Second Stage Theater Announces Complete Casting for THE RECEPTIONIST

 

Johnson, Mallori - (Courtesy Photo)

Second Stage Theater Announces Complete Casting for

THE RECEPTIONIST

Written by Adam Bock

Directed by Sarah Benson

Second Stage Theater’s upcoming revival of Adam Bock’s dark office comedy “The Receptionist” arrives with the kind of pedigree New York theater-watchers notice. Two-time Tony Award winner Katie Finneran leads the four-person cast, joined by Mallori Johnson, Nael Nacer, and Will Pullen, under the direction of Obie-winning director Sarah Benson, making her Second Stage debut. Previews begin April 15, 2026, with opening night set for May 7 on the Irene Diamond Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

On its surface, the play unfolds in the most ordinary of locations: the Northeast Office, where Beverly Wilkins (Finneran), a cheerfully efficient receptionist, answers phones, makes coffee, and trades small talk with colleagues. The rhythms are familiar enough to feel almost soothing — until a visitor from the Central Office (Pullen’s Martin Dart) arrives and the workday begins to tilt. Bock’s script slowly reveals itself as a jet-black comedy about bureaucracy and complicity, where the systems that structure everyday life become impossible to ignore.

The production marks Bock’s return to Second Stage, which produced his breakout Swimming in the Shallows in its Uptown Series, and pairs him with Benson, whose work on formally adventurous plays like “Fairview,” “An Octoroon,” and “Blasted” has made her one of the city’s most closely watched directors. The design team — dots (scenic design), Enver Chakartash (costumes), Stacey Derosier (lighting), and Bray Poor (sound), with casting by Daniel Swee — suggests a production as precise visually as it is tonally.

“The Receptionist” fits into a notably writer-driven Second Stage season, the first curated by Artistic Director Evan Cabnet and Executive Director Adam Siegel. It follows Talene Monahon’s “Meet the Cartozians” and the Broadway debut of Jordan Harrison’s “Marjorie Prime,” and runs alongside Aya Ogawa’s “Meat Suit, or the shitshow of motherhood” off-Broadway and Gina Gionfriddo’s “Becky Shaw” on Broadway. In that context, Bock’s play reads as part of a broader project: an examination of how contemporary characters navigate institutions — families, offices, technology, state power — and what gets quietly traded away to keep those institutions running.

For Second Stage, now in its 47th season and long committed to contemporary American writers, this compact, unsettling office comedy doubles as a statement of intent: Even in a familiar hallway with fluorescent lights and a ringing phone, the stakes can be much higher than they appear.

Single tickets for “The Receptionist” are available at 2ST.com, with group discounts for parties of 10 or more via groups@2st.com.