On a rainy Sunday afternoon in February, the cast of the new Off-Broadway play, All Nighter, has taken shelter at an unlikely location: RPM Underground’s karaoke bar. It’s their first group outing and a rare day off after a recent long run of rehearsals. Belting showtunes and 2010s hits in Midtown Manhattan, the five women—Kristine Froseth, Kathryn Gallagher, Julia Lester, Havana Rose Liu, and Alyah Chanelle Scott—are framed by the vintage Playboy magazines that scatter the walls. Froseth is filming the scene on a camcorder, and Scott’s boyfriend, Reece Feldman, sits in the corner queuing up the next tracks. After hitting a pitch-perfect note in Wicked’s “Popular,” Scott says, “Insane vibes for a Sunday at noon.”
She’s right. Never in a million years, not even a month ago, did I think I’d be singing “Gives You Hell” by The All-American Rejects or “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)” by Katy Perry with some of the most promising names in entertainment. It feels like a bona fide It Girl meetup as the five actors revel in 2010s bops with their guards completely down. This is just a taste of the powerhouse play that brought them all together, which began previews last week at The Newman Mills Theater at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space. The show formally opens on March 9 and will close on May 18.
When we sit down for the interview after a few songs, the quintet is sweaty—but with their makeup still intact—and tight-lipped about All Nighter, most of which has been kept under wraps. “The show is about five girls and the final year of their college careers,” says Scott, who plays the Lululemon-wearing rich girl Tessa. “It’s sort of about the dynamics that hold the friend group together, and how they get challenged throughout the course of the play.”
Produced by Ben Platt, Adam Mersel, Rachel Sussman for Soto Productions, and Thomas Laub and Scott’s Runyonland Productions, the show’s mystery is part of its appeal. It’s written by Natalie Margolin (The Power of Punctuation), a close friend of Gallagher’s, and has been slowly making its way to the New York theater scene up until now. The first reading was in Margolin’s living room in 2019. Gallagher, who plays the chill and loyal friend Jacqueline, was an early champion. “I’d never seen a play capture the experience of being a young woman so brilliantly, messily, and honestly,” Gallagher gushes. “[It examines] the way young women actually speak to each other in this little secret language that you have, and the sort of lexicon you develop as a group of friends.”
The comedy, set in 2014, tugs on your nostalgic heartstrings. It was the time of Bangerz by Miley Cyrus, iPhone 4s, and skinny jeans. Pharrell Williams wore giant hats, Ellen DeGeneres took the selfie that broke the internet, and Glee was about to wrap production. Every detail, from the costumes to sound effects to even the snacks the girls eat (yes, hummus was all the rage 10 years ago), makes the show feels like a time capsule. But it also examines serious topics that are still relevant today, like sexual assault, substance abuse, and identity, and then evens it all out with laugh-out-loud jokes. Lester provides some much needed comedic relief as proud drama queen Wilma—the true “mother” of the show. “She’s the star of her [own] movie,” Liu, who also shines as anxious theater girl Lizzy, jokes, to cackles from the rest of the group.
In a way, the project serves as a celebration of girlhood, examining the intricacies young women face as they navigate the world. We see the characters bond over crushes and Savaugion Blanc. We see them betray and stand up for one another and then, as Charli xcx would say, work it out on the remix. We see them cry, yell, and yes, vomit. The show examines a myriad of complexities, all within a tight 90 minutes.
Throughout our conversation, it’s clear the five stars have forged a sisterhood in real life, much like their relationships in the show. While they’ve all eyed one another or known each other in passing before, this is the first time any of them have worked on a project together. “It’s really crazy that now it’s like we’re all friends, and we’re doing a show,” Lester says. “It’s cool when you look up to people and then you’re like, oh, they’re just as awesome as I hoped that they’d be.”
Beyond All Nighter, all of the women have had projects that have not only impacted, but infected, the cultural zeitgeist. Froseth, who plays the quiet bookworm Darcie, stars in Apple TV+’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers; Gallagher had a brief stint on Max’s Gossip Girl reboot; Lester attended East Side High in Disney+’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series; Liu made us laugh in Emma Seligman’s Bottoms; and Scott is a lead in Mindy Kaling’s The Sex Lives of College Girls. Lester and Gallagher have both been nominated for Tony Awards in Into the Woods and Jagged Little Pill, respectively, and Scott has won two, for producing the 2023 revival of Parade and 2024 revival of Appropriate. They all have multiple projects on the horizon too. So, the fact that the timing worked out and the perfect play came along to bring them together? It seems like kismet.
“There’s nothing like being in a room with all women and queer people,” Lester says. “I feel so free to be exactly who I am, to be authentic, to be crazy, and make a bunch of weird choices and fail and fall on my face. Jaki [Bradley, the director], and Natalie have literally held us just in the palms of their hands and given us the freedom and the confidence to feel limitless.”
Lester continues, “One minute we’re laughing so hard and then we’re sobbing, there’s tears. Then we’re laying on the floor.”
This boundless support has also had a profound impact on Froseth and Liu, both of whom are making their stage debuts. When I ask them what it feels like, they say they’ve learned so much from their co-stars. Gallagher, Lester, and Scott immediately chime in and say they both came to the craft naturally. The compliments flash back and forth across the room like strobe lights.
When she learned she was going to be in All Nighter before the holidays, Froseth hunkered down and learned her lines immediately. A change from her television gigs, she would even FaceTime her castmates to review scenes. On a TV set, she typically learns her lines the day before a shoot and then forgets them. With a play, she has to repeat her lines every night. “You do it, and then they go, ‘Do it again.’ It’s like that: again and again,” Froseth laments.
Liu also says All Nighter is a welcome change of pace. Having a show every night can help to create structure and routine, whereas on a film set, an actor might shoot for one hour on one day and 12 hours the next. “You’re able to actually create a ritual around the work,” Liu says. “That creates a safety around yourself, and it feels very self-protective. I feel like it already feels a little healing to know that I’m not super cuckoo-bananas, but maybe my schedule has been.”
All of the women are excited to have a routine. We discuss restaurants in the area (we’ll probably run into one another at Arriba Arriba, which has the strongest margaritas in town), where to get drinks after the show (Glasshouse for the people-watching), and the best ways to get to the show’s neighborhood, Hell’s Kitchen (the A, C, and E trains, of course). They seem to genuinely want to spend time with one another, something not every theatrical cast can claim.
Scott, whose production office is in the vicinity of both the show and karaoke bar, invites us all to her digs to check out Runyonland, which she co-founded with Thomas Laub and is responsible for some of Broadway’s most impactful recent productions. “Alyah’s a real woman,” Liu jokes. Froseth jumps in, saying, “She has an office.”
This moment, for all of the women, feels like something they’ve been working toward for a long time. All Nighter came into each of their lives like, to quote Miley Cyrus, a true wrecking ball, and they’re all the better for it. “The last five years of my life have been kind of leading me up into this moment. I’m not going to cry,” Scott says. “I feel okay. I’m not scared.”
