Full Cast Announced For "Noises Off" At Geffen Playhouse

FULL CAST ANNOUNCED FOR “NOISES OFF” AT GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE

FEATURING VANEH ASSADOURIAN, AMANDA FINK, AUDREY FRANCIS, FRANCIS GUINAN, RICK HOLMES, ORA JONES, DAVID LIND, JAMES VINCENT MEREDITH AND MAX STEWART

WRITTEN BY MICHAEL FRAYN AND DIRECTED BY ANNA D. SHAPIRO

PREVIEWS BEGIN JANUARY 29 - OPENING NIGHT IS FEBRUARY 6

LOS ANGELES (December 12, 2024) – Geffen Playhouse today announced the full cast for Noises Off, written by Olivier and Tony Award winner Michael Frayn (Copenhagen, Afterlife) and directed by Tony Award winner Anna D. Shapiro (August: Osage County, The Motherf**ker with the Hat). Noises Off is a co-production with Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

The cast includesVaneh Assadourian (Wish You Were Here, A Distinct Society) as Poppy Norton-Taylor; Amanda Fink (I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Long Day’s Journey Into Night) as Brooke Ashton/Vicki; Audrey Francis (Justified: City Primeval, The Thanksgiving Play) as Belinda Blair/Flavia Brent; Francis Guinan (August: Osage County, A Guide for the Perplexed)as Selsdon Mowbray/Burglar; Rick Holmes (Matilda the Musical, Peter and the Starcatcher), as Lloyd Dallas; Ora Jones (Matilda the Musical, Les Liaisons Dangereuses) as Dotty Otley/Mrs. Clackett; David Lind (New Country, Five Nights at Freddy’s) as Garry Lejeune/Roger Tramplemain; James Vincent Meredith (The Crucible, The Book of Mormon)as Frederick Fellowes/Phillip Brent; and Max Stewart (Fairview, Southern Gothic) as Tim Allgood.

Previews for Noises Off begin Wednesday, January 29, 2025, in the Gil Cates Theater at Geffen Playhouse. Opening night is Thursday, February 6, 2025.

Doors slam, sardines fly, and trousers drop in Michael Frayn’s side-splitting British farce about a theater company desperately trying to get their act together. Both onstage and backstage, chaos reigns for a troupe of floundering actors whose forgotten lines, misplaced props, and steamy romantic entanglements make it nearly impossible for the show to go on. An uproarious love letter to the theater, Noises Off is a peek behind the curtain—where everything that can go wrong, does!

Geffen Playhouse is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, and as part of Creative Recovery LA, an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan.

NOISES OFF
Written by Michael Frayn
Directed by Anna D. Shapiro

A Co-Production with Steppenwolf Theatre Company

Previews: January 29 – February 5, 2025
Opening Night: February 6, 2025
Closing Night: March 2, 2025

CAST
Vaneh Assadourian as Poppy Norton-Taylor
Amanda Fink as Brooke Ashton/Vicki
Audrey Francis as Belinda Blair/Flavia Brent
Francis Guinan as Selsdon Mowbray/Burglar
Rick Holmes as Lloyd Dallas
Ora Jones as Dotty Otley/Mrs. Clackett
David Lind as Garry Lejeune/Roger Tramplemain
James Vincent Meredith as Frederick Fellowes/Phillip Brent
Max Stewart as Tim Allgood

PRODUCTION TEAM
Scenic Designer Todd Rosenthal
Costume Designer Izumi Inaba
Lighting Designer Josh Epstein
Sound Designer Cricket S. Myers
Associate Director Nikki DiLoreto
Dialect & Voice Coach Kate DeVore
Violence Design R&D Choreography
Intimacy Consultant Kristina Fluty
Production Stage Manager Sam Allen
Assistant Stage Manager Colleen Danaher
Casting by JC Clementz, CSA & Phyllis Schuringa, CSA

UNDERSTUDIES
Beth Hawkes as Belinda Blair/Flavia Brent, Poppy Norton-Taylor
Al'Jaleel McGhee as Frederick Fellowes/Phillip Brent
Anna Mintzer as Brooke Ashton/Vicki
Felice Heather Monteith as Dotty Otley/Mrs. Clackett
Jeremy Radin as Lloyd Dallas, Selsdon Mowbray/Burglar
Ricki Romano as Garry Lejeune/Roger Tramplemain, Tim Allgood

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Monday, Tuesday No performance
Wednesday – Friday 8:00 p.m.
Saturday 3:00 and 8:00 p.m.
Sunday 2:00 and 7:00 p.m.

