Dinner on the Trunk, Elizabeth Gillies Joins Rope on West 46th

Elizabeth Gillies is in previews in Rope, The New Group's new version of Patrick Hamilton's murder thriller, which opens Tuesday, November 3, at the Theater at St. Clement's on West 46th Street and runs through December 6.

Playbill published the first production photos on Friday. Gillies, known for *Dynasty*, plays Leila. Cameron Monaghan of *Shameless* and Corey Fogelmanis of *Girl Meets World* play the two hosts.

The key facts sit in one place. Previews began October 13. Opening night is November 3. The last show is December 6. Curtains are at 7 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on Saturdays.

The dinner party is in Turtle Bay. The body is in the trunk. The trunk is the table.

What Is Rope About?

Two Princeton graduate students kill a man and then throw a dinner party in their Turtle Bay apartment, serving it off the trunk that hides him. Playbill describes the pair as "beautiful, brilliant, and dangerously bored."

Hamilton's play draws on the Leopold and Loeb case and inspired Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film, per Playbill. That case was the 1924 Chicago killing of 14-year-old Bobby Franks by two University of Chicago students, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, according to the play's Wikipedia entry).

The original was a London play. It opened in the West End at the Ambassadors Theatre in April 1929 and was set in a Mayfair house that same year. It reached Broadway in September 1929 under the title *Rope's End*. Hitchcock's film cast James Stewart as Rupert Cadell, the guest who starts to suspect.

This version moves the party to Manhattan's East Side and the killers to Princeton. It is a new adaptation by Gordon Greenberg, billed as a world premiere. Scott Elliott, The New Group's artistic director, stages it.

BroadwayWorld calls it a "sharp-witted and sexually aggressive thriller."

The body is in the trunk. The trunk is the table.

Who Is in the Cast?

Monaghan plays Garrett Stern and Fogelmanis plays Nate Singer, the two hosts. Jason Butler Harner of *Ozark* is Rupert Cadell, the role Stewart played on film. Graham Phillips is Richard Raglan, and James Waterston of *Dead Poets Society* is Judge Kentley, according to Playbill.

There is a small reunion on stage. Playbill credits both Gillies and Phillips with *13*, the Jason Robert Brown musical about a boy turning 13, which put a cast of teenagers on Broadway in 2008.

The design team is a strong one. Derek McLane did the sets and Catherine Zuber the costumes. Jeff Croiter lit it, Leah Gelpe did sound and Tom Watson did the wigs. UnkleDave's Fight-House handles fight and intimacy direction, the staging of physical and intimate scenes so actors stay safe. Casting is by Geoff Josselson and Felicia Rudolph, and the production comes by special arrangement with Mark Cortale and Jeffrey Mahshie, per Playbill.

Monique Carboni shot the first photos, ten images in all.

Where Is the Theater at St. Clement's?

It is at 423 West 46th Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, according to The New Group's directions page. The company says its 2026 season plays there, at what it calls its new artistic home. The A, C and E trains stop at 42nd Street-Port Authority, and the N, Q, R, W, 1, 2, 3 and 7 stop at Times Square.

Will-call tickets are at the box office one hour before curtain, which also sells same-night seats in person, the company says.

What to Know Before You Go

Performances run Tuesday through Sunday at 7 p.m., with Saturday matinees at 2 p.m. and one Monday show on November 23, per the company's performance calendar. The Wednesday, November 11 show is open captioned, meaning the dialogue appears on a screen as it is spoken.

The calendar flags several nights this week, including October 27, 29 and 30 and the October 31 matinee, as selling fast. Ticket prices were not listed in the sources we read. Tickets are sold through The New Group's site.

Critics are not in yet, so for now the only verdicts come from the house. For another Off-Broadway star turn this season, see our story on Tilda Swinton at the Lucille Lortel.

Hitchcock put it on film. On West 46th Street, it is a dinner party you watch from across the room, and nobody gets up from the trunk.