JOHN BRADLEY, JOE DEMPSIE, KATIE LEUNG AND JAMIE-LEE O’DONNELL
TO STAR IN WORLD PREMIERE OF
EXPECTING
WITH TICKETS ON SALE TODAY FOR THE NEXT TWO MAINSTAGE SEASON PRODUCTIONS:
SACRILEGIOUS AND EXPECTING
DIRECTED BY ANDY SANDBERG
ABS Productions today announces the full cast for Scott Elmegreen & Drew Fornarola’s Expecting. Andy Sandberg directs John Bradley (3 Body Problem, Game of Thrones), Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones, Skins), Katie Leung (Bridgerton, Harry Potter),and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell (Screw, Derry Girls) in the world premiere of this new play exploring why couples are waiting longer to have children, or not having them at all.
With the Mainstage Season’s first play Affluenza now in previews and recently extended through 28 November, the next two productions in the five-play season at Riverside Studios – Sacrilegious by Academy Award winner Tom Schulman and Expecting – go on sale today, Thursday 1 October at 11am via MainstageSeason.com.
Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director of the Hermitage Artist Retreat in the U.S., serves as Season Artistic Director for the Mainstage and directs each of the five productions. Further productions, casting and creatives to be announced.
The Mainstage Season at Riverside Studios is presented by ABS Productions, Whitney Edwards, Flora Major, Judith Manocherian, Sondra Biller, Drew & Dane & Whitney, and Berman-Cohen Productions. DEM Productions serves as General Manager. Nicholas Hockaday serves as Season Casting Director.
World Premiere
Sacrilegious
A New Comedy by Tom Schulman
Directed by Andy Sandberg
5 December 2026 – 23 January 2027
Who says money can’t buy morality?
On the holiest day of the year, an idealistic young rabbi does the one thing nobody saw coming – he dares to challenge the billionaire president of his congregation, questions a multi-million-dollar donation, and ignites a battle for the hearts and minds of the entire community.
What follows is a razor-sharp contest between principle and power. As reputations unravel and loyalties are tested, the community congregation must decide whether morality can survive when there’s $30 million on the table.
Sacrilegiousis a smart, funny, and provocative new comedy that raises questions about what money can or can’t buy. Power, promiscuity, charity, and true love… it’s going to be one hell of a High Holy Days!
This world premiere, directed by Andy Sandberg, is written by Tom Schulman, the Academy Award-winning author of Dead Poets Society, What About Bob?, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Sacrilegious is the first original play from this Oscar-winning writer, who previously adapted his Dead Poets Society screenplay for the stage. Casting to be announced.
TOM SCHULMAN
Playwright Tom Schulman wrote Dead Poets Society, for which he received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He subsequently adapted the film as a play, and the stage version premiered at Classic Stage Company in New York. He has written the screenplays to What About Bob?, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Medicine Man, and Holy Man. He wrote and directed Eight Heads in a Duffle Bag, and he was an executive producer on Indecent Proposal and Me, Myself & Irene. He was the writer/producer of Welcome to Mooseport. With J.J. Abrams and Rafael Yglesias, he co-wrote and co-produced The Anatomy of Hope, a pilot for HBO. He wrote and directed Double Down South, a gambling thriller available on Amazon Prime. Most recently, he co-wrote and co-produced the upcoming podcast series One Lane Road with Callie Khouri, Trae Crowder, and T Bone Burnett. Schulman graduated from Vanderbilt University with a B.A. in Philosophy. He studied theatre and film with Jack Garfein at the Actors and Directors Lab, Los Angeles, and with director Joan Darling; he also directed the Actors’ Studio’s first West Coast production, Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker. Schulman has served on the board of directors and as Vice President of the Writers Guild of America; he is on the board of the Writers Guild Foundation, where he is a past President.
