Sean Young in off-Broadway play, Ode to the Wasp Woman

November 2, 2023 Queer Forty Staff 5 min read

Film actress Sean Young stars in a new, original play inspired by the mysterious deaths of B-movie stars. Photos: Maria Baranova

Forwood C. Wiser presents Sean Young (Blade Runner, Fatal Instinct) in Ode To The Wasp Woman, a new play by Rider McDowell (The Mercy Man, Wimbledon). The limited 13-week Off-Broadway engagement will play October 30, 2023 through January 31, 2024, at The Actors Temple Theatre (339 W. 47th St, NYC). Opening night is Thursday, November 9 at 7:30PM.

Tickets are now on sale at Telecharge.com.

“I’m ecstatic about coming to New York and working onstage,” says Sean Young. “This is something I’ve wanted to do since graduating from Interlohen Arts Academy. I can’t wait to start rehearsal. The play is a sly cautionary tale about ambitious people who work in Hollywood, become desperate, and how show business chews them up. I’m looking forward to purging my own personal experience of being eaten alive in Hollywood.”

Sean Young has starred in over three dozen feature films, including Blade Runner opposite Harrison Ford, No Way Out with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman, Wall Street with Michael Douglas, Ace Ventura Pet Detective with Jim Carrey, Cousins with Ted Danson, Firebirds with Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones, A Kiss Before Dying wit Matt Dillon, Dune, The Drop with John Savage, The Garden, The Man Who Came Back, Haunted Echoes, Sea Change, Dating In La, Harvest Moon, Parasomnia, Sugar and Spice directed by Francine McDougall, and Signal Lost with Tony Denison.

For her work in The Amati Girls with Cloris Leachman, Mercedes Rehul, Dinah Manoff, Lee Grant, Paul Sorvino, and Mark Harmon, Sean was awarded the Scarlett Award (Marco Island Film Festival) and Best Actress Award (The Sarasota Film Festival). Cleveland Film Festival named her Best Actress for her performance in Poor White Trash. She has worked with accomplished directors including Robert Altman, Harold Becker, Roger Donaldson, James Ivory, David Lynch, Gary Marshall, Ismail Merchant, Carl Reiner, Ivan Reitman, Ridley Scott, Tom Shadyac, Joel Schumacher, Oliver Stone and Gus Van Sant.

Television credits include F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Under The Biltmore Clock for American Playhouse, Tender Is The Night with Mary Steenburgen and Peter Strauss, “Witness To The Execution”, “Blue Ice” with Michael Caine, the mini-series “Blood And Orchids” with Kris Kristofferson, CBS’s “Everything To Gain,” “Home For The Holidays”, “The Protégé” and the My Network’s series “The Art Of Betrayal.” A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, she has an intensive dance background having starred with Toni Tenille and Hinton Battle in the musical revue Stardust, and performed with Gregory Hines at a special benefit for the American Tap Dance Orchestra where she sits on the Board at their New York City headquarters.

Ode To The Wasp Woman chronicles the last 48 hours in the lives of four 1950’s B movie stars; Susan Cabot, leading lady of the Roger Corman’s cult classic The Wasp Woman; George Reeves, the man who brought Superman to life on TV screens across America; Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer of the beloved “Our Gang” comedies; B-movie queen Barbara Payton. The desperate and sensational events that lead to the demise of these four fallen stars are told in four one acts with music, a veritable homage to film noir and true crime.

Rider McDowell directs Sean Young, making her New York stage debut, as Susan Cabot. Young leads a company including Josh Alscher as Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer, Douglas Everett Davis as George ‘Superman’ Reeves, Jonathan Hartman as Flip, Payton Georgiana as B-movie queen Barbara Payton, Rita Louise as Toni Mannix, Anna Telfer as Leonore Lemon and David Wenzel as Hank and others. Michael Ronca is the standby.

“I wrote Ode To The Wasp Woman as a paen to my boyhood TV heroes of the 1960s and ’70s,” says Rider McDowell. ” When I learned on the same rainy day in 1970 that Superman and Alfalfa were both dead, it shocked me. Fold in the deaths of ‘Wasp Woman’ Susan Cabot and Barbara ‘I am not ashamed’ Payton, actresses I admired, and the grim picture was complete. Ode To The Wasp Woman reveals the who, what, where, if not the ‘why,’ of the deaths of these fallen stars.”

Ode To The Wasp Woman features a scenic design by Christian Fleming; lighting design by Maarten Cornelis; costume design by Pearl Gopalani; Ms. Young’s costumes designed by Montgomery Frazier; and sound design by Bob’ The Hammer’ Franco. Matthew Palmer is production stage manager. Casting is by Amy Gossels. Adam Smith Jr. is Co-Producer.

Ode To The Wasp Woman was originally developed in a 2017 workshop staging titled Fringe Deaths.

Ode To The Wasp Woman plays a limited 13-week Off-Broadway engagement Nov. 7, 2022 through Jan. 31, 2023, at The Actors Temple Theatre (339 W. 47th St, NYC). Opening night is Thursday, November 9 at 7:30PM. Preview performance schedule, Oct 30 through opening night, Nov. 9.