The Interlude of Youth

 

The Interlude of Youth is a morality play in verse dating from the early 16th century, that shows the development of a young man from a crude rogue into a serious member of society.  Although many plays dealing with morality survive, this is among the best in this genre, and was so popular it was reprinted multiple times over fifty years.  It is one of the most important pre-Shakespearean dramas.  It is associated with the early riotous years of the reign of Henry VIII, and was probably first performed in the winter of 1513 to 1514.  

Morality plays were a dramatic genre common in England throughout the middle ages and early Tudor period.  They feature personified abstract qualities as characters, to show the universality of their messages.  For example. in The Interlude of Youth, the characters have names such as Riot, Pride, and Lechery.  This play is one of the most entertaining of surviving morality plays, containing a great deal of comedy.  The word "interlude" has changed meaning over the centuries; in the early modern period, it simply meant a short play.

Performances of this rarely-seen drama will take place at the John Cullum Theatre at the American Theatre of Actors, 314 West 54th Street, New York, NY 10019, from August 6th through the 17th, 2025--Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 3 PM.  Tickets are available at door or may be reserved by calling 212 581 3044.

Before the performance, Dr. Dailey will give an introduction to the play and its background.  

There are a lot of twists and turns in its production history and publication.

Click on link to view the performance.

https://youtu.be/XIaB7fXfUPY?si=ZjAx-w--9p468GEZ

Cast

Charity:                David Ezell

Youth:                   Will Lerberg

Riot:                       Chaim Samuels

Lechery:               Paige Flottman

Pride:                    Craig Cosentino

Humility:              Brandon Geer

                                                                                             

Will Lerberg is a Norwegian actor. He got a BFA in acting from Clark University and recently graduated from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He most recently played the role of King Berenger in Exit The King, directed by Jose Zayas. His screen credits include Pan American, directed by Andrew Burton for Amazon Prime. He is excited to make his Off-Broadway debut here at American Theatre of Actors.

Chaim Samuel’s is a New York actor with over 6 years of standup comedy experience. You can check out his YouTube page at weird name productions. 

Brandon Geer is an Actor of Indo-Caribbean descent, and a recent graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Brandon has pursued a career in both Theatre and TV and Film since he graduated High School in Tampa, Florida. He recently performed with Rising Sun in a staged reading (Lakshmi Counts Her Arms and Legs), and is very excited to join this production.

Craig A. Cosentino is an actor and filmmaker originally from Miami, Florida. He has been studying and performing theater since middle school, where he got hisstart playing Mr. Warbucks in Annie—the only male in the cast. That experience sparked a deep love of performing, and from then on, acting became the center of his after-school life.He spent his teenage years on stage, constantly working to build his craft and explore the power of storytelling.

He recently graduated from Columbia University, where he majored in history with a focus on 20th-century America. Studying history at that level deepened his understanding of people, stories, and the events that shape the way we see the world and each other. That historical lens has profoundly impacted hiscreative process—it’s helped him recognize how so many plays, films, and characters are rooted in real moments of cultural or emotional truth.

He says, "I’m passionate about acting because it allows me to step into the lives of others and bring vulnerability and honesty to the stage or screen. Whether it’s in film, television, or theater, I’m driven by a desire to tell meaningful stories—ones that resonate, challenge, and connect. I look forward to building a career that honors the artists who came before me while continuing to find new ways to move audiences as they did."

David Ezell is a Manhattan-based writer and actor. As an adolescent, he acted professionally in theater and television until his early twenties. He then pursued an academic path that led him to the Georgia Institute of Technology (as a doctoral student in film history) and Columbia University (where he acquired advanced degrees in clinical psychology). He returned to acting in 2018 and trained at the Stella Adler Institute. He later studied with master teachers including James Price (founder of The Acting Studio) and the legendary Jack Waltzer. In 2024, his play The Great American Scream Machine was produced as part of the annual SOOP Playwriting Competition’s top twelve selections. His new play, Ashley, will debut at the Brooklyn Short Play Festival in October. He is the proud co-founder of Camelback Pictures; their first film, Occam’s Beard, comes out this fall.

Paige Flottman (she/her) is a Manhattan-based actor with an emphasis in new work development and classical theater. NY credits include Funhouse (Players Theatre); Pastiche (The Chain); The Guy Who Killed Bigfoot (Fresh Fruit); Revolution 10 (The Chain); The Oresteia (Gallery Players); Remembering Morgan (DUAF); and The T Swift Unabomber Play. Paige is a member of the A La Carte Writer's Workshop.

Director

Dr. Jeff S. Dailey (Director) earned his PhD in theatre from NYU, with additional study at Wagner College, The College of Staten Island, The Folger Institute, New York Theological Seminary, General Theological Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary.  Among his directing teachers were Jose Quintero at the Provincetown Playhouse and Mike Nichols at the New Actors Workshop.

At the American Theatre of Actors, he has directed the medieval play The Coming of Antichrist, Pushkin’s Mozart and Salieri and The Stone Guest; Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, parts 1 and 2; Dido, Queen of Carthage; Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris; Seafaring (his adaptation/translation of Anglo-Saxon poetry), Sophocles’ Ajax, and an award-winning production of Plautus’ The Captives, among other plays. He has also presented dramatizations of poetry–“The Dream of the Rood” and “The Dance of Death” at ATA, “The Messenger” at the New York Short Play Lab, and “The Bull of Heaven” at the Midtown International Theatre Festvial.   He founded the Long Island Student Shakespeare Festival and the early music ensemble Collectio Musicorum. Outside of the theatre, he worked on The Big Bang Theory TV series and the movie The Conjuring 2.  