ANDY SANDBERG
Andy Sandberg(Playwright / Director / Mainstage Season Artistic Director)is a New York-based director, writer, and Tony Award-winning producer. He is currently Artistic Director and CEO of the Hermitage Artist Retreat, a leading national arts incubator in the United States. Sandberg’s theatrical work has been represented in New York, London, and throughout the U.S. He directed the UK premieres of Alan Brody’s Operation Epsilon and Jeannette Bayardelle’s Shida, earning multiple Off-West End Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Musical. Additional world premieres as director in New York include Straight (NY Times Critics’ Pick); Application Pending (also co-author; BroadwayWorld Award: Best Off-Broadway Play, Drama Desk nom: Outstanding Solo Show, Winner: Book Pipeline Prize); Shida (Ars Nova and A.R.T., four AUDELCO noms., including Best Director, Best Musical), Craving for Travel (also co-author); and the Off-Broadway musicals The Last Smoker in America and Neurosis, among others. In New York, London, and at the Hermitage, he has directed dozens of workshops and readings of new plays and musicals, including works by Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award, Olivier Award, and Academy Award winners and nominees. He has also written the feature-length screenplays for the films Five More Minutes and Haul Out the Holly, two of Hallmark’s most highly rated Christmas movies. In 2009, at the age of 25, Sandberg became the youngest producer to win a Tony Award. Broadway and West End producing credits include the hit revival of Hair (2009 Tony Award, also West End); the Broadway revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, starring James Earl Jones and Angela Lansbury (2012 Tony nom.); and Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses, starring Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts, and Marisa Tomei. In his role as Artistic Director and CEO of the Hermitage, Sandberg has established the organisation as one of the preeminent new works incubators in the United States, celebrating and elevating the voices of diverse and accomplished artists spanning theatre, music, visual art, dance, film, literature, and more. He recently directed a workshop of Chris Bush’s Hermitage-commissioned play Orlando (FL) at London’s National Theatre. Sandberg is a graduate of Yale University, where he managed and performed with the Whiffenpoofs, the Dramat, and the Yale Alley Cats. He is a member of the Stage Directors & Choreographers Society (SDC), Actors Equity Association (AEA), and the Writers Guild of America (WGA).
World Premiere
Expecting
By Scott Elmegreen & Drew Fornarola
Directed by Andy Sandberg
30 January – 27 March 2027
“Baby, we need to talk…”
Zoey and Ethan are deciding whether or not to have a baby. The rest of their lives are figured out, but there’s nothing sexier than family planning, right? Meanwhile, Zoey’s younger sister Trish already has her hands full with two kids – or three if you count her new boyfriend Matt.
Amidst falling birthrates and the ever-present chaos of adulthood, two couples who were once convinced they can ‘have it all’ find themselves asking what they truly want… and if there’s ever an opportunity to reframe. Career ambitions, brunch plans, and the fate of humanity hang in the balance – not to mention the daunting considerations of legacy, parenting, and ‘expectations.’ Is it ever reallythe right time?
Directed by Andy Sandberg, Expecting is a new play by Scott Elmegreen & Drew Fornarola that explores why couples are waiting longer to have kids… or debating whether to have them at all.
JOHN BRADLEY | Matt
Television credits include: Deadpoint (Channel 4); 3 Body Problem (Netflix); North Shore (Network 10); Urban Myths (Sky Arts); Robot Chicken (Adult Swim); Game of Thrones (HBO); The Last Dragonslayer (Sky); Merlin (BBC); Shameless (Channel 4); and Borgia (Canal+). Film credits include: Merry Christmas Aubrey Flint; Vows; Ibelin; The Railway Children Return (StudioCanal); Marry Me (Universal Pictures); Moonfall (Lionsgate); Patient Zero (Screen Gems); American Satan (Miramax); Traders; Man Up; and Anna Karenina (Focus Features/Working Title).
JOE DEMPSIE | Ethan
Joe will next be seen in a pivotal role in the new series of Sherwood (BBC, Dir. Clio Barnard). Television credits include: Get Millie Black (Channel 4); Toxic Town (Netflix); The Capture (BBC); Skins (E4); This Is England (Channel 4); Murder (BBC, Dir. Birger Larsen); Game of Thrones (HBO); Deep State (FX); Pieces of Her (Netflix); and Showtrial (BBC). Film credits include: Addition(Dir. Marcelle Lunam, Tiff Premiere); The Gamechangers; Dark River (Dir. Clio Barnard); and Been So Long (Netflix).
