Stuff Happens Gets New Cast Members on May 16

Reed Birney, Tony Carlin, Larry Pine, and Sandra Shipley will join The Public Theater’s critically acclaimed production of David Hare’s political drama Stuff Happens on May 16. The show, which was originally scheduled to close on April 30, was just extended to June 25.

Stuff Happens has been nominated as Best Play for both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards. In addition, the Drama Desk has given the ensemble cast a special award and nominated Daniel Sullivan as Best Director. The play, based in part on real-life conversations and transcripts, concerns the events leading up to and through the war on Iraq.

As of May 16, Birney will play British Prime Minister Tony Blair; Carlin will play the roles of Jonathan Powell and Robin Cook; Pine will play Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; and Shipley will play Laura Bush and the New Labour Politician. They will replace Byron Jennings, Armand Schultz, Jeffrey DeMunn, and Brenda Wehle respectively.

The cast also features George Bartenieff as Hans Blix and Jack Straw, Glenn Fleshler as George Tenet, Zach Grenier as Dick Cheney, Lameece Issaq as a Palestinian academic, Peter Francis James as Colin Powell, Ken Marks as David Manning and Michael Gerson, David Pittu as Paul Wolfowitz and Sir Richard Dearlove, Gloria Reuben as Condoleezza Rice, Jay O. Sanders as President George W. Bush, Thomas Schall as Alastair Campbell and Jeremy Greenstock, Robert Sella as an angry journalist and Dominique De Villepin, and Waleed F. Zuaiter as an Iraqi exile and Trevor Mac.