GEVA THEATRE PRESENTS
The In Person World Premiere of
RUSSIAN TROLL FARM: A WORKPLACE COMEDY
Russian Troll Farm begins performances on February 28th and runs on the Wilson Stage through March 26th. Tickets can be purchased online at gevatheatre.org, or by phone, 585-232-GEVA(4382)
Online production was a New York Times Critic’s Pick in 2020
The online version of Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy, produced during the Covid-19 theatre shutdown, was both a New York Times Critic’s Pick and on their “Best Theatre of 2020” list. The same creative team of critically acclaimed playwright Sarah Gancher, dramaturg/Geva Theatre Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson, and projections and multimedia designer Jared Mezzocchi are joined for this in person premiere by Tony Award-winning director Darko Tresnjak (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder), and five-time Tony Award-winning producer Dori Bernstein.
Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy is an outrageous world premiere you do not want to miss. The New York Times describes it as “so urgent, smart and chewy.” Playwright Sarah Gancher explains, “My obsession with professional internet trolls started back in 2016. During that long, weird election season, my feed was suddenly flooded with bizarre misspellings and weird, space-alien grammar. After doing some research I found that there were professional internet trolls working around the clock, making fake accounts, writing fake news, and crafting memes—all to make Americans feel divided and hopeless.”
She continues, “During that research, I started getting this uncomfortable feeling that… I might be really great at this job! It sounds fun! I mean, trolls spend all day making up characters, writing dialogue, staging fights, triggering strong emotions… then I realized: ‘Wait a minute, they’re playwrights!’
“So I wrote a comedy about my new obsession. Just like The Office is not about paper, the play is not about politics. It’s about the people who go to work every day to poison my feed—and yours. I want to make you laugh, and I want to make you think. My joke is: “It’s not about how we wrecked the world… it’s about the friends we made along the way.”
In Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy, it’s just another day at the office in Russia’s infamous Internet Research Agency, where workers are tasked with manipulating social media to forward the Russian agenda at home and abroad. Office comedy meets political satire in Sarah Gancher’s acclaimed new play inspired by real events, set in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson says “It’s so thrilling to return to Sarah’s brilliant play—this time in person!—after doing the online version from home in 2020. We are delighted to bring this group of old and new collaborators to build this wickedly dark and funny show for our audience here in Rochester.”
Geva Theatre alumna Julia Brothers (who appeared in the world premiere of Wendy MacLeod’s Women in Jeopardy! in 2015) returns to Rochester, along with Chris Ghafffari (Romeo & Juliet at Hartford Stage), Renata Friedman (The Patient on FX), Haskell King (Isaac’s Eye at Ensemble Studio Theatre) and John Lavelle (The Graduate on Broadway).The production is directed by Tony Award-winner Darko Tresnjak (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) and the creative team includes scenic designer Alexander Dodge (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder), Tony Award-winning costume designer Linda Cho (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder), projections and multimedia designer Jared Mezzocchi (Russian Troll Farm online, Obie Award winner for Vietgone Off-Broadway), Tony Award-winning sound designer Darron L. West (Peter and the Starcatcher), lighting designer Marcus Doshi (Pass Over on Broadway), and dramaturg Elizabeth Williamson (Tony and Olivier Award-winning The Inheritance).
Casting by The Telsey Office.
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Learn more about our cast and production team:
SARAH GANCHER (Playwright) Award-winning writer Sarah Gancher’s plays have been seen on stages worldwide including London’s National Theatre, Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, Budapest’s Quarter6Quarter7 Festival, The Public Theatre, New York Theater Workshop, Steppenwolf, Berkeley Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Hartford Stage, RoundHouse (DC), Madison’s Forward Theatre, Seattle Rep, and Ars Nova. The online production of her play Russian Troll Farm (dir. Jared Mezzocchi and Elizabeth Williamson) was chosen as one of the Top Ten productions of 2020 by the New York Times; The Guardian named her musical Mission Drift “Top 50 of the 21st Century (So Far).” Other honors include the Richard Rodgers Award, New York Stage and Film Founders’ Award, The Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, the James Stevenson Prize for Comedy, the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Award, a Toulmin Foundation commission, several Lortel, Drama Desk, and Drama League nominations, and the AR Gurney Prize. She frequently collaborates on musicals, including Hundred Days and The Lucky Ones with The Bengsons and Anne Kauffman, and Mission Drift with Heather Christian, Rachel Chavkin, and The TEAM. Her work in the realm of large-scale spectacles includes partnerships with Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil. An alumna of Ars Nova Play Group, WP Lab, P73 and The Playwrights’ Realm, she is a current resident at New Dramatists. She also plays jazz violin. MFA: NYU.
