John Krasinski and Sam Gold tackle online extremism on stage in 'Angry Alan'

Tony Award winner Gold directs the star of The Office and A Quiet Place in this solo show about a man who plummets down a dangerous internet rabbit hole.

If you don't usually think of John Krasinski as a stage actor, think again. Already a multi-hyphenate — he's best known for starring in The Office, directing and starring in A Quiet Place, and co-creating the three-time Emmy-nominated Lip Sync Battle — he's now adding to his already diverse resume by headlining an Off-Broadway play, Angry Alan, through August 3.

Krasinski last appeared off Broadway in 2016, in the economic drama Dry Powder at The Public Theater alongside Claire Danes and Hank Azaria. His long-awaited opportunity to return to the stage comes with Penelope Skinner’s solo show Angry Alan, in which he plays Roger, a man seeking something to cling to at an unstable time in his life. He finds it in the fictional internet personality of the title, who spouts conspiracy theories that slowly upend Roger's worldview and his relationships.

"I think I signed on in the first four pages," Krasinski recalled. He had received the script from Skinner's agent and went on to introduce it to director Sam Gold, a Tony Award winner for Fun Home. "Penny just wrote an incredibly well-written, well-observed play and about a real human moment."

Hearing out a character who becomes a political extremist can be a hard sell, perhaps more so than when Skinner's 90-minute play premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2018. But Krasinski and Gold hope being in a cozy theatre helps beget an emotional connection. In its NYC debut, Angry Alan is the premiere show at Studio Seaview, a 296-seat venue that formerly operated as the Tony Kiser Theater under the ownership of the nonprofit Second Stage.

"It's a small space, so you get to have a very intimate relationship with John doing a very bravura thing," Gold said.

Krasinski and Gold sat with New York Theatre Guide to share more about their behind-the-scenes collaboration, what drew them to Angry Alan, and the themes audiences of all stripes can latch onto.

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Introduce us to Roger and what he's all about.

Sam Gold: He's really an everyman, a regular guy who's gone through a really hard time for the last few years. He's lost his job, and he's going through a divorce, and he's sort of at the bottom. Because of that, he is susceptible to some ideas that, maybe, at a different time in his life would have seemed extreme. But in this moment, the extremity of them is appealing.

A character named Angry Alan, an online personality, says some things that [Roger] starts to bring into his life and have consequences for his current relationship to his girlfriend and his child.

For us, it's a chance to see a character that we care about, who we can have compassion for, who we can see ourselves in, and see what happens when someone is at their lowest.

John Krasinski: Playing a character who's lost is extremely exciting because we all feel that way on certain days. How do you find a way to get out of bed and feel good about yourself and feel good about attacking the day? In order to do that, you need some inspiration, and you need some answers. And so he goes looking for those answers.

Sam, what does John bring to the character?

Gold: John comes on, and he's very enticing. He's got a lot of charm and the character makes you laugh — you feel like you're in this warm bath with him. Then that allows the playwright to sneak some more complicated ideas about the current world we're living in to you. I'm really excited for what's complicated about the play, what can be uncomfortable about the subject matter, but paired with with a brilliant actor who's going to make sure you're taken fully on the ride.

Can you both share more about your collaboration? John, does your background in writing and directing inform your approach as an actor?

Krasinski: One of the things I learned early on in my career was to know your place. I knew I may write and direct in certain arenas, but this is so not my space, and Sam has been a director I've wanted to work with forever. [He has] a very unique way of storytelling, as you can see from anything from Romeo + Juliet to Enemy of the People.

I've learned a lot, mostly, about the process. In film and TV, you're constantly trying to change and adapt for the next day's shoot, and this is really a slow burn: Let the play take its own shape, let your relationship with the play take its shape, let the staging take its shape [...] It all does meet up in the end in a really beautiful, magical way.

Gold: All great actors are writers and directors, too. You can't be a great actor without having a sense of what you want the story to be and how to craft it. I only want to work with actors who are also directors, even if they don't call themselves that. And John is bringing that.

Especially on a solo show, it's very important. A lot of the work he has to do by himself, and so he has to be able to think about the whole story; think about the beginning, middle, and end; think about how he wants it to connect to the audience. He can't just rely on a director for that. It wouldn't work on a show like this. So I'm very lucky to have someone with that mind working on the show with me.

The American political landscape is shifting every day. How are you handling that behind the scenes, and how do you hope audiences respond to this play as the world is changing in real time?

Gold: Penny is here in New York. She came in from London so we can read the news the day of the first preview and see if we need to do a major rewrite based on the policy changes of our president.

Krasinski: I feel like a puppet! No, again, what I'm looking forward to audiences seeing is themselves in this character. No matter how different he is from you or your views, there's something very human about going through every day looking for a way to to feel good about yourself.

Get Angry Alan tickets now.

Photo credit: John Krasinski, Sam Gold, and the company of Angry Alan in rehearsal. (Photos by Jonny Cournoyer)