Richard Nelson's Three-Play Cycle The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family to Bow Off-Broadway

ICYMI this, this and even this, there's a Presidential election in 2016 and a new Richard Nelson three-play cycle, tracking the lives of a family through it all, will make its world premiere off-Broadway next year. Written and directed by Tony winner Nelson, The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family will play as part of the Public’s 2015-16 downtown season. Play One: Hungry will begin previews on February 27, 2016 and run through March 20, with opening night set for March 4. The second play in the cycle will open in September 2016 and the final play will open on Election Night, November 8, 2016.

Casting will be announced later. As with Nelson’s The Apple Family Plays, each play in The Gabriels cycle will feature a core acting company and will open on the day it is set and unfold in real time over a couple of hours.

The first play in the cycle, Hungry, will introduce us to the Gabriels of Rhinebeck, New York. (The Gabriels live just around the corner from the Apple Family.) To the rhythm of peeling, chopping and mixing, Hungry places us in the center of the Gabriels’ kitchen. The family discusses their lives and disappointments, and the world at large and nearby, as they struggle against the fear of being left behind and the challenge to find resilience in the face of loss.

Nelson won a Tony for the musical James Joyce’s The Dead. He returns to the Public with The Gabriels after the 2013 run of The Apple Family Plays: Scenes from Life in the Country. His additional theater credits include Conversations in Tusculum, Oblivion, Nikolai and the Others, Goodnight Children Everywhere, Two Shakespearean Actors, Some American Abroad, Madame Melville, New England, Frank’s Home, Rodney’s Wife, Franny’s Way, The General from America and The Vienna Notes. His films include Hyde Park on Hudson, Ethan Frome, and Sensibility and Sense.