Manhattan Theatre Club has completed the company for its Broadway revival of Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing!, adding Richard Schiff, Michael Aronov, Benjamin Pelteson and Stephen Schnetzer to a cast already led by Danny Burstein and Jessica Hecht. Tyne Rafaeli directs at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, where previews begin on December 15.
Rehearsals started in New York on Monday, November 9. The limited engagement begins previews on Tuesday, December 15, 2026, and opens on Thursday, January 7, 2027, at the Friedman, 261 West 47th Street.
Emmy winner Richard Schiff, Toby Ziegler in The West Wing and more recently Dr. Aaron Glassman in The Good Doctor, plays Jacob Berger; he made his Broadway debut in the 2012 revival of Glengarry Glen Ross. Tony winner Michael Aronov, who originated a lead role in Oslo, is Moe Axelrod. Benjamin Pelteson makes his Broadway debut as Sam Feinschreiber, and Stephen Schnetzer, back at MTC for the sixth time after Prayer for the French Republic and Wit, plays Schlosser.
They join the five principals announced earlier: Tony winner Danny Burstein as Uncle Morty, in what is his 23rd Broadway production; Jessica Hecht, a Tony nominee for MTC’s Eureka Day and Summer, 1976, as Bessie Berger; Micaela Diamond, Tony-nominated for Parade, as Hennie Berger; Will Pullen (To Kill a Mockingbird, Sweat) as Ralph Berger; and Tony nominee Jeremy Shamos (Clybourne Park) as Myron Berger. Several of them have shared a stage before: Hecht played opposite Burstein in Fiddler on the Roof, and both Burstein and Aronov were in the Broadway revival of Odets’ Golden Boy.
The play was first produced on Broadway in 1935 by the Group Theatre, and it did much to make Odets the defining American dramatist of that decade. Its setting is a cramped Bronx apartment in the Depression, where three generations of the Berger family live on too little money and fight over what kind of life they are entitled to want.
Rafaeli, whose recent New York work includes Data at the Lucille Lortel, Epiphany and The Coast Starlight at Lincoln Center Theater, said the play was “written in 1934, but asks questions about how to live with dignity in America that feel so prophetic of our era.” She described the company as “the play’s first entirely Jewish cast on Broadway in nearly 100 years,” and said she hoped to “capture the same intimacy as the Group Theatre’s company did in the play’s premiere.”
Three-time Tony winner David Zinn designs the set and costumes, with lighting by Isabella Byrd and original music and sound design by Daniel Kluger. Kate Wilson is dialect and vocal coach, casting is by Caparelliotis Casting and Kelly Gillespie, and Jennifer Rae Moore is production stage manager. MTC produces with Brian and Dayna Lee and Nicole and Stephanie Kramer.
The revival lands in a busy season for Odets. Waiting for Lefty is running at Classic Stage Company, where Rafaeli joins Steven Pasquale for a post-show sit-in on Friday, November 13, and in London Josh O’Connor is starring in Golden Boy at the Almeida Theatre.
Tickets for Awake and Sing! are available through the MTC Clubline at 212-399-3050 and at manhattantheatreclub.com.
