When Leon and Troy are caught breaking in to a north London boxing gym, the owner puts the aspiring black boxers to work rather than turning them over to the police. When race riots erupt in the neighborhood, a split-second betrayal changes both boys’ lives. From the north London streets to the World Championship, the two former friends must ultimately step into the ring and face who they’ve become—champions or sell outs?
Kinetic, comedic, and emotionally bruising, Williams’s masterwork blasts open the experience of being young, black, and ambitious in 1980s London.
Studio’s Subscription Season is the core of our programming, offering an uncommonly rich repertoire of provocative contemporary writing from around the world and inventive stagings of contemporary classics.
Studio Theatre’s 2011-2012 Season was generously underwritten by Robert and Arlene Kogod.
Underwriting for the International Plays of the 2011-2012 Season was provided by an anonymous donor.
This production of Sucker Punch was underwritten by Lizbeth J. Dobbins, Stan and Rosemary Marcuss, and The National Endowment for the Arts.
Roy Williams began writing plays in 1990 and is now one of Britain’s leading dramatists. In 2000 he was the joint-winner of The George Devine Award and was awarded the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright in 2001. He was awarded the OBE for Services to Drama in the 2008 Birthday Honors List. His plays include Sucker Punch (Royal Court Theatre), Category B (Tricycle Theatre), Days of Significance (Royal Shakespeare Company), Absolute Beginners (Lyric Hammersmith), Fallout (Royal Court Theatre), Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads (National Theatre), and Clubland (Royal Court Theatre), among many others. He has received the John Whiting Award, the Alfred Fagon Award and the EMMA Award for Best Play.
Mr. Williams’s work for television includes Let It Snow, Fallout, Offside (Winner of BAFTA Children’s Film & TV Award for Best Schools Drama) and Babyfather. For radio, his work includes adaptations of ER Braithwaite’s A Choice of Straws and To Sir with Love and original plays, Tell Tale and Homeboys.
(As of March 2012)
Leah C. Gardiner makes her Studio Theatre debut with Sucker Punch, having known Roy Williams for 10 years. Her New York work includes the US premiere of born bad at Soho Rep (2011 OBIE award for directing), the world premiere of Bulrusher at Urban Stages, Wit at Union Square, Training Wisteria at Cherry Lane Theatre, Kent, CT at the Zipper Theater, The Ghost of Enoch Charlton at Keen Company, and Earthquake Chica at the Summer Play Festival, as well as productions at NYU and The Juilliard School. Ms. Gardiner directed the national tour of Wit (Kennedy Center, among others). Regionally, she has directed the world premieres of Blue Door at South Coast Repertory Theatre, Orange Flower Water at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, and The Flag Maker of Market Street at Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Ms. Gardiner’s other regional work includes productions of Fences at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Othello at the Houston Shakespeare Festival; Wit at the Ordway Theatre in Minneapolis; Dance of the Holy Ghosts, Sam’s Coming, and Blue Door at New York Stage and Film; Wild Black-Eyed Susans at Center Stage; Paper Armor at GeVa Theatre and Cleveland Playhouse; A Streetcar Named Desire at Pillsbury House Theatre; The Piano Lesson at Madison Repertory Theatre; Topdog/Underdog at Philadelphia Theatre Company; Birdie Blue at City Theatre, Pittsburgh; Angels in America, parts I and II at Connecticut Repertory Theatre; and Sons at the Children’s Theater Company. She has directed readings and workshops for Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Theatre Workshop, The Play Company, The Public Theater, The hotINK Festival, ACT, South Coast Repertory Theatre, and Philadelphia Theatre Company. Her upcoming work includes The Last Five Years at Crossroads and restaging the national tour of The Normal Heart for Arena Stage. Ms. Gardiner served as the director-in-residence for the Public Theater/ NYSF and a resident director for New Dramatists. She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Yale School of Drama.
(As of March 2012)
Sheldon Best is making his Studio Theatre debut. His New York credits include Freed with 59E59 Theaters and Penguin Rep Theatre (AUDELCO Viv Award nomination), Soul Samurai with Ma-Yi Theater Company and Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company, Alice in Slasherland with Vampire Cowboys, Paradox of the Urban Cliché with LAByrinth Theater Company, and Gentrifusion: Crawl with Red Fern Theatre Company. Mr. Best has also appeared in many new works with Ensemble Studio Theatre, where he is a company member. His regional credits include The Life of Galileo at the Cleveland Play House, Superior Donuts at the Denver Center (Colorado Theatre Guild’s Henry Award nomination), Lydia R. Diamond’s Harriet Jacobs at Underground Railway Theater, Much Ado About Nothing with the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, The Oil Thief at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, The History Boys with SpeakEasy Stage Company, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Mr. Best recently guest starred on an episode of the CBS drama Person of Interest. He holds a BA in Theatre Arts and in English and American Literature from Brandeis University.
