Bruce Norris’ play Downstate will delay its first Broadway preview by two days due to illness within the company, the show announced today.
The new first preview date is Monday, October 19, at Broadway Booth Theatre. Opening night of Sunday, November 15 remains unchanged.
Show reps did not specify who was ill or the nature of the illness. Ticketholders of the canceled Saturday, October 17, show will be refunded or given the opportunity to rebook by contacting point of purchase with questions.
Norris’ controversial play about a group home housing convicted sex offenders is directed by Joe Mantello and produced by Scott Rudin and Barry Diller. Downstate has been widely praised by critics in pre-Broadway stagings, occasionally drawing the ire of right-wingers like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who tweeted about the show, “So now the corporate media is praising pedophilia,” a misguided simplification that the production now uses in its marketing campaign.
The official synopsis: “In downstate Illinois, four men convicted of sex crimes against minors live together in a group home, their every movement governed by restrictions that continue to close in around them. The house’s fragile order begins to fracture as an accuser arrives to confront his abuser, bringing with him a storm of unspoken memories. Shockingly funny, savage and furiously political, Bruce Norris’s play pulls audiences into a world where punishment is unending, compassion itself can feel like a transgression, and forgiveness is always out of reach.”
The Broadway staging of Downstate will feature Cassie Beck, K. Todd Freeman, Francis Guinan, Adrian Martinez, Al’Jaleel McGhee, Thomas Sadoski, Ivy Wolk and Liza Colón-Zayas.