DARKO TRESNJAK (Director) won the Tony, the Drama Desk, and the Outer Critics Circle awards for his direction of A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER. He won an Obie Award for his direction of THE KILLER, starring Michael Shannon. After a two-year run on Broadway, his production of ANASTASIA has been seen in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, Canada, and will be opening in Mexico in the summer of 2023. From 2004 to 2009, Darko was the Artistic Director of the Old Globe Shakespeare Festival. From 2011 to 2019, he was the Artistic Director of Hartford Stage Company. As a director of plays, musicals, and operas, Darko has worked at Joseph Papp Public Theater, Theater for a New Audience, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Royal Shakespeare Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Vineyard Theatre Company, Atlantic Theater Company, Alley Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Huntington Theatre Company, Long Wharf Theatre Company, Goodspeed Musicals, Westport Country Playhouse, Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and Santa Fe Opera. Favorite productions include DER ZWERG with Rodrick Dixon, REAR WINDOW with Kevin Bacon, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE with F. Murray Abraham, THE WINTER’S TALE with Kandis Chappell, and THE GHOSTS OF VERSAILLES with Patti LuPone. Darko is writing a musical comedy, ASK FOR THE MOON, with composer Oran Eldor.
ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON (Dramaturg/Artistic Director) has built a distinguished career as a producer, director, dramaturg, and adaptor. She has worked extensively throughout the U.S. and around the globe, including on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in London’s West End before becoming the Artistic Director of Geva Theatre in 2022. For Geva Theatre, she directed and adapted Jane Eyre to launch the 50th Anniversary season. Other recent projects include dramaturging the Young Vic/West End/Broadway production of Matthew López’ The Inheritance (Tony, Olivier, Critics Circle, Evening Standard, GLAAD, and Drama Desk Awards for Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Honoree); dramaturging the Hartford Stage/Broadway productions of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (Tony Award for Best Musical) and Anastasia; artistic producing, co-directing and dramaturging the online version of Sarah Gancher’s Russian Troll Farm (TheaterWorks Hartford/TheatreSquared/The Civilians, New York Times’ “Best Theater of 2020”); directing and adapting Jane Eyre (Hartford Stage); dramaturging Bess Wohl’s Make Believe (Outer Critics Circle Honoree, New York Times’ “Best Theater of 2019”); and directing Henry V (Hartford Stage). Williamson’s extensive organizational leadership experience includes serving as Associate Artistic Director and Literary Manager at Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City from 2008 – 2012 and as Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Play Development at Hartford Stage from 2012 – 2020. As a freelance artist, she has also worked for About Face Theatre, the Act French Festival, ACT, Berkeley Rep, Cal Shakes, Court Theatre, Figureatret i Nordland in Norway, HERE, the La Jolla Playhouse, Steppenwolf Theatre, the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, Primary Shages, Theatre de La Jeune Lune,
Universal Studios, Westport Country Playhouse, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and London’s Young Vic. Education: M.St. Oxford University, B.A Bennington College, trained at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and with Complicité. She is the 2007 recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Literary Translation. Member: SDC, LMDA.
JARED MEZZOCCHI (Projections and Multimedia Design) is an Obie Award-winning theater artist, working most notably as a director and multimedia designer. Mezzocchi’s work has appeared at theaters nationwide, including the Kennedy Center, the Geffen Playhouse, Vineyard Theater, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth (company member), Milwaukee Rep, South Coast Rep, Portland Centerstage, and many more. In 2016, he received the Lucille Lortel and Henry Hewes Award for his work in Qui Nguyen’s, Vietgone, at the Manhattan Theatre Club. In 2020, the New York Times spotlighted his multimedia innovations during the pandemic alongside the work of four other theater artists, including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Paula Vogel. His work on Sarah Gancher’s digital premiere of Russian Troll Farm (co-director & multimedia designer) was also celebrated as a New York Times Critic’s Pick, and praised for being one of the first digitally native successes for virtual theater. Mezzocchi is a two-time Macdowell Artist Fellow, a 2012 Princess Grace Award winner, and is an Associate Professor at The University of Maryland, where he teaches in the MFA Design program for the projection and multimedia track. He grew up in New Hampshire, and returns every summer to serve as Producing Artistic Director of Andy’s Summer Playhouse, an innovative children’s theater producing original work by professional artists from across the country.
JULIA BROTHERS (Ljuba) Julia Brothers is so happy to be back at Geva, where she was last seen as Jo in the world premiere of Wendy MacLeod’s Women in Jeopardy, directed by Sean Daniels. Julia has a passion for, and a dedication to developing new work. Other recent world premieres include playing God in The Kilbanes’ rock opera Weightless at ACT and The Public Theatre’s Under The Radar Festival; Col. Sandra Eden in The Trial of Donna Caine at George Street Playhouse, directed by Davdi Saint; Arthur Miller in Salesman by Jeremy Tiang at The Rough Draft Festival at LPAC, NYC; Leece in A Peregrine Falls by Leegrid Stevens, directed by Padraic Lillis, at The Wild Project, NYC; Carla in George Is Dead, written and directed by Elaine May at Magic Theatre, George Street Playhouse, Arizona Theatre Company and The Brooks Atkinson on Broadway, where it was directed by John Turturro. Julia was commissioned by SF Playhouse to write and perform her first solo piece, I Was Right Here, directed by Padraic Lillis. The pandemic hit and the production was filmed and ran for six weeks on demand. She also performed online in the solo piece Susan Sontag: Smartest Woman In America by Lynne Kaufman, directed by Warren Davdi Keith. For my mom, who turns 100 during the run of this show!