(As of March 2012)
Emmanuel Brown is proud to be making his Studio Theatre debut. Mr. Brown made his Broadway debut as Electro in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark at the Foxwoods Theatre. Other theatre credits include the Broadway workshop of Bruce Lee: Journey to the West, Lavender Lizards and Lilac Landmines: Layla’s Dream at New Federal Theatre, Lyrical Arts at the American Theatre of Actors, and White Eyebrow at the Lookingglass Theatre. Mr. Brown toured internationally as Rayo in the theatrical concert Don Omar: King of Kings. His film and TV work includes Little Manhattan, Escape from New Jersey, Under the Gun, Rescue Me, and ABC Primetime. Mr. Brown is also an accomplished dancer, having performed at the Latin Billboards, Pepsi Smash, the NFL Super Bowl Pre-Game show, Madison Square Garden, and Shea Stadium. He holds a BFA from the University of Florida.
(As of March 2012)
Sean Gormley has appeared in New York in Aristocrats, The Devil’s Disciple, Yeats Project, and The Shaughraun at Irish Repertory Theatre; Nora and Shadow of the Glen at Marvell Repertory Theatre; Ladies and Gents and Transport at the Irish Arts Center; the solo performance of The Good Thief at Players Theatre; and Ross at Storm Theatre. His regional work includes Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde at Bristol Riverside Theatre; and in Seattle: Macbeth at Wooden O; Waiting For Lefty and Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Capitol Hill Arts Center; Antigone at Edge Theatre; Hellhound On My Trail at Theatre Schmeater; and Hound of the Baskervilles with UPAC Theatre Group. His television work includes Treme, All My Children, and The Edge. Mr. Gormley has many voiceover credits, and has appeared in numerous independent films including the upcoming feature What Maisie Knew. He wrote and directed the award-winning short film Blackout.
(As of March 2012)
Dana Levanovsky is thrilled to be back at The Studio Theatre, having appeared in Studio 2ndStage’s That Face. Recent credits in DC include After the Fall at Theatre J, Mad Forest and Scorched at Forum Theatre, This is Not a Time Bomb at Source Theatre, and Four Dogs and a Bone at the Capital Fringe Festival. Ms. Levanovsky holds a BA in Acting from The George Washington University and is an alumnus of the National Theatre Institute and the Accademia Dell’arte.
(As of March 2012)
Lucas Beck is making his Studio Theatre debut. His New York credits include Richard and Anne at Mirror Repertory Theatre, Fathers and Sons at The Actors Company Theatre, and Venus, Sensation, and the Pope at Wooden Indian. In DC, he has appeared in In Darfur at Theatre J; Beauty of the Father at GALA Hispanic Theatre; and The Suicide, The Violet Hour, Pig Farm, Red Herring, The Game of Love and Chance, Three Days of Rain, The Prisoner of Zenda, and The Glass Menagerie at 1st Stage (recipient of the John Aniello Award for Oustanding Emerging Theatre). Other regional theatre includes Lady Burns Manor, Six Zebra One, The Best Girl Ever and Mark & Michael at the Rosie Olds Teatro in Canada.
(As of March 2012)
Michael Rogers has appeared at theatres around the US and internationally in roles as varied as God (Italy), Othello (Theatre for a New Audience), and Dracula (Barter Theatre). His television work has been seen on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. His film work includes The Mosquito Coast, Weekend at Bernie’s II, Moonfire, Inscape, and Dead Witness. Mr. Rogers has directed for the Vineyard Theatre, MCC, Manhattan Theatre Club, and The Providence Black Rep Company. He has served as language and cultural consultant for Yale Repertory Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, ABC, and Disney. He has taught on both undergraduate and graduate levels at New York University, Towson University, Hofstra, and others. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Mr. Rogers is currently the story editor for Soho Films US.
(As of March 2012)
Lance Coadie Williams is grateful to return to The Studio Theatre, having appeared in last season’s Marcus; Or The Secret of Sweet. His DC credits include Booty Candy at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre and Fences at Round House Theatre. He toured to Athens with The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of The Oedipus Plays. Other credits include My Children! My Africa!, The Children’s Hour, Blues for an Alabama Sky, and Fences at Everyman Theatre; and the title role in Hamlet at The Baltimore Shakespeare Festival. Mr. Williams is a graduate of The Baltimore School for the Arts, and earned his BFA at SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film.
