Join us Sunday, Dec. 3rd for the reading of FEAR, a new play by Matt Williams, directed by Mark Armstrong, with two-time Tony Winner Norbert Leo Butz (My Fair Lady (2018), Catch Me If You Can, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, TV: Netflix’s Bloodline, PBS’s Mercy Street), Maury Ginsberg (Off-Broadway: Laugh It Up, Stare It Down. TV: Elementary, Madam Secretary, and HBO’s Vinyl), and Sawyer Nunes (Broadway: Matilda, Finding Neverland. Regional: Something Wicked This Way Comes, TV: Madam Secretary).

FEAR is about a little girl’s disappearance in the woods near Princeton, NJ which prompts a tense confrontation between a neighborhood plumber, a professor, and a teenage boy. In this gripping psychological thriller, three neighbors discover how far they are willing to go to defend the values – and the secrets – that define them.

MATT WILLIAMS (Playwright) As a playwright, Matt began his career with a collection of one-act plays entitled, Bruce Lee Is Dead and I’m Not Feeling Too Good Either. His one-act play, Jason and The Nun, won the Double Image Festival of Short Plays Award and was subsequently published by Samuel French. His first full-length play, Between Daylight and Boonville, premiered in New York to critical acclaim, and was later performed at the Kennedy Center as part of the American College Theater Festival. Most recently he developed a psychological drama, Fear, at New Harmony and will be doing further development at Midtown Direct Rep later this year. His comedy Faithful Wives and Healthy Children was included in the 2017 new play reading series at Penguin Rep.

He started his television career when he joined The Cosby Show during its premiere season and worked as a writer/producer for three subsequent seasons. He served as co-creator of A Different World. He is best known as the creator and Executive Producer of the hit series Roseanne and the co-creator and Executive Producer of Home Improvement.

Matt has directed over twenty productions in educational, regional and Off-Broadway theatres, working on everything from Neil Simon to Lanford Wilson. He also directed the world premiere of Robby Benson’s musical Open Heart at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Along with Daryl Roth Productions and his partners at Wind Dancer, he co-produced the stage production of Camping with Henry and Tom. He and Wind Dancer co-produced The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin at Playwrights Horizons.

He serves on the board of The University of Evansville, where he received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts as well as a Bachelor of Fine Arts. He received an MFA at the University of New Orleans.

Matt is a founding board member of The New Harmony Project and the Cherry Lane Theatre. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University School of The Arts Theatre Program. He has received Emmy and Humanitas nominations and is the recipient of a shared Peabody Award.

Matt lives in New York with his wife, actress Angelina Fiordellisi, who is the owner and Artistic Director of the Cherry Lane Theatre. He and Angelina are the proud parents of Matisse and Fredrick.

MARK ARMSTRONG (Director) is a Brooklyn-based theater director and the Executive Director for The 24 Hour Plays. Recent directing credits include Christopher Shinn’s Falling Away (EST) and The Coming World
(Williamstown), Lucas Hnath’s Odile’s Ordeal (Williamstown), Dan O’Brien’s From Kandahar to Canada (EST), Max Posner's Old Folks and 30 Million, a new musical with music and lyrics by Max Vernon and book by Jason Kim (Keen Company). Other credits include developing and directing new plays at Naked Angels, Primary Stages, New Dramatists, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Hartford Stage, Lincoln Center Theater/HERE, TheatreSquared, Roots&Branches, The New York Neo-Futurists and many more. Mark spent four years as the Director of New Work for off-Broadway’s Keen Company, where he created the Keen Playwrights Lab for mid-career playwrights and led Keen Teens, producing new plays with high school actors from the five boroughs of New York City. He is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and Lincoln Center Theater
Directors Lab.