Midori Francis, recently seen Off-Broadway in The Wolves, will star as Kyeoung in the world premiere of Ming Peiffer’s play Usual Girls as part of Roundabout Underground this fall. The October production will be helmed by Tyne Rafaeli, who is currently directing the Off-Broadway premiere of Craig Lucas' I Was Most Alive with You at Playwrights Horizons.
Through the story of Kyeoung, Usual Girls takes a look at the ways in which girls grow up. From tackling a boy on her elementary school playground and beyond, the new drama is described by Roundabout as a "hilarious, explicit gut-punch of a play."
Usual Girls will play in Roundabout Theatre Company’s 62-seat Black Box Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre beginning October 11. The production will officially open November 5 and is scheduled to play through December 9.
The cast will also feature Abby Corrigan (national tour of Fun Home), Ali Rose Dachis (The Wanderers at The Old Globe), Karl Kenzler (Fiddler on the Roof, You Can't Take it With You), Jennifer Lim (Chinglish, Caught), Sarah Pidgeon (Off-Broadway debut), Ryann Redmond (Escape to Margaritaville, Gigantic), Nicole Rodenburg (The Antipodes, The Flick), and Raviv Ullman (Sticks & Bones, Russian Transport).
The creative team for Usual Girls will include Arnulfo Maldonado (sets), Jen Schriever (lighting), and Ásta Hostetter (costumes). Additional creative team will be announced soon.
As previously announced, Usual Girls will officially kick off the 12th season of Underground. The Roundabout Underground initiative is dedicated to introducing and cultivating emerging writers by giving them their first Off-Broadway production or a reading of a new work.
Peiffer is a playwright and screenwriter from Columbus, Ohio, and a member of the Obie-Award winning playwriting group Youngblood. Her work has been developed and/or presented by New York Theatre Workshop, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theater, HERE Arts Center, The Flea, The Wild Project, New Ohio, Soho Playhouse, The Gene Frankel Theater, C.O.W., Theater for the New City, FringeNYC, Horsetrade Theater, and Yangtze Repertory, among others.
