FEBRUARY 21 – MARCH 29, 2026
A Co-Production with MCC Theater and Clubbed Thumb
Newman Mills Theater at MCC Theater
511 W. 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
Patron Priority Booking Begins October 30
Tickets on Sale November 13
Featuring:
Alana Raquel Bowers
Will Cobbs
Crystal Finn
Andy Lucien
Lizan Mitchell
Suzzy Roche
Nina Ross
Ellen Winter
Additional Cast to be Announced
Creative Team:
Sets by Afsoon Pajoufar
Costumes by Brenda Abbandandolo
Lighting by Masha Tsimring
Sound by Kathy Ruvuna
Music Direction by Ellen Winter
Movement Direction by Baye + Asa
Production Stage Manager: Christina M. Woolard
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In Cold War Choir Practice, a young girl is embroiled in intrigue when her estranged uncle, a prominent Black conservative, brings his mysteriously ill wife home for the holidays.
A fugue of Reaganomics, espionage, roller disco, and cults—underscored by the cryptic Syracuse, NY chapter of the Seedlings of Peace Children’s Chorus.
About the Playwright:
RO REDDICK
Ro Reddick is a queer Black playwright and songwriter. She writes off-kilter comedies (mostly); the theme songs to your late capitalist nightmares. Her play Cold War Choir Practice (NYT Critic’s Pick, dir. Knud Adams), premiered in Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks 2025, co-produced by Page 73. Cold War Choir Practice was also produced in September 2025 at Trinity Repertory Company (dir. Aileen Wen McGroddy).
Ro is a member of the Page 73 Writers Group and a ‘24-’25 DGF Playwriting Fellow. She is also under commission at People’s Light Theatre for their Queerways PA commissioning and residency program. Her plays have been developed with Clubbed Thumb, Page 73, Trinity Rep, The Ground Floor (Berkeley Rep), Bushwick Starr Reading Series, and Williamstown Theatre Festival (NYC Reading, dir. Jamario Stills). Other fellowships, residencies, and honors include: Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nomination, Venturous Fellowship Nomination, Lambda Literary Fellow in Playwriting, Playwrights’ Center Core Apprentice, Adele Kellenberg Seaver Fellow in Creative Writing at Brown University, La Mama Umbria International Playwright Retreat, Miranda Theatre Company Playwright Grant, and 3x O’Neill Finalist. She is also an alum of the Brown BAI Songwriting Workshop and writes original songs for her plays.
In a past life, Ro performed in shows at the Hartford Stage, McCarter Theatre Center, Long Wharf, and KC Rep, and more; Off-Broadway in Silence! the Musical, and on screen in “The Americans,” “Louie,” and “Sex and the City 2.”
Ro holds an MFA in Playwriting from Brown and an MBA from NYU (which she has no intention of using).
About the Director:
KNUD ADAMS
Knud Adams is an Obie-winning director of artful new plays, based in New York City. He recently directed the acclaimed Broadway debut of Sanaz Toossi’s English, which Variety hailed as “one of the best plays of the decade.” He is the only director to have premiered consecutive Pulitzer Prize winners: English and Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust. Additional world premieres include: The Book of Mountains and Seas, I’m Revolting, Bodies They Ritual, The Headlands, Paris, Tin Cat Shoes, The Workshop, Asshole, and Tom & Eliza. Knud’s productions have been celebrated on "Best of the Year" lists by the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, New York Magazine, New Yorker, and Washington Post. Knud is a Clubbed Thumb Affiliated Artist.
Meet the Cast
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Meek
ALANA RAQUEL BOWERS
Alana is an actor, dancer, and producer originally from Baltimore, MD and so delighted to make her MCC debut with this special show! Broadway: Chicken and Biscuits (Circle in the Square Theater). Off-Broadway: Cold War Choir Practice (Clubbed Thumb and Page 73), The Miser (Moliere in the Park) Bernarda’s Daughters (The New Group and NBT at the Signature Theater), What to Send Up When it Goes Down (The Movement Theatre Company at A.R.T./New York Theater, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, American Repertory Theater, the Public Theater, and BAM) Regional: The Comeuppance (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Wilma Theater). Off-Off Broadway: Scraps (the Flea Theater). Film: There She Goes (Hallmark Channel), Fantasy Life (SXSW 2025 Pick), TV: “Best Medicine” (FOX), “Dr. Death” (Peacock), “FBI: Most Wanted” (CBS). Producer credits: The Black Wolfe Tone (Irish Repertory Theatre, Fishamble), Transatlantic Commission Project with Irish Repertory Theater and the Apollo, and Anansi Creative Studio’s Storyteller Spotlight Series. She is an NYU Tisch Drama alum. “For Nylah, and all the little ten year old Black girls changing the world everywhere.”
