Three Emmy Winners to Star in Diane Paulus’ Final Loeb Drama Center Production

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) has announced a new production of Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros featuring three Emmy Award-winning actors.

According to a Boston Globe report, the production will feature Paul Giamatti, Tatiana Maslany, and John Turturro in principal roles. Directed by A.R.T. artistic director Diane Paulus, the play will run at the Loeb Drama Center from Aug. 12 to Sept. 20, with the opening night on Aug. 19. Giamatti, Maslany, and Turturro will all perform with A.R.T. for the first time. 

The trio has won Emmy Awards for their work on television.

Turturro's television work includes his Emmy-nominated appearance on Apple TV's Severance, as well as HBO's The Night Of (2016). Giamatti received an Emmy for his performance as the title character in HBO's John Adams. He has also delivered a multifaceted performance on Showtime's Billions (2016-2023) as Chuck Rhoades.

Maslany's Emmy Award-winning work includes roles as clones in Orphan Black, a BBC America series about cloning gone wrong. Maslany made her Broadway debut opposite Bryan Cranston in Network.

As the Boston Globe describes, Rhinoceros details how the residents of a community in France begin to transform into rhinoceroses, one after another. By the end of the play, the only one who has retained his humanity is a former alcoholic named Bérenger, who has become fiercely defensive of human identity. Turturro will portray Bérenger in the A.R.T. production.

Giamatti will play Jean, a displaced intellectual who becomes a violent green rhinoceros. Maslany will portray Daisy, Bérenger's girlfriend, who leaves him and joins the rhinoceroses, drawn by what she views as the creatures' otherworldly power.

Speaking with the Globe about the production, Paulus sees Rhinoceros as “an outcry against the normalization” of what she refers to as “the brute forces in the world that are trying to smash our humanity.” She also noted the humorous elements in the play as well, saying it is “an incredibly evocative piece of theater.”

As the Globe noted, the 2026-27 season will be A.R.T.'s final season producing at the Loeb Drama Center. According to The Harvard Gazette, A.R.T. will move to its new home in Allston, the Goel Center for Creativity & Performance.