EXCLUSIVE: Lauren Ambrose (Broadway‘s My Fair Lady, TV’s Six Feet Under) and Tom Riley (Broadway’s Arcadia, Apple TV’s Down Cemetery Road) will lead the cast of Manhattan Theatre Club‘s production of The Unbelievers, the Nick Payne play getting its American premiere Off Broadway this fall.
The production, which will begin performances Tuesday, October 13, at New York’s City Center Stage I, will be directed by Knud Adams.
Both Ambrose and Riley will make their MTC debuts with The Unbelievers, while Payne returns to the company where his previous credits include the American premieres of Constellations starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson in 2015 and Incognito with Geneva Carr, Charlie Cox, Heather Lind and Morgan Spector in 2016.
Adams, the director of the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays English by Sanaz Toosi and Primary Trust by Eboni Booth, makes his MTC debut.
Additional casting and creative team for The Unbelievers will be announced soon. MTC will also announce additional productions and casting for the 2026-27 season in coming weeks.
The synopsis: “Faith means believing in something. Especially when it feels impossible. As the years go by and the mystery of the sudden disappearance of Miriam (Ambrose) and David’s (Riley) teenage son remains unsolved, their blended family must figure out how to go on, relearning how to live through the ups and downs of ordinary days in their altered world.”
MTC describes the play as “poignant and disarmingly funny.”
The Unbelievers joins MTC’s 2026-27 season that includes the previously announced Broadway productions of School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh, Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing! and David Hare’s Montauk.
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