The Sound Inside

Playwright Adam Rapp is a master of the small moments that define a character. He created beautiful portraits in his earlier play Red Light Winter which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2006. He has done so once again in his new play, THE SOUND INSIDE. Here we meet Yale creative writing professor Bella Baird and her brilliant, guarded, challenging student Christopher Dunn. Bella starts by addressing the audience in direct, brutally open narration. She is his professor, his mentor, alone by choice, supremely confident. She is drawn to him, somehow compelled to know him. And also there is something she wants from him. Something that she may not be able to ask. The tension of their encounters builds quietly, provocatively as the playwright drives forward to a stunning conclusion.

THE SOUND INSIDE premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival last summer to great acclaim. Reviewing for The New York Times, Jesse Green called it “an astonishing new play. For its entire 90 minutes you are dying to know what will happen even while hoping to forestall the knowledge.”

The Sound Inside

Studio 54 Broadway
First Preview 14, Sep 2019
Opening Night 17, Oct 2019

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Cast

Will Hochman - Christopher

Cast

Will Hochman - Christopher

Mary-Louise Parker - Bella

Creative

Written by Adam Rapp
Original Music by Daniel Kluger
Directed by David Cromer
Scenic Design by Alexander Woodward
Costume Design by David Hyman
Lighting Design by Heather Gilbert
Sound Design by Daniel Kluger
Projection Design by Aaron Rhyne

Adam Rapp - Playwright

Adam Rapp (born June 15, 1968) is an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, musician and film director. His play, Red Light Winter, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2006.

Rapp attended the O'Neill Playwrights Conference in 1996. His play Finer Noble Gases was staged by the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in 2000, by Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2001, by Carolina Actors Studio Theatre in Charlotte in 2003, and by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in New York City in 2004. In 2001, Nocturne was premiered by the New York Theatre Workshop. It has also been staged at by American Repertory Theater and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. His play Stone Cold Dead Serious was produced in 2002 by the American Repertory Theater.
Rapp's Red Light Winter received the Joseph Jefferson Award (Best New Work) in 2005 for its production at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. The play was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2006. Rapp directed a production of Los Angeles, by Julian Sheppard, in 2007 at the Flea Theatre. As of 2007, he was Resident Playwright at the Edge Theatre Company in New York City.[citation needed]
He has taught at the Yale School of Drama. In 2011, Rapp's The Metal Children was given its regional debut by Swine Palace on Louisiana State University's campus.
The majority of Rapp's plays feature small casts and are set in small spaces. Many characters in the plays are lower-class Americans. His plays often combine stories of Midwestern longing with the idea of finding escape in New York. He combines humor with gloom, preferring dark themes
In a conversation with fellow playwright Gina Gionfriddo published in The Brooklyn Rail, Rapp says: "When you see something powerfully acted on stage, it hits a nerve in the way music hits a nerve … Watching someone twelve feet from you falling in love or being abused … There’s something raw about that experience that you don’t get from film or TV."

Plays

• The Sound Inside (2018)
• The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois (2016)
• Wolf in the River (2016)
• Through the Yellow Hour (2012)
• Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling (2011)
• The Edge of Our Bodies (2011)
• The Hallway Trilogy (2011), Part One: Rose, Part Two: Paraffin, Part Three: Nursing
• Ghosts in the Cottonwoods (2011)
• The Metal Children (2010)
• Classic Kitchen Timer (short play, 2009)
• Kindness (2008)
• American Sligo (2008)
• Bingo with the Indians (2007)
• Essential Self-Defense (2006)
• Red Light Winter (2005)
• Members Only (short play, 2005)
• Gompers (2004)
• Blackbird (2004)
• Stone Cold Dead Serious (2003)
• Trueblinka (2002)
• Faster (2002)
• Finer Noble Gases (2002)
• Train Story (short play, 2001)
• Animals and Plants (2001)
• Nocturne (2000)
• Dreams of the Salthorse (2000)

Studio 54

Studio 54 was a popular and world renowned nightclub from 1977 until 1981 when it was sold by founders and creators Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. It was called the most famous nightclub of all time and was a sophisticated, groundbreaking multi-media visual extravaganza.

It continued to operate as a nightclub until 1991 by other owners. Located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, New York City, the space was originally the Gallo Opera House, opening in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming CBS radio and television Studio 52. Since November 1998 it has been a venue for the Roundabout Theatre Company and is still called Studio 54, but is no longer a nightclub. A separate restaurant and nightclub, called 54 Below, operates in the basement of the famed venue.