In Good Company Presents Rhinoceros

In Good Company Collaborative, in association with producers Celeste Moretti, Katie Fahey and Aruna Hekinian, presents a new staging of Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros for a limited engagement at the Gene Frankel Theatre. Directed by Rebecca Frank, this intimate production reimagines Ionesco’s absurdist classic for today’s audience.

In 1949, Ionesco watched as friends in Romania embraced fascism, intellectuals justified authoritarianism, and violence became normalized through ideology. Written in response, Rhinoceros follows the residents of a quiet town who begin transforming, one by one, into rhinoceroses. What is first dismissed as impossible gradually becomes accepted as ordinary. Debate gives way to justification, and justification gives way to normalization.

“Rhinoceros is about how ordinary people become capable of abandoning truth, ethics, and even their own identity in order to belong.”

Director Rebecca Frank’s staging transports audiences to a modern American neighborhood filtered through an absurdist, Magritte-inspired psychological lens. By situating Ionesco’s surreal transformation within a familiar contemporary landscape, the production explores how we are all susceptible to becoming thick-skinned like the rhinoceros, seeking safety in the herd. Frank’s vision underscores the play’s enduring relevance, inviting audiences to consider how groupthink and conformity take hold.

Founded in 2015 in New Orleans, LA, In Good Company Collaborative is committed to producing artistic work from women’s perspectives—engaging artists as creators, educators, collaborators, and community members. Its premiere production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest garnered local and national attention following a sold-out engagement and a full-page graphic essay in The New Yorker (August 2015). After a seven-year hiatus, IGC returns in 2026 with Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros in New York City. Founding members of IGC continue to develop work across New Orleans, Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, and New York City.

Rhinoceros is an approved Actors' Equity Association Showcase.

Actors' Equity Association (AEA), founded in 1913, represents more than 50,000 actors and stage managers in the United States. Equity seeks to advance, promote and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. www.actorsequity.org