Wed., Sep. 21 @ 4pm

by Emily Bohannon
directed by Dominic D'Andrea

Bex runs a pirate radio station from her closet, but when her best friend (and best DJ) has the chance for a better life, her reality is shaken like the walls of her crumbling apartment. Her roommate Jo-Jo is out of her Southern comfort zone; she steals wedding cake ornaments by day and moonlights as a lesbian actress. This is what it feels like to be 28. A play about slumlords, music, friendship, and pistachios.

Wed., Sep. 21 @ 8pm

by Dominique Morisseau
directed by Marion McClinton

It’s 1967 in Detroit. Motown music is getting the party started, and Chelle and her brother Lank are making ends meet by turning their basement into an after-hours joint. Always at odds, they fight over the future of the family trade. But when a mysterious white woman finds her way into their care and a string of raids increases police brutality around the city, the siblings become divided over much more than business. Suddenly, they find themselves caught in the middle of the ‘67 riots.

Thu., Sep. 22 @ 8pm

by Jacqueline Goldfinger
directed by Rebecca Wright

In the neon glow of the Red Hen Bar & Grill, Kitty and Clem fall in love and find an escape from their dysfunctional families in each other. But when a party devolves into a terrible shooting, they tear themselves apart trying to figure out what went wrong. A play about the malleability of truth, and how we re-imagine history to protect the ones we love.

Fri., Sep. 23 @ 8pm

by Jennifer Haley
directed by Lisa Peterson


The future is here.  The population spends most of its time creating reality in the vast, virtual world of the Nether, and registered adults can live out any fantasy they desire.  When a young cyberdetective investigates a realm where these fantasies involve crimes against children, she mounts an interrogation of the creator, a charismatic man who goes by the name of Papa.  But as the two discover they are linked by more than the case, their battle of wills blows up beyond questions of morality to those of essence, longing, and the point of existence itself.

Sat., Sep. 24 @ 4pm

by Katharine Clark Gray
directed by David Hilder

Welcome to Bangor’s “enlightened” community: where firebrand progressives hold weekly rallies free from the threat of opposition.  Then Hal comes to town, a fugitive with little tact and less patience for the choirs they’re preaching to.  A satirical vivisection of modern activism in America.

Sat., Sep. 24 @ 8pm

by Philip Dawkins
directed by David F. Chapman

Set in thriving 1928 Chicago, we follow the three Fail sisters, all of whom happen to die within the same year, and the one man who falls in love with each of them.  A play about the journey, not the destination, about why we fall in love with who we fall in love with and how.  It's about loss, success, and failure.  But mostly, it's about love.

Michael Mitnick on

I have a folder on my laptop labeled "ideas" which is filled almost entirely with nonsensical plot points I type up at 3 am while drunk...One of the documents said: "Spacebar. About a bar in outer space. NOT about the space key on the computer keyboard." Obviously, I was desperate enough to run with this...what I hope audiences will find is that Spacebar is, at its heart, a story about a kid who seeks revenge on a father who walked out on him when he needed him most. It's a play about how kids deal with random tragedy and how important it is for them to feel heard and feel important...It's a story about being young, seeking revenge, trying to make out with someone, expressing yourself through misguided art, and how to use a jetpack. And why.

Laura Marks on

I had just been laid off.  It was early 2009.  I read an article about how squatters were starting to move into foreclosed suburban houses… and I thought that was (a) an evocative premise for a play, and (b) a strategy I might need to try myself pretty soon! Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a great op-ed piece in the New York Times —along the same lines as her newest book, Bright-Sided —stating that the whole positive-thinking, “Law-of-attraction” movement fed the overconfidence that caused the financial crisis.   I couldn’t agree more. Optimism is swell, but these widely marketed versions of magical thinking have a dangerous side… and that’s part of what I wanted to explore in this play.

Stacy O'Neill on

In my experience there are only two types of customers in a Laundromat: The regulars with their practiced efficiency and tried and true routine: sort, wash, rinse, spin, dry, fold and leave. And the type who would never set foot in a Laundromat if it weren’t for a crisis. You’ve seen them before--wild eyed and twitchy, carrying black plastic garbage bags inside of which there is a job too big or disgusting for the machine at home. A kid’s thrown up on the comforter; the new puppy peed on the kitchen rug. They get too much change from the machine and shift restlessly in their seats as they wait and wait and wait for the cycle to finish so they can leave whatever has brought them there…behind. I wanted to write about these two types of people colliding on their way to the same destination: a new beginning. I wanted to look at the lengths we go to to get what we want and how sometimes the things we do to ensure a fresh start can make a fresh start impossible.

Thu., Oct. 21
@ 8pm

Dan Dietz on

A year-and-a-half after Katrina, you can see the city still struggling to get back on its feet. I was struck by the monumental size of that task, and wondered if I could write a play that could do justice to that emotional size and scope, while remaining intimate and personal. I was interested in exploring the question of how we find the strength to go on and rebuild after experiencing a major betrayal. It's a question that I feel cuts to the very heart of who we are as human beings.

Laura Jacqmin on

I've read so many plays and seen so many movies about dementia which were structured very similarly; each of them was told from the caregiver's or family member's perspective, each introduced the person with memory loss as comic relief, and each shuffled that person offstage at the end of the story to die... We're so used to seeing stories that are about loss, and that discuss people as though they become empty shells with nothing of their former selves remaining. Not only is this a fallacy, it means that other perspectives are rarely explored. I wanted to write MILVOTCHEE, VISCONSIN from the perspective of a woman actually going though this. We need more funny stories about this kind of thing, don't we? Subscription audiences are getting older, and this is something that's on their minds - but there's no reason that a play about dementia has to be a downer. In fact, there's so much terror around the whole topic that you can't afford to go the easy route and make it sad. It must be joyful.

Kait Kerrigan on

On September 12, 2001, I was sitting in a Barnard classroom. Our professor was moderating a discussion of what had happened just twenty-four hours before...Two young and incredibly intelligent women (who I happened to know where Jewish and Muslim) shot up out of their seats and began arguing with each other in front of 100 people. That was the moment that I realized I knew nothing. In this play, there's a character named Ant. And he has gotten caught up in a maelstrom of world events...I think Ant is a lot like us. We act like we know, when really we're acting on faith most of the time. Faith in a god, faith in the form of love or trust, faith that the reality we see is the reality that is. Ultimately, it's all a faith as a survival mechanism - because our lack of knowledge is a lot scarier that anything else we've cooked up. I think it's important for us to have moments where we realize we know nothing.