Compassion in Complicated People
Actor Jack Lancaster on His History with SWING STATE
By A.J. Magoon, Marketing Director and Leslie Lopez, Marketing Intern
In SWING STATE by Rebecca Gilman, Jack Lancaster plays Ryan Severson. We are proud to welcome Jack in his Next Act debut, but this is not Jack’s first experience with this play! Jack understudied the role of Ryan in both the World Premiere of SWING STATE at Goodman Theatre in Chicago and in New York for its Off-Broadway run. We sat down with Jack to talk about his journey with this play and what it means to him.
How did you first become attached to SWING STATE in Chicago?
It’s something that’s been kind of following me over almost four years. This was my first audition for the Goodman [Theatre], and what jumped out was how much [the role] just sounded like a real person. It didn’t feel like I had to try harder than I normally would, even though the material was really dramatic. It just sounds like a person. I taped it when I was in Ireland and found out that I got a callback that would be in person, so I ended up having to fly from Ireland back to Chicago early and went in there with [director] Bob Falls and [playwright] Rebecca Gilman. And I was offered the understudy, and it just felt like, “yeah, of course … this is a really great chance to have a relationship with [Goodman] Theatre, and I haven’t really worked with other actors in the city yet.”
It was a very cool, gratifying experience. I really loved everyone involved. And we got word a few months later that they ended up taking it Off-Broadway, and that they were bringing the original understudies along, which… that never happens, and it was just very amazing. I remember reopening the book again and just being so excited, I was so moved. I think it was the second time around that I really realized how much I loved the play and how lucky it is to be given a script that brings out the best of everyone. You don’t have to go over these hurdles of, “how do I make this line make sense or make it sound like a person would speak it?” That work is kind of done for you, and that’s, I think, what Rebecca Gilman is really great at. You can see the characters so clearly, and I think everyone can kind of relate in a way, even though they’re very flawed characters, Ryan especially. There is a compassion and tenderness to him that I was very drawn to. It’s a play that I think even through the past three years, I’m discovering things all the time.
Having spent so much time with the role already, what does it mean to actually get to do it full out?
Oh, it’s amazing. It was always something that I was looking forward to and hoping that I’d really get to tell the story from beginning to end. We did get one understudy run and I just felt amazing, but it still felt like something I had to get out of my system. I’ve always been a big fan of Rebecca Gilman’s from the moment I really took an interest in theatre. I think that she tells complicated stories, and I think says complicated things with her writing. You can’t really decide if the character is good or bad. I think you’re always sort of figuring them out.
What was the experience like preparing to take it Off-Broadway?
There was almost no rehearsal at all. The main cast got there a little bit early to sort of refresh, and it was exactly a year from when we did it. It was October 2022 [in Chicago] and October 2023 [in New York]. It was kind of surprising because the understudies got into New York and sort of went right into runs, rehearsal runs. We didn’t really have blocking changes. The set was entirely the same. And the stage was generally [the same], maybe a little bit smaller than in Chicago, which just made it homier. It was just a dream come true. To be in New York for a job was just something I’d wanted to do for a long time.
What was your first exposure to Rebecca Gilman?
It was a play that was directed by Robert Falls, so [SWING STATE] was kind of a full circle moment. They did this play that started at The Goodman called LUNA GALE. I saw that kind of around the time I was touring colleges. And it was sort of one of those things, you know, even before I knew what school I wanted to go to, I wanted to be in Chicago because it just seemed like what came out of there was just on another level. And the same goes for that play. It was just like people who are in really, really difficult circumstances, and you cannot dislike them. You just can’t. And so she writes compassion in complicated people really well.
What do you think is the value of doing this play at this particular moment?
It’s important to see an area where you’re not in a bubble. If you want to be in a bubble, kind of the way to do that is shut yourself out from everyone else and do it by yourself. And [in this play,] you have Republicans and Democrats that are house by house, but they all have each other’s house keys, and they all, you know, come over for dinner. And they don’t agree with each other, but they are a community. There are lots of people that benefit from us being as divided as we possibly can. At the end of the day, all there is are people. You can choose to really isolate yourself and not be around anyone. I’m not sure that really helps anybody. But that is other people’s journey. The most important thing is to have people that you can talk to, and ask for help, and trust that people will be there for you.
Are there things about this production that excite you most?
I’m very excited about its Wisconsin premiere and doing this in an area where the political divide is quite down the center and doesn’t really lean one way or the other, [unlike] a lot of these major metropolitan cities. I’m really looking forward to the variety of responses from this. I hope that some people might even see it as a little controversial. And then some people might just resonate with it all the way through. But I do think that everyone will be able to see a little bit of themselves in this, no matter your background.
What do you hope an audience takes away from this play?
When people ask me about it, I’ll tell them the name of the play and they ask me if it’s political. I think that it is in the sense that very few things are not political. I mean, how far you are from a hospital can be political. All in all, it doesn’t really tell you a way to think, but I think that it’s something that accelerates empathy.
It can be pretty relevant to people who are quietly struggling, and it’s probably important to see people that are like them or like people they know. Whether it be the Driftless Area of Wisconsin or Milwaukee, people that are struggling and some of them who are trying to do it all by themselves and carry that weight alone, versus the people that are desperate to reach out to people but don’t really know the way to do that. Whether it makes them feel weak, or they don’t want to be a burden on somebody else or know how to trust the people around them. Most people can probably resonate with that, if it’s not themselves, someone they know. It really celebrates humanity. It takes an era in political history that was very turbulent, and I think it sort of shuts out a lot of the noise and focuses on these four very regular Americans.
I really hope people make the trip. It encourages people to come together, no matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on, and I think that these problems are very human. And I think it shows a lot of people that are ready to give up and are desperate for help and connection and don’t really know how to find it. And I hope people really connect with that.ce that I don’t really get in too many other places, and it’s really unique to Next Act’s space.”
SWING STATE runs February 11 through March 8, 2026 at Next Act Theatre. Get tickets now at nextact.org or call (414) 278-0765.