Meet the cast of 'The Thanksgiving Play' on Broadway

Learn more about the careers and theatre credits of D'Arcy Carden, Katie Finneran, Chris Sullivan, and Scott Foley before they take the stage in this comedy.

Gillian Russo
Gillian Russo

The Broadway premiere of The Thanksgiving Play has set its cast, and it's something to be thankful for. For this sharp satire, playwright Larissa FastHorse and director Rachel Chavkin have assembled a quartet of celebrated actors with Emmy and Tony honors to their name.

Here, D'Arcy Carden, Katie Finneran, Chris Sullivan, and Scott Foley play amateur actors creating an educational Thanksgiving pageant for elementary schoolers. They want to center and uplift Native American voices — but they're all white. Problems and comedy arise as they scramble to get the show right without ruffling any feathers.

Before watching this group's delicious antics at the Hayes Theater, beginning March 25, learn more about where you've seen them on stage and screen before.

D'Arcy Carden

D'Arcy Carden is making her Broadway debut with The Thanksgiving Play, so this is the first time audiences will get to feast on her big-stage acting skills. Carden performed live with NYC's Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre comedy troupe and the Venus Rising musical comedy troupe early on in her career, but The Thanksgiving Play is her first major stage credit.

Carden is best known as the Emmy-nominated star of NBC's The Good Place (as Janet) and Amazon's A League of Their Own (as Greta Gill). She's also starred opposite Bill Hader on HBO's Barry and held roles in the films Bombshell and The People We Hate at the Wedding.

In The Thanksgiving Play, she plays Alicia, an airheaded Los Angeles actress hired to bring an "Indigenous" perspective to the amateur production.

Chris Sullivan

Carden isn't the only Emmy-nominated NBC vet in The Thanksgiving Play's cast. The other is Chris Sullivan, who's been up for the award twice for his role as Toby Damon on This Is Us. Audiences may also know him as Taserface in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Benny Hammond in Stranger Things.

Sullivan has also played a host of Broadway roles since making his debut as Amos Hart in Chicago in 2011. In The Thanksgiving Play, he plays Caden, a nerdy third-grade teacher and playwright on the side.

Katie Finneran

Katie Finneran stars in The Thanksgiving Play as Logan, a disgraced drama teacher organizing and directing the title pageant. It's fitting that she plays a theatre leader, as Finneran has the most extensive Broadway resume of the cast. She's performed in 13 previous shows since 1991, winning two Tony Awards for playing Marge MacDougall in Promises, Promises and Brooke Ashton in Noises Off. Both those performances earned her Drama Desk Awards as well.

Finneran is also an experienced screen actress whose credits include The Gilded Age, Frasier, Bloodline, and Why Women Kill.

Scott Foley

Scott Foley returns to the big stage for the first time in 20 years, following his Broadway debut performance as Denis McCleary in The Violet Hour. In between, he's kept busy with various screen roles including Captain Jake Ballard on Scandal, Noel Crane on Felicity, Sean Kelly on Scrubs, and Cliff on Dawson's Creek. Most recently, he led NBC's The Big Leap and is about to star opposite Melissa Benoist in Girls on the Bus.

His role in The Thanksgiving Play on Broadway is Jaxton, a yoga-practicing, eco-conscious actor and the boyfriend of Finneran's Logan.

Originally published on

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