Karen Ziemba and Marc Kudisch to Star in World Premiere of Safe House Off-Broadway

The full cast and design team has been announced for split/decision’s upcoming world premiere of Safe House, written by L.B. Browne and directed by Benjamin Viertel, running September 2-13 at Theatre Row.

The cast will feature Tony Award, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award winner Karen Ziemba and three-time Tony Award nominee Marc Kudisch, alongside Anna Roman, Grace Church, Justin Lee Miller, Glenn Seven Allen, and Julianna Layne.

The production includes set design by Forest Entsminger, lighting design by Mary Ellen Stebbins, costume design by Kyle Artone, and sound design by Liam Bellman-Sharpe.

Safe House is a family drama set in the days leading up to a US presidential election. Convinced the second American civil war is imminent, Rock, a father secretly dying of a hereditary neurodegenerative disease, becomes consumed by the need to protect his family and builds a doomsday bunker in the basement of his Pennsylvania suburban home. When his estranged teenage daughter returns home pregnant, the tensions that have long simmered beneath the surface of the household break open.

Safe House was developed at the 2025 La MaMa Umbria International Playwriting Workshop in Spoleto, Italy under the guidance of Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith and had its first public reading at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in April.