Playwrights Horizons will bring back Else Went‘s Degenerates for an encore following “extraordinary demand,” per press notes. The play, directed by Emma Rosa Went, is currently playing a multi-extended run in the company’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater through November 8. When it returns to run December 22, 2026-January 24, 2027, the production will move to the company’s larger space, the Judith O. Robin Theater.
The full original cast will be back to reprise their work, including Juan Arturo (I Wanna F*ck Like Romeo and Juliet) as Serge and Chad, Olivia Rose Barresi (Initiative) as Stacy, Zachary W. Desmond (Ivanov) as Miller, Tyler Nowell Felix (Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern) as Kemp, and Christopher Dylan White (Initiative) as Target. Casting is by Claire Yenson.
See what critics had to say about the initial run, which opened September 29, here.
The project has director Emma Rosa Went teaming up with real-life spouse Else Went following last year’s Initiative. The new work is set within the online world of incel culture, a community of men who have declared themselves (supposedly) involuntarily celibate. The work digs into the “language and anguish of the extreme side of the epidemic of male loneliness,” according to press notes. Else Went began researching that world during the pandemic, devoting time to helping people expressing suicidal ideation online while also looking into circles where the opposite is happening. She found a world built to enable unending and unquestioned self-loathing, a world in which the possibility of being loved is a threat to one’s sense of self.
The production features scenic design by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams, costume design by Kindall Houston Almond, lighting design by Jiyoun Chang, sound design by Angela Baughman, video and projection design by S. Katy Tucker, dramaturgy by Sarah Lunnie, and intimacy direction by Willow Funkhouser. Lucy Houlihan is production stage manager.
Tickets are at PlaywrightsHorizons.org.