Exception to the Rule

September 18, 2024 - October 27, 2024

BY DAVE HARRIS
LOCATION MEAD THEATRE
DIRECTED BY MIRANDA HAYMON

Six Black students at the city’s worst high school wait out Friday detention, but no one can figure out how “College Bound Erika” ended up stuck here too. The rules are simple: a teacher has to sign their form before anyone can leave the room. But no adults have made it yet, so the teens fill their time by flirting, fighting, and forming plans for the long weekend ahead—until a more sinister probability comes into view. This gut-punch of a comedy interrogates how a racialized public school system fails its students by design, who gets the chance to escape it, and what they must leave behind to do so. 

The cast of EXCEPTION TO THE RULE. Photo by Margot Schulman.

SHOW INFORMATION

Runtime: 80 minutes with no intermission.

Read the program.

Please note late seating will be determined at the discretion of House Management.

In the interest of welcoming people with a wide range of needs and life experiences, Studio offers a bit of information on what you will encounter in the play. Use this information as it is helpful to you.

Environment Warnings: This production of Exception to the Rule includes the use of herbal tobacco, loud noises, flashing lights, and sudden darkness.

Exception to the Rule is generously underwritten by Amy Weinberg and Norbert Hornstein.

Calendar

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Multimedia

The Artists

Cast

Understudies

Production Team

SET DESIGNER

Tony Cisek

Tony Cisek has most recently designed The Mountaintop at Alliance Theatre, Where the Mountain Meets the Sea at Signature Theatre, Blue at New Orleans Opera, Ink at Round House Theatre, The Color Purple at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) and Signature Theatre, Thurgood at People’s Light, Choir Boy at DCPA and ACT Contemporary Theatre, Toni Stone at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre and Alliance Theatre, and the premieres of Rubicon at DCPA and Tempestuous Elements at Arena Stage. His work has also been seen at Roundabout Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Indiana Repertory, Cincinnati Playhouse, Portland Center Stage, and the Kennedy Center, among others. Tony has received four Helen Hayes Awards and numerous other citations for outstanding scenic design, is a member of United Scenic Artists, and holds an MFA in Design from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. www.tonycisek.com 

COSTUME DESIGNER

Brandee Mathies

Brandee Mathies has been Studio’s Costume Shop Manager since 1994. He is a Helen Hayes-nominated costume designer for Nollywood Dreams and The Mountaintop at Round House Theatre. He has also costume designed Passover, Mother Struck, This Is Our Youth, The Year of Magical Thinking, Stoop Stories, The Rimers of Eldritch, A Number, The Syringa Tree, and Comic Briefs: Outstanding Contemporary Comic Writing for Studio Theatre, and Moth, Contractions, A Beautiful View, Crestfall, and Polaroid Stories for Studio 2nd Stage. Other DC-area credits include one in two; Birds of North America; Satchmo at the Waldorf; Hooded, Or Being Black for Dummies; Blood Knot; Eureka Day; Shame 2.0; Vicuna & the American Epilogue; and Inherit the Windbag at Mosaic Theater; and Pankr’ac 45 at Atlas Theatre. He also designed costumes for the film The AD-X2 Controversy. 

LIGHTING DESIGNER

Emma Deane

SOUND DESIGNER

Kathy Ruvuna

Kathy Ruvuna is a New York-based sound designer and composer who designed John Proctor is the Villain at Studio. Other recent credits include Mary Gets Hers at The Playwrights Realm; Bernarda’s Daughters at The New Group; Amani at National Black Theatre; Dark Disabled Stories and Self Portraits (Deluxe) at The Bushwick Starr; Trouble in Mind and The Hot Wing King at Hartford Stage; What-A-Christmas! and Sweat at Alley Theatre; The Lion in Winter, Pipeline, and Radio Golf at Everyman Theatre; The Great Leap, I and You, and Read to Me at Portland Stage; Circle Jerk at Fake Friends; and In the Southern Breeze and Ni Mi Madre at Rattlestick Theater. She holds a BFA from The Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. 

INTIMACY COORDINATOR

Sierra Young

Sierra Young is a violence and intimacy director working in the DC/Baltimore area. Sierra is the Resident Violence and Intimacy Director for Mosaic Theater Company. She is an active member of the Society of American Fight Directors, Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. Recent Studio credits include The Colored Museum. Recent DC credits include JaJa’s African Hair Braiding and POTUS: or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive at Arena Stage; Little Shop of Horrors and Shout Sister Shout! at Ford’s Theatre; Merrily We Roll Along and Sweat at The Keegan Theatre; Confederates, one in two, and The Till Trilogy at Mosaic Theater Company; and King Lear at Shakespeare Theatre Company. On social media at @syoungfights (Instagram). sierrayoung.org. 

DRAMATURG

Adrien-Alice Hansel

Adrien-Alice Hansel (she/her) is the Literary Director at Studio, where she has dramaturged the world premieres of Problems Between Sisters, Good Bones, John Proctor is the Villain, I Hate it Here, Queen of Basel, Red Speedo, and Lungs, among others, as well as productions of The Colored Museum, Fat Ham, Fun Home, English, Curve of Departure, Wig Out!, and New Electric Ballroom, among many others. Prior to joining Studio, she spent eight seasons as a member of and then running the Literary Department at the Actors Theatre of Louisville and its Humana Festival of New American Plays. She is the co-editor of eight anthologies of plays from Actors Theatre and editor of 12 editions of plays through Studio. Adrien-Alice holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. 

PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER

John Keith Hall

John Keith Hall has stage managed many productions at Studio including The Colored Museum, At the Wedding, Espejos: Clean, Fun Home, English, Bad Jews, Choir Boy, Cock, Water by the Spoonful, Tribes, The Habit of Art, Torch Song Trilogy, 4000 Miles, In the Red and Brown Water, The History Boys, and The Road to Mecca. Other DC area credits include Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Olney Theatre Center, Signature Theatre, and The Kennedy Center. His regional credits include over 40 productions as Resident Stage Manager at the Barter Theatre as well as Shadowlands Stage, Virginia Musical Theatre, and Contemporary American Theatre Festival. 

CASTING

Jillian Cimini

Jillian Cimini, CSA is a casting director for Roundabout Theatre Company and C12 Casting in NY. Select Broadway credits include & Juliet; Swept Away; Yellow Face; The Great Gatsby; I Need That; Almost Famous; Jagged Little Pill (tour); Caroline, or Change; The Ferryman; Groundhog Day; Fun Home; Matilda; Cabaret; and American Idiot. Select off-Broadway credits at Roundabout include Jonah, The Wanderers, Exception to the Rule, and ...what the end will be

Press

The terrific ensemble feel[s] lived-in and natural
The Washington Post
Hopeful, terrifying at times, laugh-out-loud funny at others
MD Theatre Guide
A challenging but rewarding show
DC Theatre Arts
Director Miranda Haymon nimbly orchestrates the ways in which "just another day in detention" might be different this time
Talkin' Broadway

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