Waiting Up for the Dead, a West End Ghost Story Moves Into the Lortel

Most plays want you home by eleven. This one asks you to stay up until 2:22 in the morning.

*2:22 A Ghost Story*, the London thriller by Danny Robins, makes its New York premiere at the Lucille Lortel Theatre at 121 Christopher Street, between Hudson and Bleecker. Previews begin Tuesday, October 20. Opening night is Thursday, November 5. The run is a limited 13 weeks and ends Sunday, January 17, 2027, according to the Lortel's own listing.

That calendar puts the first scares on Christopher Street eleven days before the Village Halloween Parade, and keeps them there well into the dark of January.

A Dinner Party That Runs Late

The setup is simple and very domestic. Jenny is convinced the house she and her husband Sam just moved into is haunted. Sam does not believe a word of it. Their friend Lauren arrives for a housewarming dinner with Ben, and the four of them argue across the table about whether the dead can come back. The argument hardens into a dare. They will stay awake until 2:22 and see what happens.

Anna Camp, of *True Blood* and *Pitch Perfect*, plays Lauren. Jasmine Cephas Jones, an Emmy and Grammy winner whose credits include *Hamilton* and *Blindspotting*, plays Jenny. Finn Jones, the *Game of Thrones* and *Iron Fist* actor, plays Sam in his New York stage debut. Martin Marquez, a West End veteran whose credits include *Billy Elliot the Musical*, plays Ben, as BroadwayWorld reported when the cast was announced in August.

Four actors, one kitchen, one long night. The scale suits the room.

From the Noël Coward to Christopher Street

Robins is best known in Britain for ghosts. He created the BBC podcast *The Battersea Poltergeist*. His play opened in the West End in 2021 at the Noël Coward Theatre, where it set a box office record for a new play at that house. Lily Allen led the first cast. The play picked up an Olivier nomination and a WhatsOnStage Award, then kept moving, to the Gielgud, the Criterion, the Lyric and the Apollo.

Later London casts brought in Tom Felton, Sophia Bush, Cheryl and Stephanie Beatriz, among others. By the producers' count there have been seven West End engagements, UK touring productions and about thirty productions around the world. Somehow New York waited until now.

Robins has called the transfer a dream from childhood. In the June announcement on BroadwayWorld, he said he wrote the play to "make you jump, laugh, cry," and to send people home still arguing about whether ghosts are real.

Four actors, one kitchen, one long night.

Matthew Dunster, who staged *Hangmen*, directs with Gabriel Vega Weissman, the director of *Guards at the Taj*. Dunster told BroadwayWorld that "the intimacy of the play and the venue are so well suited," and added that the piece is "so much more than jump-scares." He describes it as a play about belief, love, grief and faith.

The Trick Department

A ghost play lives or dies on its effects, and this one has hired a specialist. Chris Fisher, the illusions designer on *Harry Potter and the Cursed Child* and *Stranger Things: The First Shadow*, handles the tricks. Anna Fleischle designs the set, Cindy Lin the costumes and Lucy Carter the lights. Ian Dickinson of Autograph does the sound, which in a show like this does a lot of the frightening.

Runaway Entertainment's Tristan Baker and Charlie Parsons produce with Isobel David and Kater Gordon, in a special arrangement with the theater. Rehearsal photos released on October 8 show the four leads already at work.

The House on Christopher Street

The Lortel is a good place to be scared. It has run as an Off-Broadway playhouse since 1955, when it was still the Theatre de Lys. That September, Brecht and Weill's *The Threepenny Opera* opened there with Lotte Lenya and ran for almost seven years. The building was a gift to the producer Lucille Lortel from her husband, Louis Schweitzer, and it took her name in 1981, according to the theater's history page.

It is a small house on a narrow West Village block, which means nobody sits far from whatever comes out of the walls.

What to Know Before You Go

Previews start Tuesday, October 20, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street. The press opening is November 5 and the last performance is January 17, 2027. Tickets are sold through the Lortel's box office. The theater has not posted a running time or age guidance yet, so check before you book with teenagers in tow.

The 1 train stops at Christopher Street, a short walk east of the theater. After the curtain comes down, the bars of the West Village are still open, and 2:22 is closer than it looks.