Inside Proof’s Broadway Revival: Ayo Edebiri, Don Cheadle and Cast Celebrate Opening Night

Proof resonated deeply with audiences on Broadway when it first premiered in 2000. It won three 2001 Tony Awards, including Best Play, earned David Auburn the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and ran for over 900 performances. Now, the play that has become an essential part of theater education is returning to the Main Stem for the first Broadway revival. Directed by Hamilton's Thomas Kail, a new cast brings fresh energy to the timeless story about family, legacy and loss. Broadway.com hit the red carpet on opening night to hear from the cast and creatives, plus one of the original Broadway cast members!

When asked about making her Broadway debut as Catherine, Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri praises her co-stars and credits them for showing her the ropes. "It's such a really, really special group of collaborators, and I feel really fortunate to get to just be in their presence and learn from them and grow for them."

Oscar nominee Don Cheadle is also making his Broadway debut in the production, as the patriarch Robert. He can confirm: "This play still holds up." He continues, "It's a testament to David's writing about family, about legacy, about mental health, about how you show up for each other or how we don't show up for each other."

As Catherine's sister, Claire, two-time Tony winner Kara Young plays "a really complicated character, but her heart is still in the right place." This is Young's fourth season in a row on Broadway, and it was recently announced that she will star alongside Ruben Santiago-Hudson in the world premiere of Dominique Morisseau's Mix and Master in winter 2027. Speaking to the power of live theater and why she keeps coming back to Broadway, Young says, "This is a world in which people feel changed when they walk out of a show."

Of breathing new life into the play, playwright Auburn says that while the text remains largely the same, "it's new because there's a new group of artists who bring their own interpretations, their own life experience to it."

Ben Shenkman, who played Hal in the original Broadway cast of Proof was in attendance on opening night. "There are very few things even that are masterpieces that are truly for everybody. This has something of the common touch to it. It is smart enough for anybody, and it's not too smart for anybody," he says.

For director Kail, who saw the original production when he first moved to New York City, "It's been incredible to watch audiences come and discover the play. From the way that the audience is reacting, just on the edge of their seat, there's a lot of people that are finding the play for the first time," he says. He insists that the show's continued success is a credit to Auburn's writing: "David Auburn wrote an absolutely gripping, hilarious, and deeply moving play, and we're just trying to serve it up."

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