About Transport Group

MISSION

Transport Group is a New York-based, off-Broadway theatre company that stages new works and radically-reimagined revivals by American writers.

Since 2001, Transport Group has crafted risk-taking, thoughtful, acclaimed productions of plays and musicals that widen the lens on our American experience. By centering unlikely protagonists, embracing nontraditional casting, and incorporating daring design, we create unexpected theatrical experiences that allow audiences and artists to collaboratively explore what we mean by an “American identity.” Our work subverts expectations and challenges narrative conventions to create space for new American perspectives that deepen our shared capacity for empathy and understanding.

HISTORY

Co-Founded in 2001 by Jack Cummings III & Robyn Hussa, Transport Group is currently run by Cummings as Artistic Director and Executive Director, Denise Dickens. We produce plays and musicals; new works and revivals.

Broadbend, Arkansas

Transport Group’s most recent season featured not only two musicals, but two very different musicals. Broadbend, Arkansas was produced at The Duke on 42nd St in the Fall of 2019. A world-premiere in association with The Public, in Broadbend, Arkansas, a Black family grappling with police violence in a story that spans three decades with music by Ted Shen, book and lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh and Harrison David Rivers, and starring Justin Cunningham and Danyel Fulton.

In the spring of 2020, our season concluded with a revised revival of The Unsinkable Molly Brown, with a revised book by Dick Scanlan, a Golden-Age score by Meredith Willson, directed & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall and starring Beth Malone & David Aron Damane.

The Trial of The Catonsville Nine

The 18-19 season featured two unique theatrical experiences. In the fall, Carmel Dean and Dick Scanlan’s world premiere musical, Renascence, explored renowned poet Edna St. Vincent Millay through six vibrant, young actors.

Jack Cummings III adapted the docu-play The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, written by Daniel Berrigan in 1971 for our spring production. This singular theatrical experience re-conceived the traditional cast of 9 catholic jurors with three Asian-American actors, portraying all 14 roles.

Both productions took place at Abrons Arts Center in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

In April 2018, we produced the critically acclaimed production of Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke as a co-production with Classic Stage Company starring Marin Ireland and Nathan Darrow, directed by Jack Cummings III. “This exquisite version is strong enough to power a rocket into orbit” hailed Time Out New York. The production enjoyed a week-long extension.

In October 2017 we produced Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude starring David Greenspan, and only David Greenspan, who received a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance as well as an OBIE Award for Greenspan, Cummings and Transport Group. This production radically re-imagined O’Neill’s epic 9-Act play as a one-man tour-de-force. The New York Times hailed the production as “masterful…it is like witnessing a recitation, a prayer, a madness, a modern ballet…this production is storytelling at its purest.”

Earlier in 2017 we produced Picnic & Come Back, Little Sheba: William Inge in Rep, which received two Drama Desk nominations and three OBIE Awards (Jack Cummings III for direction, Heather Mac Rae for performance, Dane Laffrey for scenic design).

Strange Interlude (2017) at Irondale Theatre Center

Transport Group’s first eight seasons were in residence at The Connelly Theatre, a turn-of-the-century proscenium theatre located in the East Village. Beginning with the 2009 – 2010 season, Transport Group began to explore environmental staging, performing works in non-traditional spaces such as a penthouse apartment, a commercial loft, and a gymnasium. Transport Group has also been in residence at the Duke on 42nd Street, Abrons Arts Center, and The Gym at Judson.

In addition to mainstage productions, Transport Group also produces one-night-only, star-studded concert events, often featuring the productions’ original orchestrations performed by as many as 60 actors and musicians. Concert titles have included Baby (2012), Once Upon a Mattress (2013), The Music Man (2014), Peter Pan (2016), A Man of No Importance (2016), Man of La Mancha (2017) and Promises, Promises (2018), and most recently, Sweet Charity in 2019. This concert series has been possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of Anne L. Bernstein since 2016.