Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission
Broadway World
Laura Linney & Jessica Hecht Are Getting Ready to Return to Broadway in SUMMER, 1976
Summer, 1976
By David Auburn
Directed by Daniel Sullivan
With Laura Linney, Jessica Hecht
ON BROADWAY at the
SAMUEL J. FRIEDMAN THEATRE
Opened Tuesday, April 25, 2023.
Closed Sunday, June 18, 2023.
Four-time Emmy Award® winner & Academy Award® nominee Laura Linney (My Name Is Lucy Barton, Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes) and Tony Award® nominee Jessica Hecht (The Assembled Parties) return to Broadway in a new play by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and fellow MTC alum David Auburn (Proof, The Columnist). This deeply moving, insightful piece is about connection, memories, and the small moments that can change the course of our lives. Over one fateful summer, an unlikely friendship develops between Diana (Linney), a fiercely iconoclastic artist and single mom, and Alice (Hecht), a free-spirited yet naive young housewife. As the Bicentennial is celebrated across the country, these two young women in Ohio navigate motherhood, ambition, and intimacy, and help each other discover their own independence. Directing is Tony winner Daniel Sullivan (Proof, Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes).
Summer, 1976 was commissioned by MTC through the Bank of America New Play Program. Production support is provided by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation and the Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater.
For audience advisories for Summer, 1976, please click here.
Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
Critic’s Pick!
“LAURA LINNEY and JESSICA HECHT are a gorgeous duo in this poignant, sharply observant story of profound connection and awakening.”
The New York Times
“BEGUILING! DAVID AUBURN’s writing is fluidly eloquent.”
The Wall Street Journal
“LINNEY AND HECHT SOAR!”
Entertainment Weekly
“ELEGANTLY DIRECTED by DANIEL SULLIVAN.”
The New York Sun
“LINNEY and HECHT ARE A PERFECT PAIR!”
New York Post
“LINNEY and HECHT are STELLAR, working at the top of their game and together offering a master class in acting.”
Variety
“LINNEY and HECHT HEAT UP BROADWAY!”
Chicago Tribune
“A MUST-SEE! Bring a friend, or even make a new one while you’re there!”
Theatermania
Cast
Laura Linney
Diana
In 2018, Laura made her London theatre debut in Richard Eyre’s My Name Is Lucy Barton, the stage play adapted from the Elizabeth Strout novel of the same name, which then made its Broadway debut at Manhattan Theatre Club to rave reviews and her Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Play.
Other Broadway credits include Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, Time Stands Still and Sight Unseen, all at MTC; Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, directed by Richard Eyre opposite Liam Neeson, Six Degrees of Separation, Honour, Uncle Vanya, Les Liaisons, Dangereuses, Holiday and The Seagull.
For her role as Wendy Byrde in Ozark on Netflix, staring opposite Jason Bateman, she recently received her seventh Emmy Award® nomination. Upcoming is The Miracle Club, where she is set to star opposite Maggie Smith and Kathy Bates and Searchlight’s Suncoast, opposite Woody Harrelson and Nico Parker.
Laura’s numerous film credits include Falling, The Roads Not Taken, The Dinner, Nocturnal Animals, Sully, Genius, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, You Can Count On Me, Kinsey, The Savages, The Fifth Estate, Hyde Park On Hudson, The Squid And The Whale, Mystic River, Absolute Power, The Truman Show, Primal Fear, The Mothman Prophecies, Love Actually, P.S., The House Of Mirth, The Details and Congo, among many others.
Laura starred in and served as an executive producer for the Showtime Series The Big C for four seasons, for which she won a few awards. She also won multiple awards for her portrayal of Abigail Adams in the HBO miniseries John Adams directed by Tom Hooper. Laura served as an executive producer and starred in the highly anticipated Netflix revival of Tales of the City. She appeared as Kelsey Grammer’s final girlfriend in the last six episodes of Frasier, was directed by Stanley Donen in Love Letters, and starred opposite Joanne Woodward in Blind Spot.
Linney has been nominated three times for an Academy Award, five times for a Tony Award, eight times for a SAG award, once for a BAFTA Award and seven times for a Golden Globe. She has won one Screen Actors Guild Award, one National Board of Review Award, two Golden Globes and four Emmy Awards. She holds two honorary Doctorates from her alma maters, Brown University and The Juilliard School.
