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{{Short description|2018 play by Matthew Lopez}}

factoids

| director = Stephen Daldry| characters = | setting = {{Plainlist}}

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Young Vic, London| orig_lang = English| subject = Early AIDS Crisis, generational trauma, queer culture| genre = }}The Inheritance is a play by Matthew López that is inspired by the 1910 novel Howards End by E. M. Forster. The play premiered in London at the Young Vic in March 2018, before transferring to Broadway in November 2019.

Productions

Off-West End (2018)

The play was commissioned by Hartford Stage in Hartford, Connecticut.WEB, Serratore, Nicole, A Gay Inheritance That's Generations in the Making,weblink American Theatre (magazine), American Theatre, June 2018, 3 August 2019, The play was produced in London at the Young Vic Theatre under the direction of Stephen Daldry in March 2018. The play was staged in two parts of over three hours each, intended to be viewed sequentially and reimagines E. M. Forster's Howards End as "a lovingly wry portrait of New York’s gay community",MAGAZINE,weblink How Matthew Lopez Transformed Howards End Into an Epic Play About Gay Life, Rebecca, Mead, The New Yorker, September 2, 2019, November 16, 2022, "with gay men from different generations standing in for Forster’s straight people from different classes". Lopez found parallels between his own life and Forster's closeted existence before the partial-decriminalisation of homosexuality, telling The New Yorker: "We’re so far apart, and yet when I read his diaries—that’s me. That’s me, a hundred years ago, as a closeted white man in England". Lopez has described that the greatest theatrical influence, despite comparisons with Tony Kushner's Angels in America as being Gatz, Elevator Repair Service's 2-part, 8-hour adaptation of The Great Gatsby, inspiring his use of "self-narration".The Inheritance examines love between gay men in contemporary New York a generation after the Early AIDS Crisis.NEWS,weblink London Theater Review: The Inheritance, Trueman, Matt, 2018-03-29, Variety (magazine), Variety, en, 2019-04-21, It asks what the current generation owes to its forebearsNEWS,weblink 3 Young People to Watch in Theater This Spring, Collins-Hughes, Laura, 2018-02-20, The New York Times, 2018-03-24, Deb, Sopan, en-US, Trueman, Matt, with Rebecca Read writing in The New Yorker that lead character Eric Glass, "as the grandson of Holocaust survivors, has a personal connection to generational catastrophe, and is therefore better primed to comprehend the history of the gay community’s devastation".

West End (2018)

The production transferred to the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End on 21 September 2018 and was produced by Tom Kirdahy, Sonia Friedman, and Hunter Arnold.WEB,weblink The Inheritance (West End), Young Vic, July 16, 2018, The Inheritance won Best Play at the London Evening Standard Theatre Award 2018.NEWS,weblink Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2018 – The Winners, Thompson, Jessie, 2018-11-19, Evening Standard, en, 2018-11-19, The Inheritance also won Best New Play, Best Director for Stephen Daldry and Best Actor for Kyle Soller at both the 2019 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and the 2019 Laurence Olivier Awards, also winning an Olivier for Best Lighting for Jon Clark.NEWS,weblink The Inheritance wins best new play at UK Critics' Circle awards, Wiegand, Chris, 2019-01-29, The Guardian, 2019-01-30, en-GB,

Broadway (2019-2020)

The play premiered on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 27 September 2019 in previews, with the official opening on 17 November.NEWS, McPhee, Ryan,weblink Two-Part, Gay-Themed The Inheritance Will Play Broadway, Playbill, June 6, 2019, The production features Lois Smith as Margaret, with Kyle Soller and John Benjamin Hickey, among others, reprising their roles from the London production.NEWS, Hetrick, Adam,weblink Kyle Soller and John Benjamin Hickey to Reprise Performances in The Inheritance on Broadway; Full Cast Set, Playbill, August 15, 2019, In December 2019, it was announced that Tony Goldwyn would replace Hickey for a four-month stint beginning in January 2020, while Hickey was set to direct a revival of Plaza Suite.NEWS,weblink Tony Goldwyn Joining Broadway's The Inheritance For Four-Month Stint, Evans, Greg, December 9, 2019, Deadline Hollywood, March 15, 2020, However, in February 2020, it was announced that The Inheritance would close on March 15, after 46 previews and 138 regular performances.WEB,weblink The Inheritance Closing in March After Box Office Struggles, Lang, Brent, February 20, 2020, Variety (magazine), Variety, March 15, 2020, MAGAZINE,weblink Supersized play The Inheritance sets Broadway closing date, Entertainment Weekly, en, 2020-02-22, On March 12, the final four performances were cancelled when all Broadway theatres closed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.NEWS,weblink Coronavirus: Broadway shuts down all shows immediately, Keller, Ilana, March 12, 2020, Asbury Park Press, USA Today, March 15, 2020,

