Everybody Program

Everybody

By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Directed by Kevin McClatchy

The performance runs one and a half hours without an intermission.

Cast

Everybody/Somebodies
Paitton Lewis, Maggie Miller, David Obeng, Christopher Ryan Quiroz*, Josh Smith

Love
Tahj Linton

Death
Jamie Harper

Usher/God/Understanding
Marina Sepulveda

Girl/Time/Evil
Renee Jones

Voice of God
Garrett Mahoney

Understudy Death
Meghan Garens

Understudy Everybody/Somebodies
Gabriella Johnson

Understudy Usher/God/Understanding
Kirsten Banieh

* Appears by permission of Actors' Equity Association, the union of professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

World Premiere produced by Signature Theatre, New York City (Paige Evans, Artistic Director; Erika Mallin, Executive Director; James Houghton, Founder)

The use of any recording device, either audio or video, and the taking of photographs, either with or without flash, is strictly prohibited. Please silence your cell phones and pagers prior to the beginning of the performance. In consideration of those seated around you, please refrain from texting during the performance.

Meghan Garens (Understudy Death), sophomore
Hometown: Akron, OH
Major(s): criminal justice
Department Productions: debut

Jamie Harper (Death), junior
Hometown: Columbus, OH
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: Comic Potential; Porcelain; The Seagull; Twelfth Night

Catherine Huffman (costume designer), graduate student
Hometown: Columbus, OH
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: Men on Boats; Sweat

Gabriella Johnson (Understudy Everybody/Somebody), junior
Hometown: Aurora, CO
Major(s): social work
Minor(s): theatre
Department Productions: In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)

Renee Jones (Girl/Time/Evil and Love), junior
Hometown: Eastlake, OH
Major(s): Italian; theatre
Minor(s): musical theatre
Department Productions: Men on Boats

Paitton Lewis (Everybody/Somebody), graduate student
Hometown: Soldotna, AK
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: debut

Tahj Linton (Love), senior
Hometown: Hightstown, NJ
Major(s): psychology
Minor(s): public policy; theatre
Department Productions: Once Upon the Oval--cancelled due to COVID pandemic

Jack McAuliffe (dramaturg), graduate student
Hometown: Boston, MA
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: 1st department production

Maggie Miller (Everybody/Somebody), graduate student
Hometown: Sandpoint, ID
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: debut

David Obeng (Everybody/Somebody), senior
Hometown: Bronx, NY
Major(s): African American and African studies; psychology
Minor(s): theatre
Department Productions: debut

Elle Price (stage manager), sophomore
Hometown: Washington, DC
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: The Country Wife

Christopher Ryan Quiroz (Everybody/Somebody), graduate student
Hometown: San Antonio, TX
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: debut

Marina Sepulveda (Understudy Usher/God/Understanding), 1st-year student
Hometown: Youngstown, OH
Major(s): psychology
Minor(s): Spanish; theatre
Department Productions: 1st department production

Katherine Simon (scenic environment and properties designer), graduate student
Hometown: Columbus, OH
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: Wilderness

Joshua Smith (Everybody/Somebody), graduate student
Hometown: Gresham, OR
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: debut

Avery Wilson-Mukherjee (asst. stage manager), junior
Hometown: Evansville, IN
Major(s): theatre
Department Productions: 1st department production

Spoiler alert: Everybody dies.

All of us know that everybody dies, but––at least in the mainstream culture of the United States––we usually prefer to ignore that fact. Though the pandemic made death more visible and concrete in the lives of many US Americans, we remain a “death-denying” culture in which it is taboo to accept, or even speak of, our imminent deaths.

Increasing secularization, alongside decreasing attendance at religious services, has led to the relative decline of one of the only venues in US society where consideration of one’s death and possible afterlife is openly encouraged. End-of-life care too often prioritizes delaying death at all costs. And our billionaire oligarchs espouse fantasies of delaying aging, living forever, transcending our bodies, and uploading our consciousnesses to the cloud.

Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins takes place in the now, but it is an adaptation of a much older play, the late 15th Century morality play Everyman. Everybody is self-reflexive about its status as an adaptation and generously informs audiences of the relevant historical background, so I will not take much space here discussing Everyman. But it is worth noting that both plays have, as Jacobs-Jenkins writes, “similar ambitions”: to explore the prevailing attitudes about death in their respective times.

Everyman reflected the “death culture” of Western Europe in the Late Middle Ages. Under the dominant ideology of Christianity, death was seen not as an end, but a transition; one’s life on Earth would be akin to an “entrance exam” into the eternal afterlife of either heaven or hell. By contrast, Everybody is not exclusively Christian, reflecting the greater diversity––and uncertainty––in spiritual beliefs about the afterlife in the contemporary United States.

In recent decades, we have seen a turn away from what playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes calls the “atheist white male aesthetics” of the 20th Century dramatic canon. Plays like Everybody reject this dismissiveness toward spirituality, instead demanding that we attend to metaphysical questions of life, death, goodness, and the afterlife––even in a culture that lacks a single guiding doctrine. Theatre scholar Dana Tanner-Kennedy describes Everybody as a “postsecular morality tale imagining the process of a good death in a world untethered from divine absolutes.” As you watch the play, I invite you to ask yourself: what makes a good death? What makes a good life?

We often speak of death as universal. And it is, in that everybody dies. But it is worth noting that the circumstances under which we die are affected by our identities. Race, class, disability, gender, and sexual orientation all impact how our deaths––and lives––are, or are not, valued. Some examples of this include the Black mortality gap and the doubling of homicide rates against trans people in the last four years.

Too often, the word “universal” is code for “straight, white, and male.” Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a queer, Black playwright, and I encourage you to consider how his play engages with both universality and specificity as it explores the nuances of death and life.

Support Ohio State Theatre

Everybody Program

Everybody Program

Everybody

By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Directed by Kevin McClatchy

Cast

PRODUCTION TEAM

PRODUCTION CREW

STUDENT CAST & PRODUCTION TEAM BIOGRAPHIES

DRAMATURG'S NOTE

2023 - 2024 SEASON