One body at the Broadhurst
Jonathan Groff is the announced performer for The Amish Project at the Broadhurst Theatre, without an ensemble beside him embodying the same community. Sarna Lapine directs Jessica Dickey’s solo play, with performances beginning on 10 February 2027. What interests me in this arrangement is the passage of a shared loss through one performer’s body and voice. Giving a community’s conversation to a single person directs attention towards the transitions between speakers: each time, the audience has to understand whose words inhabit that same body.[1]
Groff says the tragedy inspiring the play happened close to where he grew up. That connection explains why this text matters to him; differentiating its voices remains work for him and Lapine to undertake together. For me, that is the production’s central tension. Audiences encounter both a familiar actor and the community he carries. If attention rests too heavily on his personal connection, different responses risk flattening into the same intimacy. Distinct transitions, by contrast, can give different thoughts room around a shared loss. These are alternative possibilities within the solo form.[1]
The text’s journey and the stage’s work
Dickey’s play reached Rattlestick in 2009 after its New York Fringe debut and development at Cherry Lane. It subsequently entered the programmes of the Guthrie, Milwaukee Rep and other theatres. That history gives the new production a text already performed in different institutions. Its Broadway arrival creates a fresh working relationship between that text, Groff and Lapine. While the choice to channel the community through one performer remains, the intervals, pauses and looks between voices belong to each staging. Earlier productions do not predetermine the effect of this one.[1]
The design team has not been announced, so the space, light and sound surrounding Groff’s solitude cannot yet be described. Looking at the announced cast, I am interested in how much help the audience receives when one voice gives way to another. Design and sound can make distinctions visible; the same transitions can instead rest on the actor’s rhythm. Both choices are possible within a solo play. The point of interest at the Broadhurst is how the staging establishes distance between personal intimacy and the variety within a community.[1]