LOCATION
Gil Cates Theater at Geffen Playhouse
10886 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024

TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets currently priced at $36.00 - $155.00. Available by phone at 310.208.2028 or online at www.geffenplayhouse.org. Fees may apply.

All Geffen Playhouse productions are intended for an adult audience; children under 10 years of age will not be admitted.

Rush tickets for each day’s performance are made available to the general public one hour before showtime at the box office. $40.00 General/$20.00 Student.

COLLEGE AUDIENCES
Through a variety of events and other opportunities, Geffen Playhouse welcomes college students to experience the live storytelling presented on our stages. We are proud of our association with UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, and open our doors to all college students throughout Los Angeles. More information is available at www.geffenplayhouse.org/college.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Michael Frayn (Playwright)
Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933. He began his career as a reporter for the Guardian and later the Observer. After leaving the Observer he continued to write as a columnist as well as publishing novels and plays for television and stage. His plays for stage include Copenhagen, Afterlife, The Two of Us, Alphabetical Order, Donkeys’ Years, Clouds, Balmoral (Liberty Hall), Make and Break, Noises Off, Benefactors, Alarms and Excursions, Look Look, and Here. Other translations include four full-length Chekhov plays (The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, The Seagull, and Uncle Vanya) and four one-act plays (On the Evils of Tobacco, Swan Song, The Bear, and The Proposal). Mr. Frayn is married to the biographer and critic Claire Tomalin.

Anna D. Shapiro (Director)
Anna D. Shapiro is a Tony Award–winning director and served as Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company from 2015 to 2021, where she remains an ensemble member. She joined the Steppenwolf ensemble in 2005 and was awarded the 2008 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for August: Osage County (Steppenwolf, Broadway, London). She was nominated in 2011 in the same category for The Motherf**ker with the Hat (The Public Theater, LAByrinth Theater Company). Other Steppenwolf directing credits include the world premiere production of The Minutes (also on Broadway); The Unmentionables (also at Yale Repertory Theatre), The Pain and the Itch (also in New York), Purple Heart (also in Galway, Ireland) and This Is Our Youth (which transferred to Broadway). Additional Broadway credits include Of Mice and Men and Fish in the Dark, and off Broadway Domesticated (Lincoln Center Theater). She directed the premiere of the Broadway musical The Devil Wears Prada with music by Sir Elton John, lyrics by Shaina Taub and book by Kate Wetherhead. Shapiro is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and Columbia. She is a professor in Northwestern University’s Department of Theatre.

Vaneh Assadourian (Poppy Norton-Taylor)
Vaneh Assadourian is thrilled to be making her Geffen Playhouse debut. Regional: Noises Off (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); Wish You Were Here (Yale Repertory Theatre, Connecticut Critics Circle Award Outstanding Ensemble nomination); A Distinct Society (Co-Production with Pioneer Theater Company and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley); Happiest Song Plays Last (LATC); Hostage (Skylight Theatre Company). Upcoming: The Da Vinci Code (Drury Lane Theatre). Education: B.A., UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. Assadourian is an award-winning audiobook narrator, voice actor, and dialect coach and is fluent in Farsi and Armenian, and conversational in German. Represented by Stewart Talent Chicago and Sandy Joseph, SLJ Management. IG: @vaneh_33

