“Everybody,” July 21 through August 6

Friday, July 21, through Sunday, August 6

Riverside Theatre, 119 East College Street, Iowa City, IA

A modern adaptation of the 15th-century morality play Everyman, one of the first recorded stage works in the English language, author Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Everybody enjoys a July 21 through August 6 debut at Iowa City's Riverside Theatre, this beautiful, fluid, and hilarious modern riff lauded by Time Out New York as "a very meta and saucy adaptation," and by The New Yorker as a work that "fills the heart in a new and unexpected way."

In Everybody, patrons are invited to follow nine actors (one of them chosen randomly by lottery each night to play the title role) on a journey towards life’s greatest mystery -- mortality itself. In the original Everyman work by an unknown writer, the plot finds the good and evil deeds of one's life tallied by God after death, as in a ledger book, and the play is the allegorical accounting of the life of Everyman, tries to convince other characters to accompany him in the hope of improving his life. In Jacobs-Jenkins' Everybody, the story is kept largely the same but with a few exceptions, as the original figures of Fellowship, Kindred, Goods, Discretion, Five Wits, and Knowledge are here renamed Friendship, Kinship, Stuff, Mind, Five Senses, and Understanding.

Jacobs-Jenkins boasts degrees from Stanford, New York University, and Julliard, and his performance-studies background has been instrumental in the progression of his writing career. Many of Jacobs-Jenkins' plays hark back to historic plays or themes, and during his research for the updating of Everyman, the author found that it was a play written to reach the masses, to be easily understandable, and to tell a universal story about humankind that everyone could relate to in a different personal way. Jacobs-Jenkins allows this exploration into humankind to be the core of his play, but also uses modern language, comedy, and cultural references to explore who we are as humans today.

Directing Everybody for Riverside Theatre is Jacob Titus, with additional members of the creative team including: scenic and costume designer Kaelen Novak; lighting designer Merric Bower; sound designer Dakota Parobek; stage manager Maggie McClellan; dramaturg Anna Novak; intimacy director Carrie Pozdol; assistant director Sara Ashbaugh; assistant scenic and costume designer Abigail Mansfield Coleman; and assistant stage manager Zhenya Lougheny. Nine gifted actors, meanwhile, compose Titus' Everybody ensemble: Niyati Deshpande, Mackenzie Elsbecker, Matthew James, Sophia Kilburg, Orlando Lopez, Virginia Muturi, Krista Neumann, Carrie Pozdol, and Barrington Vaxter.

Everybody runs in Iowa City from July 21 through August 6, with performances Thursdays through Saturdasysd at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Admission is $15-35, and more information and tickets are available by calling (319)259-7099 and visiting RiversideTheatre.org.