Other notable productions

A German language production of The Inheritance titled Das Vermächtnis, directed by Philip Stölzl, premiered at Munich's Residenztheater on January 30, 2022.WEB, Das Vermächtnis (The Inheritance) – Teil 1 {{!, residenztheater.de |url=https://www.residenztheater.de/stuecke/detail/das-vermaechtnis |access-date=2023-05-15 |website=www.residenztheater.de |language=de-de}}WEB, Das Vermächtnis (The Inheritance) – Teil 2 {{!, residenztheater.de |url=https://www.residenztheater.de/stuecke/detail/das-vermaechtnis-the-inheritance-teil-2 |access-date=2023-05-15 |website=www.residenztheater.de |language=de-de}} The production was invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen as one of ten "noteworthy" productions of 2022.WEB, Festspiele, Berliner, Das Vermächtnis (The Inheritance) – Theatertreffen,weblink 2023-05-15, www.berlinerfestspiele.de, de, Das Vermächtnis also premiered in Hanover on 22 April 2022, as well as at the Theater Münster on 3 December 2022 and most recently at the E.T.A.-Hoffmann-Theater in Bamberg on 6 October 2023.WEB, Das Vermächtnis,weblink 2024-02-09, Fischer Theater Medien, de, Part one of the Bamberg production was invited to the Bayerische Theatertage in 2024.WEB, 2023-12-20, Überblick über die eingeladenen Inszenierungen,weblink live,weblink 2024-02-09, 2024-02-09, Stadttheater Ingolstadt, de, A West Coast premiere production directed by Mike Donahue opened at Geffen Playhouse on September 13, 2022, and had an extended run until November 27, 2022.WEB, 2023-03-22, "The Inheritance" at Geffen Playhouse,weblink 2023-08-15, Geffen Playhouse, en, The play was cited as "better in Los Angeles than on Broadway"WEB, 2022-10-18, Review: Tony-winning 'The Inheritance' is better in Los Angeles than on Broadway,weblink 2023-08-15, Los Angeles Times, en-US, by Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty. An audio adaptationBOOK,weblink The Inheritance, en, was later released by Audible Theater in March 2023. Brazilian Portuguese language production of The Inheritance, called A Herança, premiered at Teatro Vivo, São Paulo, on March 9, 2023, and ran until April 30, 2023. Due to its success, a new season, this time placed at Teatro Raul Cortez, São Paulo, premiered on June 1, 2023, and ran until July 30, 2023.The play was translated into Portuguese by Zé Henrique de Paula, who also directs and produces it. Bruno Fagundes, the other local producer, performs the role of Eric Glass in the Brazilian version.A Danish language production of The Inheritance named Arven premiered at the Royal Danish Playhouse March 25, 2023 and ran until May 13 the same year. The production was staged by Thomas Bendixen.WEB,weblink The Inheritance, English, DET KGL. TEATER, 1 May 2023, The production won the 2023 Reumert Award for Best PerformanceWEB,weblink Årets Reumert 2023: Her er alle vinderne, Danish, BILLED-BLADET, 16 June 2023, and will run again starting August 24, 2024 as part of the Royal Danish Theatre's 2024/2025 season.WEB,weblink The Inheritance, English, DET KGL. TEATER, 16 June 2023, In April 2023 Canadian Stage announced that, as part of its 23/24 season, it would stage a production in Toronto.The production was directed by Brendan Healy, Canadian Stage's artistic director, and ran at the Bluma Appel Theatre, Front Street East, Toronto in March and April 2024.

Cast and characters {| class"wikitable"

! rowspan="2" |Role!Off-West End!West End!Broadway!Los Angeles! colspan="2" |2018!2019!2022!Eric GlassKyle SollerAdam Kantor!Toby DarlingAndrew BurnapJuan Castano!Adam / LeoSamuel H. LevineNicholas L. Ashe!Walter/ MorganPaul HiltonBill Brochtrup!Henry WilcoxJohn Benjamin HickeyTuc Watkins!JasperHugo Bolton align="center" |Kyle HarrisKasey Mahaffy!Toby's AgentRobert Boulter align="center" |Jonathan BurkeEddie Lopez!Young HenryHubert Burton align="center" |Carson McCalleyAugust Gray Gall!TristanSyrus Lowe align="center" |Jordan BarbourJay Donnell!Jason 1Michael Marcus align="center" |Darryl Gene Daughtry Jr.Israel Erron Ford!Young WalterLuke Thallon align="center" Dylan FrederickMiguel Pinzon!Jason 2Michael Walters align="center" |Arturo Luís SoriaAvi Roque!MargaretVanessa Redgrave align="center" |Lois SmithTantoo Cardinal