Jessica Hecht
Alice
JESSICA HECHT received an Emmy Award nomination for her performance in the Netflix series “Special”. She was been seen on television in the limited series “Super Pumped” and “The Loudest Voice” and in her recurring roles in “The Sinner”,” Dickinson”, ‘The Boys”, and “Succession”. She is also recognizable to television audiences as Susan Bunch on the iconic television series “Friends” and Gretchen Schwarz on “Breaking Bad.” She has played memorable roles on “Bored to Death”, “High Maintenance”, “Falling Water”, “The Single Guy,” and “Red Oaks”. Her film performances include A+, Anesthesia, J. Edgar, The Grey Zone, The Sitter, My Soul To Take, Dan In Real Life, Sideways, The Atlantic City Story and The Sunlit Night. An acclaimed stage actress, Hecht has appeared on Broadway in productions of The Price opposite Mark Ruffalo, Fiddler on the Roof opposite Danny Burstein, The Assembled Parties opposite Judith Light, Harvey opposite Jim Parsons, After the Fall opposite Carla Gugino, The Last Night of Ballyhoo opposite Paul Rudd, Brighton Beach Memoirs opposite Laurie Metcalf, Julius Caesar opposite Denzel Washington, and A View From the Bridge opposite Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance. Off-Broadway, she has appeared in King Lear opposite John Lithgow and Annette Bening, Stage Kiss opposite Sandra Oh, Three Sisters opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, and at Lincoln Center Theater in Admissions for which she received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination and an Obie Award.
Laura Linney
Diana
Jessica Hecht
Alice
Judith Lightfoot Clarke
u/s Diana
Broadway: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Casa Valentina (Manhattan Theatre Club). Off Broadway: Linda (MTC), Eve-olution (Cherry Lane), Three Travelers, (St. Clement’s), The Normal Heart (Public Theatre), Communicating Doors (Variety Arts), Hamlet (Kaufman). Regional: Romeo & Juliet (The Shakespeare Theatre); Macbeth (Arden), The Graduate (Ivoryton) and theatres including The Alley, Cincinnati Playhouse, Old Globe, People’s Light, Merrimack Rep, Syracuse Rep, Capital Rep, Indiana Rep, Wilma and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Film includes How to Be Single, and Killer. Television includes: “Unforgettable”, “Forever”, “Outlaw”, “Law & Order”, “L&O, SVU”, “New Amsterdam” and “Madame Secretary”. Graduate of The College of William & Mary.
Finnerty Steeves
u/s Alice
Broadway: Brighton Beach Memoirs/ Broadway Bound (Nederlander Theatre). Off-Broadway: The White Chip (59E59), Dot (Vineyard Theater), Almost Maine (Daryl Roth Theater), and the Drama Desk nominated production of Lost in Yonkers (TACT). Regional: American Conservatory Theater, The Guthrie, A.R.T. (Elliot Norton Award for her performance as Ms. Calvin in The Shape She Makes) TV/Film: “The Other Two”, “Blue Bloods”, “The Blacklist”, “Orange Is The New Black” “Bored To Death” “Sopranos”, Bad Education, Morning Glory and upcoming La Cocina. Finnerty wrote, produced, and starred in the award-winning feature film before/during/after released by Gravitas Ventures. www.finnertysteeves.com
Judith Lightfoot Clarke
u/s Diana
Finnerty Steeves
u/s Alice
Creative
David Auburn
Playwright
Plays include The Adventures of Augie March (based on the Saul Bellow novel, Court Theatre, Chicago 2019), Lost Lake (MTC 2014), The Columnist (MTC/Broadway 2011), and Proof (MTC; 2001 Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award, New York Drama Critics Circle Award). Film work includes The Girl in the Park (writer/director), Georgetown, and The Lake House, as well as current television projects for HBO and Amblin Television. He is artistic associate at the Berkshire Theatre Group, where he has directed The Skin of Our Teeth, The Petrified Forest, Anna Christie, and A Delicate Balance, among other plays. Other directing credits include Long Day’s Journey into Night (Court, Chicago) and the Off-Broadway world premiere of Michael Weller’s Side Effects (MCC). A former Guggenheim Fellow, he lives in New York City. He/him.
