It’s the morning before the opening night of “Shifters” at the Cherry Lane Theatre, and British actress Heather Agyepong is ready for the moment. New Yorkers are, too.
“ New York audiences are delicious,” says Agyepong, who stars in the intimate off-Broadway production following its acclaimed run in London. “They’re very responsive. They’ll shout, they’ll laugh, they’ll cry. It seems like people are really ready to connect emotionally to the work,” she says, adding that while audiences in London tended to be more reserved in their vocal reactions, “New York audiences feel like they’re locked in from the jump.”
The buzzy play debuted at the Bush Theatre in 2024 before transferring to the West End, picking up Olivier Award nominations in 2025 for best new play and best actress for Agyepong. Idris Elba, Little Simz and Danai Gurira joined the producing team for the show’s New York run, slated through the end of August.
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“There are cultural nuances in Black British storytelling that we didn’t really recognize at the time,” says Agyepong, asked about the experience of bringing “Shifters” Stateside. “But because there are so many universal themes like love and heartbreak and what home means, it feels like they are starting to connect that with their own lives, which feels really great.”
Director Lynette Linton reached out to Agyepong about “Shifters” after seeing her in a production of Jocelyn Bioh’s play “School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play.”
“When I read the script [for ‘Shifters’] — it was about people in love, these two Black characters — I’d never gotten a script like that in my life,” says Agyepong. “It didn’t feel like a play about struggle. It felt very hopeful and truthful and nuanced, and that really excited me.”
Written by Benedict Lombe, the play traces the friendship and romantic entanglement of Des and Dre, who meet as teenagers in London and reconnect years later as adults in their 30s. Their story is told in a nonlinear fashion, with the actors jumping between time frames throughout the nearly two-hour runtime. Agyepong shares the stage with costar Daniel Ezra for the majority of that time, a bare-bones set contained within a clear box.
“We wanted the intimacy of feeling like a fly on the wall,” says Agyepong of the unusual theater setup, with audiences seated both in front and back of the stage. “We’re trying to give people a point of view of our internal dialogue.”
While Agyepong and director Lynette Linton have been involved with all three productions, Ezra joins the latest staging as Dre, the show’s romantic co-lead. Agyepong was excited to discover that Ezra’s presence unveiled new dynamics between the characters on stage.
“There are different parts to [Des’] humor and her personality being triggered,” she says. “She’s using humor way more to mask stuff. And maybe because I’m also just older, there is a more groundedness in her at 32.”
The play explores the nuance of memory, as the characters revisit their teenage years and relationship through physical artifacts like music and artwork that defined their younger years.
“Memory can be distorted, and it’s about perception. One person can look at a situation and think that’s what happened, and the other person’s like, ‘No, I thought something completely different happened.’ It’s interesting how memory in relationships can cause new stories, and those stories might not even be true,” she says. “I always want the show to feel cathartic, but also healing. I feel like Des forgives herself when she keeps looking back at her past.”
Offstage, Agyepong interrogates her own past through her fine art photography practice, which is centered around themes of mental health and visibility.
“I always use the camera to express the rawest parts of myself, parts of myself that I hide or bury or wanna show love and support,” she says, adding that her photography work supports the vulnerability that she brings to the stage and screen. “When I’m acting, I’m putting on a character and empathizing with a character, and then when I’m doing the art I’m empathizing with myself. It’s two different entry points, but they’re kind of flowing around each other.”
Agyepong was initially drawn to acting, her “first love,” through a school play when she was 11.
“There was something about transformation — I couldn’t believe people could become something else. It felt like alchemy,” she says, adding that she was fully committed after acting in a production of “Macbeth” a few years later. But she first pursued a degree in psychology, which led her into photography.
“Loads of actors who I was watching at the time were like, ‘try to do anything else but acting, because it’s so difficult.’ So I did, and focused on photography for a while, which I loved. I was making money, I was surviving off it, but I dearly missed acting, and wondered: could I do both?” she says. “It feels like I’m just being an artist, and I’m using different mediums.”
Agyepong has witnessed the lingering impact of “Shifters” through interactions with audience members after the show, who have been eager to share the ways in which Des feels like a reflection of themselves.
“My hope with all the work I make is that it’s not just about me, that it allows someone to process their own emotions and their own histories,” Agyepong adds. “And that’s the gift you leave.”