Notable replacements

Broadway (2019-2020)

• Henry Wilcox: Tony Goldwyn

Critical response

The reviewer for The Daily Telegraph called the play “perhaps the most important American play of this century.” NEWS, Cavendish, Dominic,weblink The Inheritance, Young Vic review: perhaps the most important American play of the century so far, The Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2018, The Variety reviewer wrote the play is a "vast, imperfect and unwieldy masterpiece that unpicks queer politics and neoliberal economics anew. In addressing the debt gay men owe to their forebears, it dares to ask whether the past hasn’t also sold the present up short."Michael Billington, The Guardian reviewer, wrote: "While Lopez’s play has a literary framework, it teems with life and incident...Lopez is also unafraid to periodically stop the plot and clear the stage for an impassioned debate: one of the most intense is about the status of gay culture which, having fought so long against oppression, now finds itself in danger of being co-opted."NEWS, Billington, Michael,weblink The Inheritance review – Angels in America meets Howards End, The Guardian, 28 March 2018, In a later article, Billington also praised Paul Hilton's performance in the Young Vic Theatre production in a list by The Guardian writers of the 50 greatest theatre shows since 2000, in which The Inheritance placed 15th.NEWS, Billington, Michael, Soloski, Alexis, Love, Catherine, Fisher, Mark, Wiegand, Chris, 2019-09-17, The 50 best theatre shows of the 21st century, en, The Guardian,weblink 2021-02-17, The show received mostly mixed reviews on Broadway. As Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times: "Its breadth doesn't always translate into depth." He praised the acting of many in the large cast and noted the continued experiential relevance of the AIDS crises, stating "That effort to conjure a nightmare era in danger of being forgotten by many young people today captures what’s best in 'The Inheritance'.”NEWS,weblink 'The Inheritance' Review: So Many Men, So Much Time, Ben, Brantley, The New York Times, November 18, 2019, Writing in The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead drew comparisons to Angels in America, the two-part epic play by Tony Kushner, also examining the Early AIDS Crisis in New York, describing The Inheritance as "less intellectually demanding" and "strik[ing] an upper-middlebrow tone" and also comparing the play with Hanya Yanagihara's 2015 "gay-trauma" novel A Little Life.Terrence McNally, author of the 1994 play Love! Valour! Compassion!, which addressed the AIDS Crisis contemporarily, said that "as an 80-year-old survivor, observer, and participant of the many years covered in the play" he had never had such a strong response, referring to the experience of watching a play about the Early AIDS Crisis amid an audience of gay men of both the survivors' generation and the subsequent generation, that of the protagonists.

Awards and nominations

Original London production {| class"wikitable" width"95%"

! width="5%"| Year! width="20%"| Award! width="45%"| Category! width="20%"| Nominee! width="10%"| Result2018Evening Standard Theatre Awards2018-11-16 EVENING STANDARD THEATRE AWARDS 2018 SHORTLIST IN FULL >URL=HTTPS://WWW.STANDARD.CO.UK/CULTURE/THEATRE/EVENING-STANDARD-THEATRE-AWARDS-2018-SHORTLIST-ACTORS-DIRECTORS-PLAYS-A3992376.HTML WEBSITE=EVENING STANDARD, en, Evening Standard Theatre Awards#Best Play>Best PlayMatthew Lopez (writer)>Matthew Lopez|{{won}}Evening Standard Theatre Awards#Best Actor>Best Actor|Kyle Soller| {{nom}}Evening Standard Theatre Awards#Best Director>Best Director|Stephen Daldry|{{nom}}Critics' Circle Theatre AwardCritics' Circle Theatre Award#Best New Play>Best New Play|Matthew Lopez|{{won}}Critics' Circle Theatre Award#Best Actor>Best Actor|Kyle Soller|{{won}}Critics' Circle Theatre Award#Best Director>Best Director|Stephen Daldry|{{won}}20192019 Laurence Olivier AwardsWINNERS LIST FOR THE OLIVIER AWARDS 2019 WITH MASTERCARD ACCESS-DATE=2021-04-19 LAURENCE OLIVIER AWARDS >LANGUAGE=EN-GB, Best New Play| {{won}}Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor>Best Actor|Kyle Soller| {{won}}Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role>Best Actress in a Supporting Role|Vanessa Redgrave|{{nom}}Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director>Best Director|Stephen Daldry|{{won}}Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design>Best Set Design|Bob Crowley|{{nom}}Laurence Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design>Best Lighting Design|Jon Clark|{{won}}Laurence Olivier Award for Best Sound Design>Best Sound Design|Paul Arditti and Christopher Reid| {{nom}}Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music>Outstanding Achievement in Music|Paul Englishby|{{nom}}South Bank Sky Arts AwardTHE INHERITANCE, LENNY HENRY AND JESSIE BUCKLEY WIN SOUTH BANK SKY ARTS AWARDS WHAT'S ON STAGE >URL=HTTPS://WWW.WHATSONSTAGE.COM/LONDON-THEATRE/NEWS/INHERITANCE-LENNY-HENRY-BUCKLEY-SOUTH-BANK-AWARD_49412.HTML LANGUAGE=EN-GB, Theatre|{{won}}