Amanda Fink (Brooke Ashton/Vicki)
Amanda Fink is a Pasadena native thrilled to be making her Geffen debut. Chicago credits: Noises Off, POTUS (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); Pro-Am, Plano, I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Peerless (First Floor Theater, selected); Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Court Theatre); Tilikum, Give It All Back (Sideshow Theatre Company). She is a proud founding member of First Floor Theater, a co-owner of Black Box Acting Studio—Chicago’s leading Meisner & Viewpoints training program where she is also an instructor and where she completed her own conservatory training—and she is represented by Grossman & Jack Talent. www.amandacfink.com | @amandacfink

Audrey Francis (Belinda Blair/Flavia Brent)
Audrey Francis currently serves as Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre, alongside Glenn Davis, where she has been an Ensemble member since 2017. She is an actor, director, educator, and coach. Audrey directed POTUS in Steppenwolf's 23/24 season. Steppenwolf performing credits include The Thanksgiving Play, The Herd, Between Riverside and Crazy, The Fundamentals, The Doppelgänger (an international farce), and Dance Nation. TV credits include Justified: City Primeval, Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, and Empire. Film credits include Perpetrator, Knives and Skin, Later Days, and Distant Learners. She has taught acting in New York, LA, Toronto, Sydney, and Melbourne, as well as at The University of Chicago and The Theatre School at DePaul. Audrey is a professional acting coach for Showtime, NBC, Fox and Amazon, and is the co-founder of Black Box Acting.

Francis Guinan (Selsdon Mowbray/Burglar)
Francis Guinan has been a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble since 1979. He has appeared in more than 30 Steppenwolf productions including Downstate, The Rembrandt, The Herd, The Night Alive, Tribes, The Birthday Party, The Book Thief, Time Stands Still, Endgame, American Buffalo, Fake, The Seafarer, Balm in Gilead, and August: Osage County. He has also appeared in productions for Northlight Theatre, Goodman Theatre (appearing in Chekhov’s The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard), Writers Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, TimeLine Theatre Company, and American Blues Theater. Television appearances include The Exorcist, Boss, Mike & Molly, Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Frasier, and several Star Trek episodes. Film work includes roles in The Last Airbender, Typing, Low Tide, Ghostlight, and Constantine. For Kate.

Rick Holmes (Lloyd Dallas)
Broadway: Junk: The Golden Age of Debt, The Visit, Matilda the Musical, Peter and the Starcatcher, Spamalot, The Pillowman, Cabaret, Major Barbara, The Deep Blue Sea, The Government Inspector, Timon of Athens, Saint Joan. Off-Broadway: Dan Cody’s Yacht (Manhattan Theatre Club); Lives of the Saints (Primary Stages); The Threepenny Opera (Atlantic Theater Company); Stop Kiss, Dog Opera, Richard III, Othello (The Public Theater). Chicago: National Tours of Spamalot and Cabaret. Other National Tours: Angels in America. Film: The Post, The Stepford Wives, Melinda and Melinda, etc. Television: Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, No Good Deed, Atlanta “Juneteenth,” Modern Family, Dead to Me, Fosse/Verdon, The Punisher, Fantasy Island, The Politician, Tommy, The Resident, Law & Order. M.F.A. in Acting from New York University.

Ora Jones (Dotty Otley/Mrs. Clackett)
Ora Jones makes her Geffen Playhouse debut in Noises Off. Television: Emperor of Ocean Park, Somebody Somewhere, 61st Street, Betrayal, Chicago Fire. Film: Stronghold, Consumed, Were the World Mine, Stranger Than Fiction, The Weather Man. Broadway roles include: “Madame de Volanges” in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Booth Theatre and “Mrs. Phelps” in Matilda the Musical at the Shubert Theatre. Ms. Jones is a member of the Steppenwolf Theater Company ensemble, having appeared in The Children, Familiar, The Brother/Sister Plays, and True West for the Galway International Arts Festival, Ireland, among others. Other Chicago roles: “Catherine Adams Green” in The Nacirema Society and “Claire” in Proof for Goodman Theatre; “Katherine of Aragon” in Henry VIII, “Queen Charlotte” in The Madness of George III, and “Maria” in Twelfth Night for Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Regional and other New York credits include performances at Long Wharf Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Public Theater, and Weston Theater Company, VT.

