The Receptionist tickets
About The Receptionist
The office is open: See Adam Bock's acclaimed play The Receptionist revived for the first time in New York in over a decade. Obie Award winner Adam Bock's dark comedy follows Beverly (two-time Tony winner Katie Finneran), the receptionist at a nameless satellite office in corporate America. When a mysterious visitor arrives from head office, the company's subtly sinister side starts to reveal itself, and Beverly might not be off the hook.
In 2008, the play was up for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play from Outer Critics Circle Awards; now, it returns to New York City in a fresh production. Don't miss Adam Bock’s “poisoned Post-it note of a play” (The New York Times).
Run time
1hr 30min.
Categories
Age
Ages 12+.
Start date
April 15th, 2026
End date
May 24th, 2026
“Cheerful office comedy with a chilling dark twist”
Office Comedy Hides Something Sinister
Audiences are raving about this deceptively simple office comedy that slowly reveals its chilling underbelly. What begins as a familiar, humorous workplace setting gradually transforms into something ...
What It Feels Like
- Unsettling
- Darkly funny
- Thought-provoking
You’ll Love This If…
- You enjoy theater that makes you think long after the curtain falls
- You appreciate dark comedy with layers of meaning
- You love brilliant comedic performances with surprising depth
A play that will give you something to think about.
Did not expect the dark turn this one took. Enjoyed it. But did not expect it.
Breezy, charming, and frequently funny--until, unexpectedly, it isn't. Two women--a front desk receptionist and her co-worker, who occupies an office behind her--clock in, enjoy their coffee, gossip a bit, and then get down to their daily routine; when a handsome stranger arrives from the main office to speak to their boss (whom we have already met in a kind of prologue, but hasn't come in yet), the tone shifts a bit...only not nearly as much as it will in the piece's twisty (and twisted) final moments. Why is the stranger there? What, if anything, has their boss done? And what, exactly, does the parent company overseeing this little office even do? The clues have been planted, but even if you've interpreted them correctly the truth may still shock you. Maybe more could have been made of the Big Reveal--perhaps it all could have been explained more clearly--but that might have been the point; we're not supposed to know what's going on, not with absolute certainty. Accept "The Receptionist" as the comedy it starts off as, and then the "Twilight Zone"-like chiller it morphs into, and you'll be just fine...even if the facts, once hinted at, are the stuff of nightmares.
The Receptionist cast and creative team
By: Adam Bock
Director: Sarah Benson
Producer: Second Stage Theater
Cast list: Katie Finneran (as Beverly Wilkins), Mallori Johnson (as Lorraine Taylor), Nael Nacer (as Edward Raymond), Will Pullen (as Martin Dart)
Sets: dots
Costumes: Enver Chakartash
Lighting: Stacey Derosier
Sound: Bray Poor
Venue
The Irene Diamond Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center
More information about The Receptionist
In The Receptionist, it is business as usual at the Northeast Office, where the cheery and dutiful receptionist answers the phone, brews the coffee, and gossips with co-workers. However, an unexpected visitor from the central office soon walks through the door, and business becomes anything but usual. The Receptionist is a dark comedy about bureaucracy, order, and complicity, and its contemporary, biting humor reveals a stark relevance today.
Theatermania called the play a "chilling contemporary allegory." It goes on to say that "Adam Bock is thinking about the extent to which moral responsibility should be shared by those far removed from the so-called deciders. Can the littlest cog in the societal wheel claim immunity? He makes his uncompromising statement in a piece that falls somewhere between Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery and a Twilight Zone episode."
Bock is known for his idiosyncratic characters and wry writing that has been recognized for decade across American theatres.
What to watch for
- Sarah Benson, director of Fairview and Teeth, stages this drama.
- Adam Bock has won an Obie Award and his play A Life starred David Hyde Pierce at Playwrights Horizons.
- Second Stage continues its season of remounting great plays, as with the recent Marjorie Prime.
- The original production of The Receptionist starred Tony winner Jayne Houdyshell.
Tickets
Unfortunately, tickets for this event are no longer available.
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