Although now retired as an administrator and professor, he continues to serve as pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, and as the founding director of the Classical Acting Institute.

Terry Prideaux (technical director) is excited to be part of this production. Working both on and off-stage, Terry’s recent credits include: Beetlejuice the Musical, Graham's Law Of Diffusion! (directorial debut), MITF, The Short Play Lab, The Party Continued, The Giving Spirit, Avoid Direct Sunlight, Iphigenia in Tauris and Homo-Erotics.  Terry has toured nationally with Disney on Ice, Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus and Cirque Du Soleil. He is a graduate of The Art Institutes of Seattle and New York with an Associates Degree in Visual Communications (2001) and Web Design (2009). And since 2009, he has been involved as an artistic associate for Stageplays Theatre Company.

He is also a published photographer.

Reviews

Interlude of Youth at American Theater of Actors

Michael Elias

Lovers of theater ought to be grateful to the American Theater of Actors for their revival of a marvelous 16th century English play entitled Interlude of Youth. The play was performed as early as 1513 – 1514. Not only has the American Theater of Actors on 54th St. in NYC revived the play, they have enlivened it in such a way that despite being in period dress and barely updated language it clearly speaks to our contemporary times. 

Man’s nature doesn’t change despite the best efforts of clergy and men of good will so it is not surprising that the roughly medieval play Interlude of Youth speaks eloquently to today’s audience. Fortunately, the American Theater of Actors has brought us a staging that understands the text well and expresses it with the fullflavors of satire, humor, and instruction in the proportions and manner intended. Originally written in rhyming couplets and published in a black-letter edition in roughly 1604, the text of this production is complete and the language has been only slightly modified with replacement of a few obsolete words. Director Dr. Jeff S. Dailey deftly stages the play even using entrances and exits of each character to reinforce their symbolic purpose. As an erudite academic scholar with a divinity background, he offered brief remarks at the outset to explain a few Latin phrases and the connotations of a few words. For example, in the title the word “interlude” indicates a play performed indoors. Interludes often were staged as light entertainment during breaks in banquets and receptions. As a morality play, it usescomedy to entertain the audience but is sure to make the message of proper behavior paramount to keep the party from getting out of control.

This production ran for two weeks in August, 2025 and is probably the very first staging in the United States. 

There were probably performances in the 16th century that were seen by Christopher Marlow and William Shakespeare as there are commonalities of language, themes, and humor in their own work as noted by several scholars. The multiple themes certainly have application to our more contemporary times. Although the purpose of the play is to reform man’s behavior, the messages are delivered in ribald comedy and only interrupted periodically by infusion of religious admonitions. With only a single set, six characters, and a running time of roughly 30 minutes, Interlude of Youth may serve small theater companies or college programs a useful comedic table-setting for an evening of one-act plays.

The six characters are personifications of behavioral types. There is Charity, a word at the time understood more precisely as Godliness, is played by David Ezell, the most highly trained and experienced member of the cast. He is bedecked in a clerical robe and represents “the King of Virtue.” Youth is a representation of man with the fullness of desires hopefully with the potential for restraint, engagingly played with enormous energy by the very physically attractive Will Lerberg. He enters fittingly shirtless with gleeful praise of his own strong body. He respondswith an amused sneer to the reprimands of Charity. Alternatively, Brandon Geer is so handsome it is remarkable that he can be convincing in the role of Humilityproclaiming “Trust in G-d” as he enters. Then enters Riot (in some publications, Riotous Living) inviting all manner of lustful indulgence. Chaim Samuels is so electric in his portrayal of the role one is quite tempted to follow his lead into wild indulgence of drink, gambling, and thievery despite the noose hanging around his neck. His standup comedy chops serve him well in this role. Pride joins the mayhem, played with lustful energy by Craig A. Costentino, as he advises Youth that “there is time enough to be good” and he ought to marry for the delight ofsexual pleasures. Riot advises that marriage is not necessary and when Lechery enters that becomes quite apparently true. Paige Flottman has few lines as Lechery but she delivers her lines directly in the face of Youth with an intimate smile that speaks volumes. Youth enjoys the entreaties of these figures of sin but in a remarkable turnaround with only a few lines at the end of the play Charity convinces him to accept the values of Jesus and Youth declares his devotion andshockingly lies down center downstage prostrate in the figure of crucifixion. It is a touching denouement.

While comedy dominates each quick scene, multiple themes emerge including the responsibility we all have to make our own lives with our own decisions, the need to give glory to G-d rather than succumb to temptation, to resist the corruption of power, and not to suffer the price of sin. Historians suggest the unknown author might actually be Henry Percy, fifth earl of Northumberland who used the play to surreptitiously instruct Henry VIII to forsake his wayward life and become a more responsible monarch. Good luck with that. Political satire is rarely so successful. Even here in 2025 we have difficulty in getting a head of state to act like an adult.

Show Score

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