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Smooch
WILL COBBS
Broadway: Tina Satter’s Is This a Room. Off-Broadway: Six Characters (LCT3). Regional includes Walter Lee in Raisin in the Sun (Arena Theater), Sly in Detroit ’67 (McCarter) and Lyons in Fences (The Resident Ensemble Players at University of Delaware). TV includes Skinny John on “For Life” (ABC); “Prodigal Son” (Fox); “The Good Wife,” “Madam Secretary” (CBS); “Deadbeat” (Hulu); “The Night Of” (HBO); and “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” (Netflix). Teaches acting and movement classes at Pace University, Brooklyn College and Yale’s Summer Session.
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Virgie
CRYSTAL FINN
Crystal is an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb where she has developed and performed in dozens of plays including many iterations of Will Arbery’s Plano and most recently Deep Blue Sound by Abe Koogler. She made her Broadway debut in Birthday Candles by Noah Haidle, for which she won a Theatre World Award. Other New York Theater includes world premiere plays at Playwrights Horizons, MTC, Roundabout, The Public, PlayCo, Women’s Project, 59E59, and many others. Film/TV: Babes, Kinda Pregnant, Sixteen Words or Less, “The Tick.”
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Clay
ANDY LUCIEN
TV: “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon Prime), “The Blacklist” (NBC), Marvel’s “Daredevil” (Netflix), “Elementary” (CBS), “Madam Secretary” (CBS) Film: Forget Me Not, Pretty Doesn’t Hurt, Seven Lovers, Vox Lux Theatre. Off-Broadway: Clubbed Thumb/Page 73 production of Cold War Choir Practice, Signature Theater, MTC, Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizons, Vineyard Theater, Rattlestick. Regional: Actors Theater of Louisville, Berkeley Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Studio Theater.
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Puddin
LIZAN MITCHELL
Broadway: Ohio State Murders, Electra, Having Our Say, So Long on Lonely Street. Off-Broadway: Cold War Choir Practice, The Refuge Plays, The Half-God of Rainfall, Shadowland, On Sugarland, Cullud Wattah, Passage, Brownsville Song, Trojan Women, and Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death. Regional: Our Daughters, Like Pillars, Skeleton Crew, Raisin in the Sun, Richard III, The Tempest, and Gem of the Ocean. Film/TV: “Dying for Sex,” “Detroit,” The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “The Good Wife,” “The Preacher’s Wife,” “The Wire,” “Human Stain,” and “Law & Order.“
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Choir
SUZZY ROCHE
Suzzy is a singer/songwriter/performer/author and founding member of the singing group The Roches. She has recorded over eighteen albums, written music for TV and Film and Theater and has toured extensively for forty years across the U.S. and Europe. Suzzy has been associate member of the experimental theater troupe The Wooster Group for over twenty years. An author of two novels: The Town Crzy and Wayward Saints, and a children’s book: Want to Be in a Band? Suzzy also has created three recordings with her daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche, and they perform together as a duo. She is delighted to be a part of the cast of Cold War Choir Practice.
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Choir
NINA ROSS
Thrilled to be a part of this incredible play! Broadway: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hard Problem, The Iceman Cometh.Select Off Broadway: SHHH (Atlantic Theater), Winter’s Tale (Public Theater). TV: “Bad Monkey,” (Apple TV), “Red Oaks“ (Prime Video). Training: Juilliard. (they/them)
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Choir Leader
ELLEN WINTER
Ellen (any pronouns) is a Brooklyn-based composer, music producer and performer.
This year, she music directed, co-arranged and performed in Cold War Choir Practice with Clubbed Thumb Summerworks. In 2024, she released her sophomore record YIKES, playlisted on Spotify’s GLOW. Last year she also music supervised, composed and performed in Ars Nova’s The Beastiary. With her collaborator Chris Littler, she co-composed/wrote/directed 36 Questions (2017) the world’s first Broadway-calibur musical podcast starring Tony Winner Jonathan Groff (Merrily We Roll Along) and Jessie Shelton (Hadestown). She’s been on the music teams of Salty Brine, The Bengsons, Heather Christian, Dave Malloy, Machel Ross, Miranda Haymon, and Cėsar Alvarez.
Ellen’s a recipient of the 2024 EST/Sloan Commission and the 2021 Bryan Gallace/Posthumous Prodigy Productions Musicians Fellowship. Residencies include Joe’s Pub Working Group, Berkeley Rep Ground Floor, Mercury Store, Ars Nova, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat and BarnArts. Listen here: https://ffm.to/ewinter.oem
Back to the Roll-A-Rama
After our sold-out run in June 2025, we’ve joined forces with MCC Theater and Clubbed Thumb to remount this “highly-entertaining... brainy new comedy” (NY Times, Critic's Pick).
Cold War Choir Practice is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature and is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with The City Council.