The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
Written by Stephen Adly Guirgis
Directed by Estelle Parsons
In honor of Actors Studio’s 70th Anniversary
La MaMa’s 55th Anniversary
This production was developed at The Actors Studio and is performed by Actors Studio Members
Performed Without Double or Triple Casting For the First Time, history’s most famous double-cross is under the microscope in the provocative and irreverently funny The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis. Urban night court in “Hope -a ghetto of purgatory” is the backdrop, with Judas on trial for his betrayal of Christ, his soul left in the balance.
A trove of historic witnesses including Freud, Mother Theresa, Satan and Pontius Pilate deliver their testimony with raw honesty and scathing humor. As the play unfolds we are forced along with them to examine our ideals and ideas of love, divine mercy, free will and forgiveness coupled with the notion that evil may not be the presence of hate but the absence of compassion.
| Cast |
| Richarda Abrams* | Bob Adrian* | Michael Billingsley* | Fig Chilcott | Stephen Dexter* | Suzanne DiDonna* |
| Lash Dooley | Timothy Doyle* | Gabe Fazio | David Fraioli* | Jason Furlani | Gabriel Furman* |
| LeLand Gantt* | Jose Ignacio Gomez | Daniel Grimaldi* | Sashwat Gupta | Con Horgan* | Liana Jackson |
| Jay Johnston* | Burnadair Lipscomb-Hunt* | Beth Manspeizer* | Javier Molina | Marcus Naylor* |
| Myla Pitt* | Taylor Plas | JoAnna Rhinehart* | Delissa M. Reynolds* | Count Stovall* |
Peter Larkin – Set Design
Erich Bechtel – Sound Design
Yukio Tsuji – Music
Mike Riggs – Lighting Consultant
Court Watson – Costume Consultant
Jessica Schechter – Assistant Director
Ana Mari de Quesada* – Production Stage Manager
*Appear courtesy of Actors Equity Association
About the Artists
2015 Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Adly Guirgis is a member and former co-artistic director of LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced on five continents and throughout the United States. They include Our Lady of 121st Street (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle Best Play Nominations), Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train (Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Award, Barrymore Award, Olivier Nomination for London’s Best New Play), In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings (2007 LA Drama Critics Best Play, Best Writing Award), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (“10 Best” Time Magazine & Entertainment Weekly), and The Little Flower of East Orange (with Ellen Burstyn & Michael Shannon). All five plays were directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman and were originally produced by LAByrinth. His most recent play, Between Riverside and Crazy, completed a sold-out run at Atlantic Theater Company, and transfered to Second Stage Theatre in 2015. His 2011 play, The Motherf***er with the Hat (6 Tony Award nominations, including Best Play), was directed by Anna D. Shapiro and marked his third consecutive world premiere co-production with The Public Theater and LAByrinth. In London, his plays have premiered at The Donmar Warehouse, The Almeida (dir: Rupert Goold), The Hampstead (Robert Delamere), and at The Arts Theater in the West End. Other plays include Den of Thieves (Labyrinth, HERE, HAI, Black Dahlia) and Dominica The Fat Ugly Ho (dir: Adam Rapp) for the 2006 E.S.T. Marathon. He has received the Yale Wyndham-Campbell Prize, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, a Whiting Award, and a TCG fellowship. He is also a New Dramatists Alumnae and a member of MCC’s Playwright’s Coalition, The Ojai Playwrights Festival, New River Dramatists, and Labyrinth Theater Company. As an actor, he has appeared in theater, film and television, including roles in Kenneth Lonergan’s film Margaret, Todd Solondz’s Palindromes, and Brett C. Leonard’s Jailbait opposite Michael Pitt. A former violence prevention specialist and H.I.V. educator, he lives in New York City.
Estelle Parsons directed As You Like It, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet on Broadway for Joseph Papp. This was known as Shakespeare On Broadway and played for two years. Her next Broadway endeavor was Salome: The Reading by Oscar Wilde starring Al Pacino, Marisa Tomei, Dianne Wiest and David Straithairn, which was developed at the Actors Studio. As an actress, Estelle’s most recent Broadway appearances were The Velocity of Autumn for which she received a Tony nomination, Nice Work If You Can Get It, and August: Osage County. She made her Broadway debut with Ethel Merman in Happy Hunting and followed that with many starring roles, including Morning’s at Seven (Tony Award nomination), The Shadow Box, The Pirates of Penzance, Miss Margarida’s Way (Drama Desk Award and Tony Award nomination), The Norman Conquests, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little (Tony Award nomination), The Seven Descents of Myrtle (Tony Award nomination), Galileo, Malcolm, Mother Courage and Her Children, and Whoop-Up. Off-Broadway audience have seen her in Things of This World and Good People, among others. In London, she appeared in Deathtrap. Her many film roles include Bonnie and Clyde (Academy Award), Paul Newman’s Rachel, Rachel (Oscar nomination), and many others. Television audiences know her from “Roseanne,” where she played Roseanne’s mother for ten years; as well as “All in the Family,” “Archie’s Place,” “Empire Falls,” among others. Upon her arrival in New York City she was one of eight people who put together NBC’s “The Today Show,” and became the first female political reporter for a television network. Estelle was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2004. Her most recent stage appearance was Israel Horovitz’s Out of the Mouths of Babes at the Cherry Lane last summer, which was commissioned by Angelina Fiordellisi and written for Estelle and Judith Ivey.
