“Director Jeff Wise helps his crackerjack cast navigate a tricky tonal tightrope between broad shtick and heartbreaking insight. An Act II monologue in which the fragile Colonel Looseleaf Harper (Craig Wesley Divino) recalls dropping an atomic bomb on Nagasaki is particularly chilling.”
Happy Birthday, Wanda June nominated for a Lucille Lortel award for Best Revival
Wheelhouse Theatre at the Duke on 42nd Street
About the play: Happy Birthday, Wanda June takes a searing and darkly comedic look at American culture through the brilliantly perverse lens of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Harold Ryan, a widely respected war veteran and big game hunter, returns home after being missing and presumed dead for 8 years. Harold brings with him an old way of thinking, one that celebrates a chauvinist machismo and American exceptionalism. But Harold soon discovers that the society he returns to has made attempts to progress into a more modern and enlightened cultural narrative. What follows is a dynamic and often hilarious meditation on toxic masculinity and an American capitalist society’s failed attempts at progress cloaked in “honor” and “morality”, and how the two are deeply connected. But simply put, and as the first few lines of the play state, “this is a play about men who enjoy killing, and those who don’t.”
The strong cast includes Craig Wesley Divino as Harold’s dazed but thoughtful colonel friend.
-New York Times
Craig is an actor, musician and fight choreographer. Now based in New York City, he was raised in the United Kingdom. He received his undergraduate education in English Literature and Theatre Arts at Cornell University, and his Master of Fine Arts in Acting at the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Programs. Craig teaches acting and stage fighting around New York City and is visiting faculty at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he teaches acting and has directed students in productions of From White Plains, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet.
Representation
HCKR Agency
CLA Management
Height
5’9”
Weight
170 lbs
Hair Color
Brown
Eye Color
Brown
