Hughie 12-13

The Shakespeare Theatre Company is proud to announce that Emmy Award-winning actor Richard Schiff (The West Wing) will play the main role in Eugene O’Neill’s powerfully focused play, Hughie. One of O’Neill’s later works, Hughie is a commanding study of Erie Smith, a man whose illusions of a grand lifestyle are wavering after the death of the stranger who quietly validated his larger-than-life confidence. Erie is searching for a new person to affirm his transparent fantasies or else be forced to face his own crushing self-pity. Hughie stands to transfix its audience with the raw force wrought by one of O’Neill’s most stirring characters.

Learn more in
ASIDES MAGAZINE

View a program from the production.

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[accordion-item title=”The Cast”]
Randall Newsome*
Night Clerk

Richard Schiff*
“Erie” Smith

Steve Brady*
Understudy

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers.
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[accordion-item title=”The Artistic Team”]
Doug Hughes
Director

Neil Patel
Set Designer

Catherine Zuber
Costume Designer

Ben Stanton
Lighting Designer

David Van Tieghem
Composer/Sound Designer

Darrel Maloney
Projection Designer

Tom Watson
Wig Designer

Binder Casting
Jay Binder, CSA/Jack Bowdan, CSA
Casting

Daniel Neville-Rehbehn
Resident Casting Director

Drew Lichtenberg
Literary Associate

Hunter Bird
Assistant Director

James FitzSimmons*
Production Stage Manager

Hannah R. O’Neil*
Assistant Stage Manager
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[accordion-item title=”Reviews”]
“The guy is Erie Smith in Eugene O’Neill’s short drama Hughie, and in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s splendid new production Richard Schiff plays this particular down-and-out sport with uncanny understanding. Actors often talk about inhabiting characters; watching Schiff roam set designer Neil Patel’s wide, dingy hotel lobby as he unwinds Erie’s gloomy reveries and frisky patter, you get what they mean.”

“It all adds up. This Hughie quietly slides into a deep existential funk that’s pure O’Neill, and the deceptively colorful Schiff expands and takes the space that the bluesy Erie needs — wandering into darkness, exploding in frustration, joshing himself back toward life. The show is short, barely an hour. But it’s a deep, full evening of theater.”
The Washington Post

“[Richard Schiff’s] performance in Hughie at the Shakespeare Theatre Company is a marvel of a study in classic American character acting.  There is something deliciously satisfying about the way this actor communicates with gestures and his body every nuanced thought and emotion.”

“Director Doug Hughes has mined this fifty-minute play and faceted a true gem of a show. With actors Richard Schiff and Randall Newsome, the play’s truths shine through in an unflinching portrayal of our illusions and deepest longings.”
DC Theatre Scene

“★★★★★” “Hughie is a unique and fascinating experience from one of American theater’s greatest playwrights and one of our greatest actors. This production came out of [Richard] Schiff’s desire to tackle the role…We are all lucky he did.”
DC Metro Theater Arts

“[Richard Schiff] delivers the kind of intense performance that leaves you pondering the character for days…Hughie isa testament to the indefinable power of theatricality”
Washingtonian
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