Daniel Sullivan
Director
Manhattan Theatre Club credits include The Nap, Saint Joan, Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, The Country House, The Snow Geese, The Columnist, Lost Lake, Accent on Youth, Good People, Time Stands Still, Rabbit Hole, After the Night and the Music, Brooklyn Boy, Sight Unseen, Psycopathia Sexualis, and Proof. Among other Broadway credits are Stories By Heart, Orphans, Glengarry Glen Ross , The Homecoming, Prelude to a Kiss, Julius Caesar, I’m Not Rappaport, Morning’s at Seven, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Ah, Wilderness!, The Sisters Rosensweig, Conversations with my Father, and The Heidi Chronicles. For the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park he has directed Coriolanus, Troilus and Cressida, Cymbeline, King Lear, Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Among his Off-Broadway credits are If I Forget, The Night Watcher, Intimate Apparel, Far East, Spinning into Butter, Stuff Happens, Dinner with Friends, and The Substance of Fire. From 1981 to 1997, he served as artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre. Sullivan served as Swanlund Professor in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Illinois, Urbana for 25 years.
John Lee Beatty
Scenic Design
JOHN LEE BEATTY (Scenic Design), in a 50-year career starting at MTC, has designed 117 Broadway plays, recently Plaza Suite, Sweat, Disgraced, The Nance, Doubt, Other Desert Cities, Rabbit Hole, Good People, Proof, The Sisters Rosensweig, Burn This, 5th of July, Talley’s Folly, as well as revivals of A Delicate Balance, The Heiress, Dinner at Eight and the musicals Chicago, The Color Purple, After Midnight, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and The Most Happy Fella. He has designed premieres by playwrights Lanford Wilson, Mamet, Pinter, Miller, Henley, Baitz, McNally, Nottage, Wasserstein, Ives, Lindsay-Abaire, Gurney, Friel, Auburn, Shanley and more. Equally prolific Off-Broadway at MTC, Circle Rep Co., Lincoln Center Theater (the recent Epiphany), Shakespeare in the Park and 22 seasons of Encores! Multiple Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Obie awards, and the Theater Hall of Fame.
Linda Cho
Costume Design
Broadway: Summer, 1976; POTUS; Take Me Out; Grand Horizons; The Great Society; The Lifespan of a Fact; Anastasia (Tony nom); A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love & Murder (Tony Award); The Velocity of Autumn. Off-Broadway: Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Cambodian Rock Band (Signature Theatre); Kristina Wong Sweatshop Overlord, Endlings (NYTW). Regional: A Thousand Splendid Suns (A.C.T.); DDLJ (The Old Globe); Noir (Alley Theatre). Opera: Samson et Dalila (Met Opera), Turandot (Washington National Opera). Other: TDF’s Irene Sharaff Young Master Award, Ruth Morely Design Award; advisory committee member of the American Theatre Wing. MFA, Yale School of Drama. lindacho.com
Japhy Weideman
Lighting Design
MTC: Airline Highway, The Snow Geese. Broadway: Shucked, The Piano Lesson, Dear Evan Hansen, The Visit, The Nance, Of Mice and Men, Lobby Hero, Bright Star, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sylvia, Old Times, Macbeth, Cyrano de Bergerac, Significant Other and Marvin’s Room. Off-Broadway: Lincoln Center Theater, The Public, NYSF, NYTW, Second Stage, Playwrights Horizons, MCC, LAByrinth, Vineyard, Ma-Yi. West End: Dear Evan Hansen (Noel Coward), A Nice Fish (Harold Pinter Theatre) and Blackbird (Albery Theatre). Japhy has been nominated for five Tony Awards for lighting design.
Jill BC Du Boff
Sound Design
Broadway: Derren Brown: Secret, The Heidi Chronicles, Hand to God, Disgraced, Children of a Lesser God, Picnic, Wit, Other Desert Cities, Good People, The Constant Wife, The Good Body, Bill Maher: Victory…. Off-Broadway: Lincoln Center Theater, MTC, Atlantic Theater Company, Vineyard Theatre, MCC Theater, Playwrights Horizons, The Public, Second Stage Theater, NYTW, WP, Cherry Lane, Signature, Clubbed Thumb (affiliate artIist), Penguin Rep. Radio: “RadioLab,” “The New Yorker Radio Hour”; Drama Desk and Henry Hewes nominations. Awards: Ruth Morley Design Award, Obie for Sustained Excellence, Lilly Award. Jill is currently the director of audio at Marvel Entertainment. Love to Adam, Milo and Mabel.