David Lind (Garry Lejeune/Roger Tramplemain)
Steppenwolf Theatre Company: Noises Off, You Got Older. Off-Broadway: New Country (Rattlestick Theater). Chicago: Southern Gothic (Windy City Playhouse). Regional: Macbeth, Amadeus, The Importance of Being Earnest (Flat Rock Playhouse); The Thanksgiving Play (Southern Rep Theatre); The Glass Menagerie, Sweat, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Grapes of Wrath, The Miss Firecracker Contest, Dividing the Estate (New Stage Theatre). Film: Five Nights at Freddy’s, Billboard. Television: Chicago P.D., Chicago Fire, Fargo, Shameless, NCIS: New Orleans, Secrets of Sulphur Springs, Killing It. Education: Millsaps College, Circle in the Square Theatre School, The School at Steppenwolf. David is represented by Stewart Talent.

James Vincent Meredith (Frederick Fellowes/Phillip Brent)
James Vincent Meredith makes his debut at Geffen Playhouse. Broadway credits include The Skin of Our Teeth (Lincoln Center Theater), The Minutes (Studio 54), Superior Donuts (Music Box Theatre), and The Book of Mormon (Eugene O’Neill Theatre), where he also previously spent three years on a National Tour as “Mafala Hatimbi.” He’s been a member of the Steppenwolf ensemble since 2007, appearing in 17 productions. Other Chicago credits include work at Court Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Writers Theatre, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Recent TV credits include Fargo, Your Honor, FBI, Emperor of Ocean Park, and 61st Street.

Max Stewart (Tim Allgood)
Chicago: Fairview (Definition Theatre); Southern Gothic, Sons of Hollywood (Windy City Playhouse); Walk on the Wild Side (Pale Horse Playhouse); Romeo and Juliet (Kane Repertory Theatre); Letters Home (Griffin Theatre). Television: Chicago Fire, Soundtrack. Awards: NFAA YoungArts. Education: The Theatre School at DePaul University (B.F.A. Acting), British American Dramatic Academy, The Groundlings. @maxflash4

PRODUCTION SPONSOR
City National Bank

OPENING NIGHT HOSPITALITY SPONSOR
Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey

ABOUT STEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY
Steppenwolf Theatre is the nation’s premier ensemble theater with 49 members who are among the top actors, playwrights, and directors in the field. Thrilling, powerful, groundbreaking productions—from Balm in Gilead and The Grapes of Wrath to August: Osage County, Downstate, and The Brother/Sister Plays—have made this theatre legendary. Steppenwolf’s artistic force remains rooted in the original vision of its founders: an artist-driven theatre, whose vitality is defined by its sharp appetite for bold and innovative work. While grounded in the Chicago community, more than forty original Steppenwolf productions have enjoyed success nationally and internationally, including Broadway, off-Broadway, London, Sydney, Galway, and Dublin. Steppenwolf also holds accolades that include the National Medal of Arts, twelve Tony Awards, and more. Led by Artistic Directors Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis, Executive Director E. Brooke Flanagan, and Board of Trustees Chair Keating Crown—Steppenwolf has, and continues to redefine the landscape of acting and performance.

ABOUT GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE
Geffen Playhouse has been a hub of the Los Angeles theater scene since opening its doors in 1995. Noted for its intimacy and celebrated for its world-renowned mix of classic and contemporary plays, provocative new works and second productions, the not-for-profit organization continues to present a body of work that has garnered national recognition. Named in honor of entertainment mogul and philanthropist David Geffen, who made the initial donation to the theater, the company was founded by Gilbert Cates and is currently helmed by Executive Director/CEO Gil Cates, Jr., Artistic Director Tarell Alvin McCraney and Board Chair Adi Greenberg. Proudly associated with UCLA, the Geffen welcomes an audience of more than 130,000 each year, and maintains extensive education and community engagement programs, designed to involve underserved young people and the community at large in the arts. www.geffenplayhouse.org