Inside the Opening of John Krasinski’s Arresting New One-Man Show, Angry Alan

In the 48th-floor lounge of the New York Marriott Marquis hotel, high above the theater district, John Krasinski was in a revelrous mood. As the clock struck 11 p.m. on Wednesday night, the beloved star of The Office—nestled in a private banquet with wife Emily Blunt—was noshing on prime rib sliders amid a group of friends. Fresh from his opening-night performance of Angry Alan at the new off-Broadway Studio Seaview Theater, he had built up an appetite.

Written by Penelope Skinner and directed by Sam Gold, the show marks Krasinski’s first time on the New York stage since 2016, when he appeared in Sarah Burgess’s Dry Powder at the Public Theater with Claire Danes. After starring for years in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, besides directing movies such as A Quiet Place and IF, in Angry Alan Krasinski manipulates his nice-guy image to portray Roger, a divorced suburban dad who now works at Kroger after losing his job at AT&T, and who hardly ever sees his son. Dispossessed and disillusioned, Roger is soon drawn in by a men’s rights content creator called Angry Alan.

Photo: Jonny Cournoyer

The provocative play has Krasinski monologuing about sexual assault, postpartum depression, and our “gynometric society” at large in a commanding, disturbing turn that inspired a standing ovation from the starry crowd on Wednesday, which included Blunt, Jeremy Strong (a Tony winner last year for Gold’s production of An Enemy of the People), Naomi Watts, Billy Crudup, Laura Linney, Justin Peck, Wendell Pierce, Bee Carrozzini, and Sienna Miller.

Angry Alan is the first production at the newly renamed and refreshed Studio Seaview: The West 43rd Street venue was previously called the Tony Kiser Theater and operated by the nonprofit Second Stage Theater. Bar Petra, the modest cocktail lounge that’s replaced the old snack bar, is where guests sipped on Chandon sparkling wine and mingled as the opening night’s festivities began. Miller, who’d just got off a flight, connected with Blunt and shared an animated conversation, the pair soon joined by Jack Ryan’s Michael Kelly. Then Crudup walked into the bar holding hands with Watts—she, dressed in sophisticated all-white—and immediately greeted Strong and his wife, Emma Wall.

“I admire John’s courage to step out and do something on your own. It’s mind-blowing,” Miller told Vogue during the cocktail reception. “I think he’s reached the apex of what you could possibly do in cinema, and with theater, I think he’s got to the point where he wants to challenge himself. It takes so much to put yourself out there and he loves that challenge because he’s a real artist. It’s another box to tick in his already extensive box-ticking career.”

Here, exclusive snapshots from Angry Alan’s rehearsals and star-studded opening night.