"To succeed in life you need three things-
a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone."
-Reba McEntire
the lehman trilogy
WRITTEN by Stefano Massini
Adapted by Ben Power
Directed by David Winitsky
November 3-19, 2023
Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 7 p.m.
Sundays at 2 p.m.
Performances will be held at the Arts Factory at West End Studios
Single Tickets and Flex Passes Available Now!
Advance Purchase Online: $25 inclusive of all taxes and fees
Night of Show at the Door: $30 inclusive of all taxes and fees
Students and Educators at the Door: $10 inclusive of all taxes and fees
Discounted pricing available for groups of 10 or more, contact us at info@threebonetheatre.com to learn more
Winner! 2022 Tony Award for Best Play
Winner! 2022 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Broadway Play
Winner! 2022 Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Play
Nominee! 2019 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play
On a cold September morning in 1844, a young man from Bavaria stands on a New York dockside dreaming of a new life in the new world. He is joined by his two brothers, and an American epic begins. 163 years later, the firm they establish – Lehman Brothers – spectacularly collapses into bankruptcy, triggering the largest financial crisis in history.
Weaving together nearly two centuries of family history, this epic theatrical event charts the humble beginnings, outrageous successes and devastating failure of the financial institution that would ultimately bring the global economy to its knees. The Lehman Trilogy is the quintessential story of western capitalism, rendered through the lens of a single immigrant family.
The Lehman Trilogy contains some adult language and descriptions and depictions of anti-Semitism and suicide. Recommended for ages 14+.
What People Are Saying
Praise from the original production
Vanity fair
"True blockbuster theatre that will hold you captive until the final curtain call."
chicago tribune
“A masterwork. Far and away the best thing I’ve seen on any stage since before the start of the pandemic."
The Wall Street Journal
“The Lehman Trilogy surpasses all praise.”
The Guardian (London)
★★★★★
“What an astonishing evening! Spanning 150 years and running three and a half hours, Stefano Massini’s play traces the trajectory of western capitalism by following the fortunes of a single family… a kaleidoscopic social and political metaphor.”
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Meet the Artists
Stefano Massini
Playwright
Stefano Massini is an internationally renowned novelist and playwright who regularly contributes to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. For several years he has served as artistic consultant at Piccolo Teatro di Milano - Teatro d'Europa. His works, including The Lehman Trilogy, have been translated into 27 languages, and his plays have been performed in more theaters around the world than those of any other living Italian writer, produced as far afield as Iran and Korea, and staged by directors such as Luca Ronconi and Sam Mendes. His most acclaimed works, beyond The Lehman Trilogy, include: Intractable Woman, a decades-long international success; Ladies Football Club, which premiered to wide acclaim in Spain; and 7 Minutes, hailed by LeMonde as a "masterpiece" at the Comédie Française. He has won numerous Italian awards, including the Premio Vittorio Tondelli and the Premio Ubu. Qualcosa sui Lehman (The Lehman Trilogy) was among the most acclaimed novels published in Italy in recent years and won the Selezione Campiello Prize, the Super Mondello Prize, the De Sica Prize, the Prix Médicis Essai and the Prix Meilleur Livre Stranger. He is currently creating a new multi-part play about the history of the atomic bomb, entitled Manhattan Project.
Ben Power
English-language Adaptation
Ben Power is a Tony Award winning and BAFTA and Olivier Award nominated writer for theatre and film. He is an Associate of the National Theatre.
His adaptation of The Lehman Trilogy transferred from the National Theatre to the West End and opened on Broadway in 2021. It was nominated for Olivier, Evening Standard and Drama League awards for Best Play, and in 2022 won the Tony Award for Best New Play.
From 2014-2019, he was Deputy Artistic Director of the National Theatre and, prior to that, an Associate of the theatre for four years. He commissioned and produced over seventy world premieres and in 2013 was responsible for the temporary theatre space, The Shed. His adaptations for the National include DH Lawrence’s Husbands & Sons, Euripides’ Medea, and Ibsen’s Emperor & Galilean.
Prior to joining the National, Ben was the first Associate Director of Headlong. Adaptations for the company include Six Characters in Search of an Author, Faustus (both with Rupert Goold) and Paradise Lost.
Other work for the theatre includes the dramaturgy on Complicite’s A Disappearing Number, which won the Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Play.
Screenplays include five films in the BBC Shakespeare series The Hollow Crown, which won RTS and Broadcasting Press Guild awards and were nominated for BAFTAs for Best Single Drama and Best Mini-Series.
He is currently writing feature screenplays for Netflix and MGM and a play for the National Theatre.
Recently he has written a feature for Netflix, MUNICH: THE EDGE OF WAR, and has an original series in development with Working Title, Raw and Netflix.
David Winitsky
Director
David Winitsky is the founder and Artistic Director of the Jewish Plays Project, where he has developed over 50 plays that have gone on to production in New York, London, LA, Tel Aviv and around the U,S. Current Projects: the musical Vilna: A Resitance Story, Bordello: A New Musical, The Raging Skillet with Judy Gold. Recent shows: Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba (“filled me with childlike wonder"), Interact Theater - Settlements (“humanely directed”), Until We Find Each Other (Best of Festival, MITF). Beau Jest (“expertly directed”), The Assignment (“all the superlatives”) and Our Dad is in Atlantis (“Theatre with a capital T!”). Fellowships: UJA Institute for Jewish Executive Leadership at Columbia Business School, LabShul Storahtelling Maven, 2014-17 UpStart National Fellow, 2013 LABA Artist Fellow. Leadership roles: Kitchen Theater (Interim Producing Artistic Director and Acting Managing Director), Playwrights Theater (Producing Director), What Exit? Comedy Theater (Co-Artistic Director), and the Obie Award-winning HERE Arts Center (General Manager). MFA in Directing (Northwestern); BA in Mathematics (Cornell). Proud husband of Elizabeth Samet, and thankful father of Ezekiel (22) and Alexander (19).
Peter Chapman
Author
Peter Chapman is author of THE LAST OF THE IMPERIOUS RICH: LEHMAN BROTHERS, 1844-2008, a leading reference on the history of the Lehman family.
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Community Partner
Common Wealth Charlotte
The mission of Common Wealth Charlotte focuses on being a catalyst for improving lives. We replace uncertainty and reliance on charitable and government assistance with financial capability, equipping Charlotte's economically-vulnerable population with trauma-informed education, certified financial counseling, asset- and wealth-building skills, and access to banking services and 0% interest loans. Being financially capable is the foundation of true upward economic mobility. More importantly, financial capability brings hope—and hope goes a long way to heal trauma.
The Last Of The Imperious Rich: Lehman Brothers, 1844-2008
Amazon
Peter Chapman, an editor and writer for The Financial Times, explores the complete history of Lehman Brothers. He takes us back to its early days as a cotton broker in Alabama, and then to its glory days as one of the leading corporate financiers in America. He also provides an intimate portrait of the people who ran Lehman over the decades-from Henry Lehman, the founder, to Bobbie Lehman, who led the company into the world of radio, motion pictures, and air travel in first part of the 20th century, to Dick Fuld, who allowed it to morph into a dealer of shoddy securities.
Funny Girls, Money Men: The Complications of Jewishness on Broadway
American Theatre Magazine
Using ‘Funny Girl’ and ‘The Lehman Trilogy’ as jumping-off points, 2 theatremakers tackle the often cross-cutting challenges of Jewish representation, and explore why casting alone can’t save problematic material.