(As of March 2012)
Rick Sordelet has worked on 53 Broadway productions, which include The Scottsboro Boys and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Tarzan and Aida. His New York credits include Blood Knot, Hurt Village, and The Lady from Dubuque at Signature Theatre; Carrie the musical at MCC; and Merrily We Roll Along for Encores. He has worked on the national tours of Beauty and the Beast and Les Miserables. Mr. Sordelet has choreographed 52 commercial productions around the world, including Tarzan, Aida, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Titanic, and Ben Hur Live. His opera work includes Cyrano at the Metropolitan Opera, The Royal Opera House and La Scalla; Don Carlo at the Metropolitan Opera; and Heart of a Soldier at the San Francisco Opera House. His film work includes The Game Plan, Dan in Real Life, and Hamlet with Campbell Scott. Mr. Sordelet was the Chief Stunt Coordinator for Guiding Light for 12 years, and also worked on One Life to Live. He won the Edith Oliver Award for Sustained Excellence from the Lucille Lortel Foundation and a Jeff Award for best fight choreography for Romeo and Juliet at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. A board member for the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Mr. Sordelet has taught at Yale School of Drama and The New School for Drama. He holds a BFA from University of Wisconsin-Superior and an MFA from Rutgers University.
(As of March 2012)
Daniel Conway has designed more than two dozen plays for Studio Theatre including Three Sisters and No Sisters, The Aliens, and his Helen Hayes Award-winning design for Hand to God. His recent work on Macbeth for Chicago Shakespeare Theater and The Scottsboro Boys for Signature Theatre was featured in the 2019 Prague Quadrennial of World Stage Design and Performance Art. He is currently designing Singin’ in the Rain for Olney Theatre Center. Other regional credits include work for Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, The Cleveland Play House, Shakespeare Theatre Company, South Coast Rep, Milwaukee Rep, A.R.T., The Kennedy Center, and Boston Lyric Opera. Daniel is the designer for the performance artists/magicians Penn and Teller. Awards include 14 Helen Hayes nominations and four awards for Outstanding Set Design, nominations for the Los Angeles and Boston Critics Awards, and The Anderson-Hopkins Award for Sustained Contributions to Theatre in Washington DC.
(As of August 2019)
Brian MacDevitt directed Between Riverside and Crazy for Studio Theatre, where he designed lighting for Sucker Punch and The Real Thing, and he served as the Production Designer for Murder Ballad. His recent directing credits include Proof at Theater Three in New York and Spring Awakening at The Clarice Smith Center. Other directing credits include Joyce Soho and readings at New York Stage and Film and Naked Angels. He has designed lighting for close to 70 shows on Broadway, including Larry David’s A Fish in the Dark, A Delicate Balance with Glenn Close, and This is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan. Other Broadway credits include Death of a Salesman starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and directed by Mike Nichols; The Book of Mormon (Tony Award), The Coast of Utopia, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Fences, A Behanding in Spokane, Race, The Pillowman, Urinetown, and Into the Woods. He is the recipient of five Tony Awards, an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence, a Bessie Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, the Hewes Award, and a Drama Desk Award. He designed lights for dance productions with The Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Tere O’Connor Dance, Merce Cunningham, Lar Lubovitch, Nancy Bannon, and many others. His designs for the Metropolitan Opera include The Enchanted Island, Le Compte Ory, and Doctor Atomic. He is on the faculty of University of Maryland and is a member of the Naked Angels Theater Company.
(As of April 2015)
Kathleen Geldard returns to Studio Theatre after designing Cry It Out, Curve of Departure, Animal, Choir Boy, Jumpers for Goalposts, Tribes, and Invisible Man. Other recent regional credits include Macbeth at Shakespeare Theatre Company; Misery and Shakespeare in Love at Cincinnati Playhouse; and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime; and Humana Festivals 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Other regional credits include Arena Stage, Portland Center Stage, Huntington Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Florida Studio Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, The Kennedy Center, Round House Theatre, Imagination Stage, and Folger Theatre. She is an artistic associate for Signature Theatre.
(As of January 2019)
Lindsay Jones is pleased to return to Studio Theatre, where he also designed sound for Sucker Punch. His Off Broadway credits include Mr. Joy at LCT3, Rx at Primary Stages, Through the Night at Union Square Theatre, Wild With Happy at the Public Theater, The Burnt Part Boys at Playwrights Horizons, and Top Secret at New York Theatre Workshop, among many others. His regional credits include shows at the Guthrie Theatre, Centerstage, Goodman Theatre, Alley Theatre, Arena Stage, The Old Globe, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and many others. Internationally, Mr. Jones has worked at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada and the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, as well as on productions in Austria, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Scotland. Mr. Jones has received six Joseph Jefferson Awards and 16 nominations, two Ovation Awards and three nominations, an LA Drama Critics Circle Award, and two Drama Desk Award nominations. His original film scoring includes HBO Films’ A Note Of Triumph (2006 Academy Award for Best Documentary) and The Brass Teapot for Magnolia Pictures.
