Kail ’99 Directs Broke-ology at Lincoln Center

Thomas Kail ’99 is the director of a new play, Broke-ology, by Nathan Louis Jackson, which opened on Oct. 5 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City. This touching and often humorous play concerns two African-American brothers who care for their ailing widowed father in Kansas City, Kansas, as they face their own responsibilities. Kail elicits first-rate performances from the four-person cast, which includes Wendell Pierce  (The Wire), Crystal A. Dickinson, Francois Battiste, and Alano Miller.

The play opened to several positive reviews. In his review in The New York Times, Charles Isherwood wrote:  “Mr. Jackson writes easygoing, believable dialogue, and the play is moving in its exploration of how time and circumstance — and the hard fact of poverty — can diminish hope, divide loving siblings and ultimately extinguish life itself.” Isherwood also singled out Kail’s “sensitive direction.”

Kail directed the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights on Broadway, and he recently directed a production of The Wiz at New York City Center.

Broke-ology runs through November 22, 2009. For tickets, visit www.telecharge.com or call 212-239-6200.