KATIE LEUNG | Zoey
Theatre credits include: Comeuppance (Almeida Theatre); White Pearl (Royal Court Theatre); Snow in Midsummer (Royal Shakespeare Company); The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (Hampstead Theatre); You for Me for You (Royal Court Theatre); The World of Extreme Happiness (National Theatre); and Wild Swans (Art Boston/Young Vic Theatre). Television credits include: Careless (Channel 4); Bridgerton (Netflix); Nightsleeper (BBC); Wheel of Time, The Peripheral (Amazon); Annika (Alibi); Roadkill (BBC); The Nest (Studio Lambert); Chimerica (Playground Television); Strangers (ITV); Moominvalley (Gutsy Animation UK Ltd); One Child (BBC); Run (C4); Father Brown (BBC); and Poirot (ITV). Film credits include: The Foreigner (STX Entertainment); and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Warner Bros. Pictures).
JAMIE-LEE O’DONNELL | Trish
Jamie-Lee is best known for her breakout performance as Michelle Mallon in the award-winning Derry Girls, and as Rose Gill in Series 1 & 2 of Screw. She is currently filming the lead role in a new BBC comedy series, Hopley Hall. She will next be seen in Girl Group, written by and starring Rebel Wilson, and Skintown, (Screen NI, Keeper Pictures & Cyprus Avenue Films), which recently won the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Film Making Excellence at the 2026 Edinburgh International Film Festival. Television credits include: Derry Girls, Screw (Channel 4); Leonard and Hungry Paul, Faithless (BBC)and The Feud (Channel 5). Film credits include: Unwelcome (Warner Bros/Tempo Productions) and Redeeming Love (Mission Pictures International). Jamie-Lee authored, associate produced and starred in the Channel 4 documentary Jamie-Lee O’Donnell: The Real Derry, for which she won the RTS NI Award for Best On-Screen Talent.
SCOTT ELMEGREEN
Playwright Scott Elmegreen is a writer and composer based in Brooklyn and Chicago. He teaches playwriting, musical theatre writing, and songwriting at the University of Chicago. His work has premiered on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and around the world, and has been adapted to film for theatrical release, HBO, and streaming on Hulu and Disney+. Scott’s plays and musicals include Straight, Tiananmen, Thucydides, Ghost of John McCain, Hip Hop Cinderella, Ivy+Bean, and The Magic School Bus.
DREW FORNAROLA
Playwright Drew Fornarola has written for DreamWorks’ Shrek and VeggieTale franchises and is the founding artistic director of Starring Buffalo. He has written eight Off-Broadway shows, including Straight (NY Times Critics’ Pick) and Tilly the Trickster (with SNL’s Molly Shannon), and several films, including VeggieTales: Noah’s Ark, starring Wayne Brady (Netflix). He is the recipient of a 2026 NYSCA Support for Artists Grant, a Biller Social Impact Grant, the 2024 Artie Award for Best New Play, and 10 MAC Award Nominations for songwriting.
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LISTINGS
Box Office: MainstageSeason.com
Ticketsfrom £25 (concessions available)
All seats £25 at the first preview of each production.
World Premiere
AFFLUENZA
Now extend until 28 November 2026
Performance schedule:
Monday – Saturday, 7.30pm
Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
Captioned performance: Saturday 14 November at 2.30pm
Cast: Noah Schnapp (Stranger Things), Janette Manrara (Strictly Come Dancing), Rupert Young (Bridgerton; Dear Evan Hansen), Juliet Cowan (Broken Glass, Young Vic), Wallis Currie-Wood (CBS TV’s Madam Secretary, Elektra on West End) and Donald Sage Mackay (Indian Ink, Hampstead Theatre; Girl from the North Country, West End).
World Premiere
SACRILEGIOUS
5 December 2026 – 23 January 2027
Performance schedule:
Monday – Saturday, 7.30pm
Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
Captioned performance: Saturday 9 January at 2.30pm
Cast to be announced.
World Premiere
EXPECTING
30 January – 27 March 2027
Performance schedule:
Monday – Saturday,7.30pm
Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
Captioned performance: Saturday 6 March at 2.30pm
Cast: John Bradley (3 Body Problem, Game of Thrones), Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones, Skins), Katie Leung (Bridgerton, Harry Potter), and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell (Screw, Derry Girls).
Performance schedules may vary, please visit website for full details.