…what the end will be Upstage Guide

Spotlight on …what the end will be.

Spotlight on …what the end will be Creative Team.

Playwright Mansa Ra

Set Design Reid Thompson

Lighting Design Jiyoun Chang

Director Margot Bordelon

Costume Design Emilio Sosa

Original Compositions & Sound Design Palmer Hefferan

What is the show about?

In this new work commissioned by Roundabout, three generations of men live under one roof and grapple with their own truths of what it means to be Black and gay. It’s an exploration of pride, pain, and patience through the unflinching eyes of fathers and sons.

WHERE

A cavernous home in a wealthy neighborhood outside of Atlanta, GA

WHEN

October 2021 to January 2022

Who: Meet the characters.

Bartholomew Kennedy 74 years old

Maxwell Kennedy 54 years old, Bartholomew’s son

Tony Kennedy 18 years old, Maxwell’s son

Antoine 18 years old, Tony’s classmate

Chloe 35 years old, Bartholomew’s nurse

Charles 45 years old, Maxwell’s husband

Back to the …what the end will be Upstage Guide table of contents

Mansa Ra

Playwright

MANSA RA (aka Jiréh Breon Holder, Playwright) made his professional debut with Too Heavy for Your Pocket (Laurents/ Hatcher Award, Alliance/Kendeda Award and Edgerton Foundation Award). He has written for television on NBC’s “New Amsterdam.” Other plays include In the Southern Breeze, 50:13, Shutter Sisters and The Dancing Granny. Ra was educated at Memphis Central High School, Morehouse College, Spelman College and Emory University, and earned an MFA in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama. He lives in Hollywood with his fiancé and their dog, Harriet. www.MansaRa.info Twitter: @mansa_ra3x, Instagram: @mansa.ra3x

Reid Thompson

Set Design

REID THOMPSON (Co-Scenic Designer). For Roundabout: Something Clean, Too Heavy For Your Pocket, …what the end will be. Recent NYC: Wives (Playwrights Horizons); Eddie and Dave (Atlantic); Wilder Gone (Clubbed Thumb); Fruiting Bodies (Ma-Yi); A Delicate Ship (Playwrights Realm). Recent Regional: When Monica Met Hillary (Miami New Drama); You Lost Me (Denver Center); Queen (Geva); A Dolls House: Part Two (Actors Theater of Louisville); Miss You Like Hell (Baltimore Center Stage). Opera: Fidelio, La Susanna, Butterfly, Dido, Lucia (Heartbeat Opera). TV: “Jigsaw”, “Bridge and Tunnel”, “And Just Like That”. MFA: Yale School of Drama. reidthompsondesign.com

Jiyoun Chang

Lighting Design

JIYOUN CHANG (Lighting Design). Credits: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf (Booth Theatre), Slave Play (nominations for Tony, Drama Desk, Henry Hewes, Broadway), Merry Wives (Delacorte Theater), Letters of Suresh (Second Stage), Bina’s Six Apples (Lloyd Suh, Children’s Theatre Company), The Chinese Lady (Long Wharf Theatre, The Public), Marys Seacole (Henry Hewes nom., LCT3). More credits at Second Stage, Roundabout, ATC, NYTW, BAM (Obie Award), MCC, Signature, Guggenheim, Berkeley Rep, Cal Shakes (TBA nom.), Guthrie, The Old Globe, OSF (Falstaff Award), Studio Theatre.

Margot Bordelon

Director

MARGOT BORDELON (Director). New York (selected): Something Clean (Roundabout Underground), Wives (Playwrights Horizons), Do You Feel Anger? (Vineyard), Eddie and Dave (Atlantic), Plot Points in Our Sexual Development (LCT3), Too Heavy for Your Pocket (Roundabout Underground), The Pen (Premieres NYC), A Delicate Ship (Playwrights Realm). Regional productions at A.C.T. Seattle, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alliance, American Theater Company, Denver Center, Geffen Playhouse, Miami New Drama, Marin Theater Company, Steppenwolf, TheaterWorks Hartford and the Wilma. Upcoming: peerless (Primary Stages), The Brightest Thing in the World (Yale Rep). BFA, Cornish College of the Arts; MFA, Yale School of Drama. www.margotbordelon.com

Emilio Sosa

Costume Design

EMILIO SOSA (Costume Design). Chair, American Theatre Wing. Broadway credits include Good Night, Oscar (Tony nomination); Sweeney Todd; A Beautiful Noise; 1776; Ain’t No Mo (Tony nomination); Trouble in Mind (Tony nomination); Skeleton Crew; On Your Feet!; Motown the Musical; Lady Day; Porgy and Bess (Tony nomination); and Topdog/Underdog. Recipient of the NAACP, Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk awards. @esosafashion

Palmer Hefferan

Original Compositions & Sound Design

PALMER HEFFERAN (Sound Design) is a Tony-nominated sound designer for live performance. She has designed over 85 productions across the US. In 2024, she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and Lucille Lortel Award for her sound design of The Comeuppance. Recents productions include Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera, the musical Teeth at New World Stages, SHIT. MEET. FAN. at MCC Theater, and John Proctor Is The Villian, upcoming on Broadway.

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