Trust
Meet the Artists
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Gary Mitchell is an internationally recognized, multi-award winning, writer from Northern Ireland. In 1998 he was made Writer in Residence at the Royal National Theatre in London, and his plays have been performed at a variety of leading theatres including the Royal Court (Upstairs and Downstairs), the Abbey Theatre (Dublin) and the Lyric Theatre (Belfast). Awards include the Pearson Best New Play Award, the George Devine Award, the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising New Playwright and the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best New Play. Critics have raved about his work and The Guardian has declared him to be ‘one of the most talked about voices in European Theatre’ and ‘arguably Northern Ireland’s greatest playwright’. 
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Erica Schmidt (Director/Playwright) Adapted and directed Cyrano in collaboration with The National (The Goodspeed, The New Group). Directed and adapted MacBeth (Seattle Rep, Lucille Lortel, Hunter Theatre Project) Drama Desk nominations: Outstanding Direction, Outstanding Revival; Lortel nomination Outstanding Revival; MacBeth is published by DPS. Schmidt wrote and directed All the Fine Boys for The New Group; published by Samuel French. Directed: Richard 2 (The Old Globe); Turgenev’s A Month In The Country (Classic Stage Company); Humor Abuse (co-creator/writer and director, Lucille Lortel Award, Manhattan Theatre Club,The Taper); Rent (Tokyo); Trust (The Play Company, Callaway Award nomination); As You Like It (The Public Theater); Debbie Does Dallas (wrote the adaptation and directed Off-Broadway for The Araca Group) Debbie is published by DPS; Princess Grace Award recipient 2001. As a screenwriter, Erica received a BAFTA nomination for Cyrano for Working Title/MGM. Upcoming: Orpheus Descending (TFANA).
Fiona Gallagher (Actor) New York: Trust (The Play Company); The Square (Ma-Yi Theatre); Bel Canto, The Seventeenth of June, Gretty Good Time, Posterity, Adaptation (E.S.T.); Women of Manhattan, Girl Talk (Barrow Group); Red Roses and Petrol (Irish Arts Center). Regional: Williamstown, LaJolla Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Yale Repertory, Hartford Stage, Arena Stage, Denver Center, A.R.T. TV: “Law and Order: Criminal Intent”, “Law and Order”, “Feds”, “100 Centre Street”. Film: Trial By Jury, The Juror, A Dog’s Life, 2nd Best, Bad Moon Rising, and The Game Plan.
Antje Ellermann (Set Designer) has designed sets for The Play Company’s production of “Trust” directed by Erica Schmidt. Other designs include:”Nine Parts of Desire” (Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, “The Cook” (INTAR), “The Medium” (Great Music For a Great City at the Kaye Playhouse), Barab Times Two (NY Chamber Opera at Symphony Space) “Journey Theatre” ( Immigrants’ Theatre Project & Safe Horizon/ Solace),”Drizzle” (Ma-Yi),“When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba” (Cherry Lane),“Hesh” ( The Naked Angels) and sets and costumes for “Yi Sang Counts to Thirteen” (New York Fringe Festival; Overall Excellence Award). She is a resident designer for Imua! Theatre Company, where she recently designed “The Greeks”. TV design credits include “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” with John Barton and “Becoming American: The Chinese Experience on PBS for which she received a 2003 Emmy nomination. Antje is a Recipient of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Designers.
Bart Fasbender (Sound Design) Recent/current designs: Slag Heap, Women on Fire and 2003 – 2005 Mentor Projects at Cherry Lane; Boozy at The Culture Project (previously at The Ohio); Reasons for Return at Symphony Space and Are We Here Yet at Tribeca PAC for MoCo; Barbara Bush Never Slept Here, Gheri Dosti and William Hoffman's Shoe Palace Murray at Bernie West Theatre for Circle East; Trust at The Kirk and Sakharam Binder at 59E59 for The Play Company; Legal Snarls, Mark Medoff's Same Life Over and Lakawana Rails Radio Plays for TNT in PA, Pen Pals, Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey's Woman of Independent Means and Joanna's Husband and David's Wife at PPT in VA.
A teenaged boy in north Belfast becomes the battleground for his parents’ clashing dreams and loyalties. In a world where schoolyard brawls and arms deals are shockingly intertwined, family life is poisoned by paramilitary politics. Trust breaks the mold of playwriting about the Irish troubles, daring to be as funny as it is chilling.
“Under Erica Schmidt’s tense, resourceful direction, seven strong actors tear into their juicy and explosive material with evident glee.”
–Time Out
“It’s Mr. Coster’s Geordie, though, whose command of every scene he sits in makes the biggest noise. He couples a prowling menace with hapless tenderness – it is in him alone that we see how vulnerable trust makes a king.”
–The New York Sun
Written by
Gary Mitchell
Directed by
Erica Schmidt
Featuring
Ritchie Coster Fiona Gallagher Kevin Isola Colin Lane Dan McCabe Declan Mooney Meredith Zinner
Set Design
Antje Ellermann
Costume Design
Michelle R. Phillips
Lighting Design
Shelly Sabel
Sound Design
Bart Fasbender
Dialect Coach
Pamela Prather
Stage Manager
Lisa M. Webb
Venue
The Kirk Theatre/Theatre Row 410 West 42nd Street New York, NY