films). MFA-NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
MATTHEW SALDIVAR*
Relling/Captain Balle
STC: Much Ado About Nothing (2012). TFANA: The Merchant of Venice (Edinburgh, Scotland), Julius Caesar. BROADWAY: Junk, Act One (LCT), Peter and the Starcatcher, A Streetcar Named Desire, Saint Joan, Bernhardt/Hamlet, Honeymoon in Vegas, Grease, The Wedding Singer. Other productions include: MTC, Classic Stage Company, Long Wharf, The Public Theater, Williamstown, NY Shakespeare Festival, Blue Light, Atlantic, NYTW, Shakespeare Theatre Company, New World Stages, Primary Stages, Hartford Stage, Kennedy Center, Pittsburgh CLO, Bay Street, 2nd Stage, Chautauqua, City Center, Signature Theater NYC, Mark Taper Forum, 1st National tour LCT’s South Pacific, 6 productions for The Guthrie Theater. Recent TV: “Dying for Sex.” MA/BA Middlebury College, MFA NYU.
ALEXANDER SOVRONSKY*
Jensen
A NYC-based actor/multi-instrumentalist and composer, Alexander last appeared in TFANA’s 2009 production of Othello directed by Arin Arbus. Other NYC theatre credits include Cyrano de Bergerac (Broadway starring Kevin Kline); Romeo & Juliet, Mother of the Maid (The Public starring Glenn Close); Women Beware Women, Volpone (Red Bull); Bottom of the World (Atlantic); Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Marat/Sade, King Lear (Classical Theatre of Harlem). Regional credits include Arena Stage, Barrington Stage, Seattle Rep, Hartford Stage, KC Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Shakespeare & Co, Denver Center, Milwaukee Rep, American Shakespeare Center, and many others.
ROBERT STANTON*
Håkon Werle
STC: The Critic & The Real Inspector Hound (Emery Battis Award), Strange Interlude. TFANA: The Killer. Broadway: includes Uncle Vanya, Ink, Saint Joan, A Free Man of Color, Mary Stuart, The Coast of Utopia. Off-Broadway: two-dozen credits include Love Child (written/performed with Daniel Jenkins), All in the Timing (Obie Award). Off-Off-Broadway: The Gold Room. Extensive regional credits include this year’s world premieres, Millions (Alliance) and The Thing About Jellyfish (Berkeley Rep). Films: many, from A League of Their Own to Jason Bourne. Recent television: “Your Friends and Neighbors,” “Blue Bloods,” “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin,” “Mr. Mercedes.”
NICK WESTRATE*
Hjalmar Ekdal
Broadway: Bernhardt/Hamlet, Casa Valentina, A Moon for the Misbegotten. Off-Broadway: Barrow Street, Public, NYTW, Transport Group, CSC. Recently: Frankenstein in FRANKENSTEIN (STC) and Prior Walter in Angels in America for Jánosz Száz (Arena: Helen Hayes Best Ensemble, Nom. Best Actor). Select TV: Robert Townsend on “Turn: Washington’s Spies” (AMC), Todd Haynes’ “Mildred Pierce” (HBO), Bruno Barreto’s “The American Guest” (HBO), and “Manhunt” (AppleTV). Film: American Insurrection and Jonathan Demme’s Ricki & the Flash opposite Meryl Streep. He’s a Drama Desk Award Winner, NYTW Usual Suspect, a graduate of Juilliard, and the co-founder, director, and designer of The Streetcar Project.
CREATIVE TEAM BIOGRAPHIES
DAVID ELDRIDGE
Adaptor
NEW YORK: Broadway: Festen (Music Box Theatre). INTERNATIONAL: Beginning, Middle, End, Market Boy (National Theatre); Holy Warriors (Shakespeare’s Globe); In Basildon, Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness (Royal Court); Under the Blue Sky (Royal Court & Duke of York’s Theatre, West End); The Stock Da’wa, Falling (Hampstead Theatre); The Knot of the Heart (Almeida Theatre); Summer Begins (Donmar Warehouse). ADAPTATIONS: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre); Miss Julie, The Lady from the Sea (Royal Exchange, Manchester); John Gabriel Borkman, The Wild Duck (Donmar Warehouse); Festen (Almeida, Lyric Theatre West End). TV: The Scandalous Lady W (BBC2), Our Hidden Lives and Killers (BBC4). AWARDS: Time Out Live Award for Best New Play in West End; Theatregoers Choice Award for Best New Play; Prix Europa for Best European Radio Drama; Off West End Theatre Award for Best New Play.
SIMON GODWIN
Director; Artistic Director, Shakespeare Theatre Company
STC: Uncle Vanya, All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Created the Villian, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Timon of Athens; Simon Godwin joined Shakespeare Theatre Company as Artistic Director in September 2019. He has served as Associate Director of National Theatre of London, Royal Court Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, and Royal & Derngate Theatre. INTERNATIONAL: UK: His work at the National Theatre includes Man and Superman (ft. Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma), Antony and Cleopatra (ft. Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo), Romeo & Juliet (ft. Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley and filmed for Sky Arts/PBS) | Work at Royal Shakespeare Company includes Hamlet, Timon of Athens (ft. Kathryn Hunter and reimagined in 2020 for Theatre for a New Audience and STC). AWARDS: Evening Standard/Burberry Award for an Emerging Director (2012).