CHRIS GHAFFARI (Nikolai) Chris has been seen in both new and classic works in and around New York. His theater credits include the world premiere of Bess Wohl’s Make Believe and the title role in Darko Tresnjak’s Romeo & Juliet, both at Hartford Stage; Coriolanus and King Lear at the Public Theater’s New York Shakespeare Festival; Sex With Strangers and What the Butler Saw at Westport Country Playhouse. He can be seen on screen in the features 21 Bridges, The Report and Dan Gilroy’s Velvet Buzzsaw. He was Julio in the Netflix limited series Maniac. He trained at the Yale School of Drama.
RENATA FRIEDMAN (Masha) New York: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Roundabout Theatre Company, Second Stage, Page 73, Colt Coeur, Rattlestick, New Victory Theater, Clubbed Thumb Winterworks. Regional: Berkeley Rep, Yale Rep, Seattle Rep, Roundhouse, Barrington Stage Company, ACT, among many others. Fifteen world premiere plays. TV: The Patient (recurring), The Terminal List (recurring), FBI: Most Wanted, New Amsterdam, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Alternatino. Film: Dark Moon, In This, Our Time. www.renatafriedman.com
HASKELL KING (Egor) Haskell is delighted to make his Geva debut. Theatre credits include Kingfishers Catch Fire (Irish Rep); Isaac’s Eye, Photograph 51, Please Continue, Turnabout, PTSD (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Brother (Paradise Factory); Afterclap (Rising Phoenix Rep); Take Me Out (Caldwell Theatre); Moons of Jupiter, Tales from the Schminke Tub (One Solo Arts Festival); Sweet Eros (Mary’s Space, dir. Austin Pendleton); Elvis and Juliet (Abingdon Theatre with Fred Willard); Mother (The Wild Project with Buck Henry and Holland Taylor). Film credits include The Fly Room; In Praise of Shadows (with James Franco). Television: As the World Turns; Law and Order: Criminal Intent; Dear Edward. Member of Ensemble Studio Theatre.
JOHN LAVELLE (Steve) Theatre: The Graduate (Broadway), The Royale (Lincoln Center, Drama Desk Award), Catch 22 (The Lucille Lortel), Spatter Pattern (Playwrights Horizons), Burleigh Grimes (New World Stages), Rope (Drama Dept), The Jew of Malta (TFANA), The Merchant of Venice (The Royal Shakespeare Company), Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hartford Stage), Macbeth (The Old Globe), Much Ado About Nothing (La Jolla Playhouse), As You Like It (Shakespeare Center LA), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (The Old Globe), Time Pieces (McCarter Theatre Center), On the Razzle (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Jesus Hates Me (Hartford Stage), Red Velvet (The Old Globe), Cult of Love (IAMA Theatre), The Iliad (Aegean Festival), Bell, Book, and Candle (The Old Globe), and Smile (IAMA Theatre Company). Film: Selma, Frozen, Wreck it Ralph Breaks the Internet, Zootopia, Born Guilty, The Taking of Pelham 123, Heirloom. TV: Black Monday, Zootopia +, She-Ra and the Princess of Power, Instinct, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, When They See Us, The Dead Girls Detective Agency, Hawaii Five-O, Grace and Frankie, Forever, The Black Donnellys, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Numb3rs, NCIS, All My Children, and Guiding Light. John is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a former performer at The Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles. As a playwright, he is a two time Max Lerner Award recipient and a two time O’Neill finalist.
Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy is produced with additional support from media sponsors WHEC TV 10, WBEE, WBZA, and WCMF. Geva Theatre’s production of Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy is the world premiere of the show. Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy was virtually produced by TheaterWorks Hartford, TheatreSquared, and The Civilians in October 2020.
About Geva Theatre Center
Founded in 1972, Geva Theatre Center is a not-for-profit, professional theatre company dedicated to creating and producing professional theatre productions, programs, and services of a national standard.
The 516-seat Elaine P. Wilson Stage is home to a wide variety of performances, from musicals to American and world classics. The 180-seat Ron & Donna Fielding Stage is home to Geva’s series of contemporary drama, comedy, musical theatre, and new play development programs. In addition, the Fielding Stage hosts visiting companies of both local and international renown.
Geva offers a wide variety of educational, engagement, and literary programs, nurturing audiences and artists alike. Geva Theatre Center sits on the ancestral and unceded territory of the O-non-dowa-gah, or “the people of the Great Hill.” In English, they are known as the Seneca people, “the keeper of the western door.” They have stewarded this land through generations, and Geva pays respect and gives thanks to their elders, past and present.
Geva is under the leadership of Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson and Executive Director Christopher Mannelli.
Find out more about Geva Theatre Center at GevaTheatre.org or by connecting with us on social media. Facebook: facebook.com/gevatheatrecenter, Twitter: @gevatheatre, Instagram: @gevatheatre, LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/geva-theatre-center.