Hana S. Kim
Projection Design
Broadway: The Old Man and the Pool. Off-Broadway/New York: The Harder They Come (The Public Theater), The Visitor (The Public Theater, Lucile Lortel nom), Eve’s Song (The Public Theater), Everything Rises (BAM), Magdalene (Prototype Festival). New music/opera: Sweet Land (The Industry), The Anonymous Lover (LA Opera). Regional: Geffen Playhouse, OSF, South Coast Rep, Magic Theatre, A.C.T., among others. Awards: Princess Grace Award, Sherwood Award from CTG, Helen Hayes Award, LA Drama Critics Circle Distinguished Achievement Award, among others. hananow.com
Greg Pliska
Original Music
Broadway: War Horse (music director), Sylvia (composer). Off-Broadway: Trevor the Musical (orchestrator); Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare in the Park, music and arrangements); Government Inspector, Alchemist, Arden of Faversham, Pericles (Red Bull Theater, music and sound). Opera: The Secret Garden (libretto by David Ives). Film: Trust (composer); Manhattan Night, Flying Monsters 3D (orchestrator). TV: “Life” (Discovery, composer/orchestrator). Orchestrator for NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “CBS Evening News,” Imax themes. Podcast: “Nice Try! Utopian” (music and sound). Recordings as arranger: Hem, Tony Trischka, Michael Stipe, Cat Power, Karen Elson. Co-author of the Playbill crossword.
David Caparelliotis & Kelly Gillespie
Casting
James FitzSimmons
production stage manager
This is Fitz’s 26th Broadway show and 21st show for Manhattan Theatre Club. His credits range from last season’s Tony-nominated How I Learned to Drive to the original Tony-winning production of The Heidi Chronicles. He has been a proud AEA member for 34 years. He is also the founder of The Rebecca Luker Theatrical Partnership with Clearspace Theater in Delaware.
David Auburn
Playwright
Daniel Sullivan
Director
John Lee Beatty
Scenic Design
Linda Cho
Costume Design
Japhy Weideman
Lighting Design
Jill BC Du Boff
Sound Design
Hana S. Kim
Projection Design
Greg Pliska
Original Music
David Caparelliotis & Kelly Gillespie
Casting
James FitzSimmons
production stage manager
Laura Linney, Jessica Hecht in
Summer, 1976 (2022-2023)
Photo by Jeremy Daniel
Laura Linney, Jessica Hecht in
Summer, 1976 (2022-2023)
Photo by Jeremy Daniel
Jessica Hecht, Laura Linney in
Summer, 1976 (2022-2023)
Photo by Jeremy Daniel
Jessica Hecht, Laura Linney in
Summer, 1976 (2022-2023)
Photo by Jeremy Daniel
Jessica Hecht, Laura Linney in
Summer, 1976 (2022-2023)
Photo by Jeremy Daniel
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30 Under 35
Rush Policy
Accessibility
Health & Safety
Manhattan Theatre Club produces a wide range of theatre both on and off-Broadway. In a history spanning almost 50 years, they have won 27 Tony Awards, 7 Pulitzer Prizes, and developed into one of the country’s most acclaimed theatres.
If you intend to see three or more MTC productions in the coming year, you can join MTC and add this show to your package now. MTC Subscribers save up to 40% off the cost of individual tickets, receive priority seating, early access to tickets, and no-risk flexibility to exchange tickets for a different performance date free of charge, for any reason.
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TodayTix Rush
A limited number of $35 rush tickets for each performance are available the day of the show at TodayTix.com. Rush tickets are subject to availability and blackout.
Student Rush
Student rush tickets are available at the box office on the day of the show when the box office opens. Tickets are $30 (including all fees), payable by cash or credit card, and are available to students with an ID from a degree or diploma granting institution. Tickets are subject to availability and are limited to two per valid ID. Note that anyone aged 35 or under may prefer to purchase their tickets through the 30 Under 35 program instead.
Click here for a seating chart. The Friedman Theatre seats 650. Seating is on Orchestra, Premier Circle and Mezzanine levels—all seating accessible by elevator. For more information on accessibility, please click here.
Through the run of Summer, 1976, masks are required for all audience members attending performances on Tuesday evenings and Sunday matinees.
For all other performances, masks are not required, but strongly encouraged.