LAURA SMITH*
Production Stage Manager
STC: Merry Wives, Frankenstein, Kunene and the King, Leopoldstadt, Comedy of Errors, The Matchbox Magic Flute, The Lehman Trilogy, Salome. NEW YORK: Broadway: The Thanksgiving Play | Off-Broadway: Atlantic Theater Company: Infinite Life, Shhhh, The Great Leap, Tell Hector I Miss Him | Manhattan Theatre Club: Morning Sun, Bella Bella | Signature Theatre: Hot Wing King, The Antipodes | Playwrights Horizons: Downstate, Noura | Second Stage Theater: Dying City | The Public Theater: The Low Road | Theatre for a New Audience: Remember This | Play Company: Intractable Woman | Julliard: Appropriate. REGIONAL: Eugene O’Neill Theater Center: National Playwrights Conference | Baltimore Center Stage: Detroit ’67, As You Like It, 4000 Miles, After the Revolution, Wild with Happy, Twelfth Night, Fabulation, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | Woolly Mammoth Theatre: House of Gold, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Unmentionables.
DAYNE SUNDMAN*
Assistant Stage Manager
STC: Jane Anger, The Notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci. REGIONAL: Arena Stage: A Wrinkle in Time (World Premier), The Bedwetter, Death on the Nile (World Premier) Unknown Soldier, POTUS, Angels in America Part 1: Millennium Approaches, Catch Me If You Can, Newsies, Anything Goes Idaho Shakespeare Festival: Murder on the Orient Express, Natasha Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, Sense & Sensibility. PERSONAL: He/Him/His. Training: Baldwin Wallace University: BA in Theatre (Stage Management focus).
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
The Wild Duck runs October 18-November 16, 2025, in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre, 450 7th St NW, Washington, DC 20004. Full season subscriptions, play packages, and single tickets are all on sale, and individual tickets begin at $39. For tickets and information, call the Box Office at 202.547.1122 or go online.
SPECIAL PERFORMANCES
Young Prose Night (Under 35) – Friday, October 24, 7:30pm
Audio Description – Saturday, November 8, 2pm
Open Captioning – Saturday, November 1, 2pm | Thursday, November 13, 7:30pm
SHAKESPEARE THEATRE COMPANY
For nearly 40 years, the Tony Award-winning Shakespeare Theatre Company has been recognized as the nation’s premier classical theater. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Simon Godwin and Executive Director Angela Lee Gieras, STC tells vital stories in audacious forms, stories that are Shakespearean in the deepest sense, even if they are not written by Shakespeare. They stage epic stories in exhilarating style.
TFANA
Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz and led by Horowitz and Managing Director Dorothy Ryan, Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) is a New York home for Shakespeare and other contemporary playwrights. It nurtures artists, culture, and community. On September 1, 2025, Arin Arbus will succeed Jeffrey Horowitz as Artistic Director, with Dorothy Ryan serving as Executive Director.
With Shakespeare as its guide, TFANA explores the ever-changing forms of world theater. TFANA has produced thirty-five of Shakespeare’s thirty-eight play canon and builds a dialogue spanning centuries between the language and ideas of Shakespeare and diverse authors, past and present. TFANA is committed to building long-term associations with artists from around the world and supporting the development of plays, translations, and productions through residences, workshops, and commissions through the Merle Debuskey Studio Program. TFANA performs for an audience of all ages and backgrounds; and promotes a vibrant exchange of ideas through its humanities and education programs. TFANA is very happy to continue its co-producing collaboration with The Shakespeare Theatre Company. The Wild Duck marks the third co-production between TFANA and STC building on co-productions of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens featuring Kathryn Hunter, directed by Simon Godwin and The Merchant of Venice featuring John Douglas Thompson as Shylock and directed by Arin Arbus.
TFANA’s productions have played nationally, internationally, off and on Broadway. In 2001, TFANA became the first American theater company invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company. TFANA has recently partnered with Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre for The Shakespeare Exchange in a transatlantic partnership. In the spring of 2024, TFANA presented the Lyceum’s Macbeth (an undoing). In January 2025, the Lyceum presented TFANA’s The Merchant of Venice.
TFANA is also committed to a civic role. It created and runs the largest in-depth program to introduce Shakespeare and classic drama in New York City’s public schools. Since its inception in 1984, the program has served more than 140,000 students. TFANA is committed to economic access. In addition to offering selected Pay What You Can Performances, its New Deal Ticket Initiative offers $20 tickets to those age 30 and under and full-time students of any age for all dates of all its productions.
In 2013, TFANA opened its first permanent home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center (PSC), in the Brooklyn Cultural District. The heart of PSC is its performance space: the 299-seat Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage, a uniquely flexible space capable of multiple configurations between stage and audience; as well as the 50-seat Theodore C. Rogers Studio.
TFANA honors the Lenape and Canarsie people, on whose ancestral homeland Polonsky Shakespeare Center is built.
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