(As of March 2013)
Adrien-Alice Hansel is the Literary Director at Studio, where she has dramaturged the world premieres of I Hate it Here, Queen of Basel, The Remains, No Sisters, I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart, Animal, Red Speedo, Dirt, Lungs, and The History of Kisses as well as productions of Flow, 2.5 Minute Ride, Until the Flood, Cry It Out, Translations, Curve of Departure, The Effect, Wig Out!, Straight White Men, Cloud 9, Hedda Gabler, Jumpers for Goalposts, Bad Jews (twice), The Apple Family Plays, Invisible Man, Sucker Punch, The Golden Dragon, and The New Electric Ballroom, among others. Prior to joining Studio, she spent eight seasons at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she headed the literary department and coordinated project scouting, selection, and development for the Humana Festival of New American Plays. She is the co-editor of eight anthologies of plays from Actors Theatre and editor of 10 editions of plays through Studio. Adrien-Alice holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
(As of May 2021)
Ashley Smith returns to Studio Theatre, having served as Voice and Text Director for Sucker Punch. He recently served as Dialect Coach for Everyman Theatre's production of Crimes of the Heart and Woolly Mammoth Theatre's production of Appropriate. Mr. Smith has directed voice, text, and dialects for Bus Stop and The Rivals at Baltimore Center Stage; Exits and Entrances and The Circle at American Players Theatre; The Good Negro for Dallas Theater Center and The Public Theater; and the Chicago premiere of My Children! My Africa! at Victory Gardens Theatre. As an actor, Mr. Smith recently appeared on AMC's new dramatic series Turn. Other recent television credits include The Art and Life of James McNeill Whistler (PBS). Recent stage credits include All's Well that Ends Well and Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare Theatre Company. He has performed principal roles for Utah Shakespeare Festival (four seasons), Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Dallas Theater Center, and Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre in New York. Mr. Smith teaches voice and acting in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland.
(As of May 2014)
Gary “the Kid” Stark, Jr. is a former New York Super Bantamweight champion. In his amateur career he was a three-time Golden Gloves champion, rated fifth in the country by USA boxing. Since turning pro in 2002, his record is 23-3 with eight knockouts.
(As of March 2012)
John Keith Hall's DC credits include many productions at Studio Theatre including Bad Jews, Choir Boy, Water by the Spoonful, Tribes, Torch Song Trilogy, 4000 Miles, Sucker Punch, In The Red And Brown Water, The History Boys, Adding Machine: A Musical, and The Road To Mecca; Hir, The Nether, and An Octoroon at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Soon, SCKBSTD, and West Side Story at Signature Theatre; Sweeney Todd, Mary Poppins, and The Producers at Olney Theatre Center. Regional credits include several seasons as a Resident Stage Manager at The Barter Theatre in Virginia where he supervised over 40 productions, Shadowland Stages in New York, and Virginia Musical Theatre in Virginia Beach. A graduate of Virginia’s Longwood University, Mr. Hall is a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association.
(As of September 2017)
Jamila Reddy is the Artistic Apprentice at The Studio Theatre, and is thrilled to be working on Bachelorette. At The Studio Theatre, she served as assistant director on Sucker Punch, Time Stands Still, The Golden Dragon, and The Habit of Art. She is an alumna of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she received a BA in both Dramatic Art and Sociology. She directed several productions at the undergraduate level, including the premiere of Kind of Blue, an original play by Kuamel Winston Stewart, and Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. For her contributions to the Department of Dramatic Art at UNC, Jamila received the Richard and Christopher Edward Adler Award for Excellence in Dramatic Art (2010) and the Louise Lamont Award for Excellence (2011).
(As of May 2012)
Christian Kelly-Sordelet has been doing combat work since he was a child. His work includes Masked at DR2 Theater in New York. His assistant work includes Fuerza Bruta in New York, Ben Hur Live in Rome, and the international tour of Beauty and the Beast. Mr. Kelly-Sordelet’s work was seen on TV in Guiding Light and One Life to Live. He has taught at several universities including Rutgers, NYU, The New School of Drama and the Neighborhood Playhouse Conservatory.
(As of March 2012)
