If the bottom-feeding salesmen of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” sound as if they’re powered by cocaine and cold coffee, the college women of Natalie Margolin’s “All Nighter” lean toward Adderall and Arizona Iced Tea.
Set in 2014, this new comedy takes place during the cram session of the title, when five friends bond, write papers and argue. The show, which is running at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space through May 18, explores the ties that bind — in every sense of that last word.
“I think in those relationships that feel that big and that are so intertwined with your own sense of self, it can be a process to fully disentangle,” Margolin (“The Party Hop”) said in a video interview.
To suggest those intricate friendships, the cast members forged a real-life bond. “I think they were all so committed to the play that there was this unifying force where they were all obsessed with getting it right,” the director Jaki Bradley said via video. “It feels like that just kind of fused them together.”
The cast is a who’s who of up-and-comers from stage and screen. Sharing one dressing room are Alyah Chanelle Scott (HBO Max’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls”) and Havana Rose Liu (“No Exit,” “Bottoms,” that Chanel ad with Timothée Chalamet).
In another, Kristine Froseth (whose Apple TV+ series “The Buccaneers” returns in June) is shacking up with Kathryn Gallagher and Julia Lester, Tony Award nominees for “Jagged Little Pill” (Gallagher) and “Into the Woods” (Lester).
Listen to the playlist on Spotify:
In a group conversation at the theater, the actresses (most of whom would have been roughly college age when the play takes place) discussed their own rituals, growing up and looking back, and what exactly happens onstage when the characters are banging away at their laptops. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
In the play, the characters let loose to Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball.” What’s your favorite jump-up song, either from back then or from now?
HAVANA ROSE LIU I transferred, and at my second college [New York University] with my friends we would listen to one song before doing stuff together — we’d all know the lyrics and we’d sing and dance all around. At one point I think it was Lucy Dacus’s “Night Shift.”
ALYAH CHANELLE SCOTT You brought that ritual to our dressing room. At the first show, we were so anxious and we were like, “We need to dance out our nerves.” Havana makes me play “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)” by Fred Again.. every day when they call five minutes. Always the same song, always the same time.
What about the other dressing room?
JULIA LESTER My character wears little butterfly clips in my pigtails. I have a little pot with a bunch of different color [clips], and I have Kristine and Kathryn each pick one for the show. So each day the colors change depending on what they choose.
Do you play music, too?
LESTER I’m listening to my thoughts.
KATHRYN GALLAGHER For every show I do a full warm-up on the stage to Bishop Briggs’s new album. She has two songs that I’ve never done a show without listening to first: “My Serotonin” and “Hurt Me Now.”
KRISTINE FROSETH I usually listen to Mac Miller’s “Manakins,” which is a lot about the trajectory of growing up in a really dark world.
SCOTT Kristine’s character is doing an anthropology presentation during the play, and she started to actually do it. Every day there will be in her notebook all of these notes about the human experience, and we talk about that. We get into a lot of discussion-slash-fights about free will and whether it exists or not — us as actors.
FROSETH It helps me not to think that I’m onstage and I’m doing a play. And you guys also started working. Alyah is doing econ and sometimes crossword puzzles.
If you could go back to the age of the characters, what would you tell your younger self?
GALLAGHER I wish I could tell myself to lighten up. I was so young at 22. I was so sure I was miserable and lost, but I did “Spring Awakening” — greatest year of my life.
FROSETH I would give her a hug and I would tell her to stop running from all the pain, life, everything. I think I would just mostly hug her and make her feel safe.
SCOTT I had a very brain-breaking experience at 21, 22, around what it meant to make a living as an actor, as an actor of color, as a person, a fan of musical theater. I went on tour with “The Book of Mormon,” and it broke my brain in so many ways. I think I needed to believe that it was my dream job because otherwise I don’t know if I would have made it through. Everything kind of shifted after that time so I think I would leave it alone so that I could be where I am now.
LESTER I’m still working on this but I think that age is probably where I really learned how to step into my light, and less step into who other people wanted me to be. It’s the age where I learned how to speak up for myself and ask a lot of questions and be more curious.
LIU I’ve been thinking about this because when we stage-door, a lot of the people who hang around after the show are at that age, and you can see their wheels turning. I’m just reflecting on that moment of my life, and how appreciative I am of all the different influences that came in then. I think I was in free fall, gathering the world at every juncture and trying to experience as much as I could. And I’m glad I did that.