Original Broadway production {| class"wikitable" width"95%"

! width="5%"| Year! width="20%"| Award! width="45%"| Category! width="20%"| Nominee! width="10%"| Result2020 74th Tony AwardsTHE TONY AWARD NOMINATIONS ACCESS-DATE=2021-04-19 TONY AWARDS >LANGUAGE=EN-US, Best Play|{{Won}}Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play>Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play|Andrew Burnap|{{Won}}Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play|John Benjamin Hickey|{{Nominated}}Paul Hilton (actor)>Paul Hilton|{{Nominated}}Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play>Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play|Lois Smith|{{Won}}Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play>Best Direction of a Play|Stephen Daldry|{{Won}}Tony Award for Best Original Score>Best Original Score|Paul Englishby|{{Nominated}}Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Play>Best Scenic Design of a PlayBob Crowley|{{Nominated}}Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Play>Best Costume Design of a Play|{{Nominated}}Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a Play>Best Lighting Design of a Play|Jon Clark|{{Nominated}}Tony Award for Best Sound Design in a Play>Best Sound Design in a Play|Paul Arditti and Christopher Reid|{{Nominated}} Drama Desk Award>DATE=2020-06-14 THE INHERITANCE, STRANGE LOOP, MOULIN ROUGE AMONG DRAMA DESK AWARD WINNERS >URL=HTTPS://VARIETY.COM/2020/LEGIT/NEWS/DRAMA-DESK-AWARDS-2020-MOULIN-ROUGE-WINNERS-1234634249/ WEBSITE=VARIETY (MAGAZINE) >LANGUAGE=EN-US, Outstanding Play|{{won}}Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play>Outstanding Actor in a Play|Kyle Soller|{{nom}}Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play>Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play|Paul Hilton|{{won}}Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play>Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play|Lois Smith|{{won}}Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play>Outstanding Director of a Play|Stephen Daldry|{{won}}Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Sound Design of a Play>Outstanding Sound Design of a Play|Paul Arditti and Christopher Reid|{{won}} Drama League AwardNOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED FOR 86TH ANNUAL DRAMA LEAGUE AWARDS >URL=HTTPS://WWW.BROADWAY.COM/BUZZ/199217/NOMINATIONS-ANNOUNCED-FOR-86TH-ANNUAL-DRAMA-LEAGUE-AWARDS/ WEBSITE=BROADWAY.COM ACCESS-DATE=2021-04-19 THE DRAMA LEAGUE >DATE=25 MARCH 2021, en-US, Outstanding Production of a Play|{{won}}|Distinguished Performance|Paul Hilton|{{nom}}New York Drama Critics' Circle Award2019-2020 AWARDS ACCESS-DATE=2021-04-19, New York Drama Critics' Circle, New York Drama Critics' Circle#Best Play>Best PlayMatthew Lopez (author)>Matthew Lopez|{{CFinalist}}Outer Critics Circle AwardHTTP://WWW.PLAYBILL.COM/ARTICLE/MOULIN-ROUGE-LEADS-2020-OUTER-CRITICS-CIRCLE-AWARD-HONOREES >TITLE=MOULIN ROUGE! LEADS 2020 OUTER CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD HONOREESLAST=CLEMENT WEBSITE=PLAYBILL, Outstanding New Broadway PlayHonoree}}|Outstanding Director of a Play|Stephen DaldryHonoree}}Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play|John Benjamin HickeyHonoree}}|Paul HiltonHonoree}}|Samuel H. LevineHonoree}}|Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play|Lois SmithHonoree}}31st GLAAD Media Awards>GLAAD Media AwardTHE NOMINATIONS FOR THE 31ST ANNUAL GLAAD AWARDS >URL=HTTPS://WWW.GLAAD.ORG/MEDIAAWARDS/31/2020%20NOMINEES PUBLISHER=GLAAD, Outstanding Broadway Production|{{won}}

References

{{reflist}}

External links

• The Inheritance Internet Broadway database

{{Navboxes|title = Awards for The Inheritance|list ={{DramaDesk Play}}{{OlivierAward Play}}{{TonyAward Play}}}}