Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? at Arena Stage Finds Cast

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater has announced the company for Eric Bentley’s political docudrama Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?

Staged off-Broadway at New York City Center this summer, the production is directed by Tony Award winner Anna D. Shapiro and will run October 17–December 6 in Arena’s Kreeger Theater.

Using only the original transcripts from the 1940s House Un-American Activities Committee’s hearings that targeted the country’s leading artists, the play features testimonies of artists like Arthur Miller, Jerome Robbins, Paul Robeson, Elia Kazan, Lillian Hellman, Abe Burrows, and Lionel Stander.

Jason Babinsky reprises his role as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee from the New York City Center production. Babinsky is joined by Edward L. Simon, Greg Stuhr, Stephen Cefalu Jr., John Leslie Wolfe, Philip Earl Johnson, Aaron Bliden, Peter Jacobson, Rivka Borek, Jeff Still, and Kevin Mambo.

Understudies are Coleman Pedigo, Joey Collins, David Bryan Jackson, and Eli El.

The New York City Center creative team, including set designer Andrew Boyce, costume designer Johanna Pan, two-time Tony Award-winning lighting designer Donald Holder, sound designers Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen for Milbo Music, projection designer Brittany Bland, and hair and wig designer Brittany Hartman, will also return.