Lewis invites his estranged sister Dana on a trip to Rome to reconnect. But when he befriends a beautiful stranger, old wounds fester and intimate secrets are revealed. A dark, contemplative world premiere from the Studio Theatre commissioned playwright Rachel Bonds.
Runtime: This performance will run approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes with no intermission.
The Studio Lab is generously underwritten
by David and Jean Heilman Grier.
Rachel Bonds’ plays have been developed or produced by South Coast Rep, Ars Nova, Manhattan Theatre Club, McCarter Theatre, Roundabout Underground, Atlantic Theater Company, Studio Theatre, New Georges, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and New York Stage & Film, among others. Her plays include: Curve of Departure (South Coast Rep, Studio Theatre); Five Mile Lake (South Coast Rep, McCarter, Weissberger Award); The Wolfe Twins (Studio Theatre); Swimmers (Marin Theatre Co., Sky Cooper Prize); Sundown, Yellow Moon (Ars Nova/WP); Alma (Atlantic Theatre Company commission); At the Old Place (La Jolla); Michael & Edie (NY Times Critic's Pick, 2010); Winter Games (Actors Theatre of Louisville, Heideman Award); and Anniversary (EST, Sam French OOB Festival Winner). She is an Alumna of the EST’s Youngblood, Ars Nova’s Play Group and SPACE on Ryder Farm’s Working Farm Writers’ Group. She was the 2016 Tow Foundation Playwright in Residence at Ars Nova. Current commissions include The Geffen and McCarter. Bonds is a graduate of Brown University.
(As of September 2017)
Mike Donahue previously directed Rachel Bonds’ Curve of Departure and The Wolfe Twins (world premiere) at Studio. New York credits include the world premieres of Matthew Lopez’s The Legend of Georgia McBride (MCC, The Geffen and Denver Center, Joe A. Callaway Award, Outer Critics Circle Nomination, Ovation Award Nomination); Jen Silverman’s Collective Rage (MCC, Woolly Mammoth), The Moors (Playwrights Realm–NYC premiere), Phoebe in Winter (Clubbed Thumb), and The Hunters (Cherry Lane Mentor Project); Jordan Seavey’s Homos, Or Everyone In America (Labyrinth); and Ethan Lipton’s Red-Handed Otter (Playwrights Realm). Regionally, he’s directed the world premieres of Jen Silverman’s The Roommate (Humana, Williamstown, Long Wharf); Rachel Bonds’ Curve of Departure (South Coast Rep) and Swimmers (Marin); and Matthew Lopez’s Zoey’s Perfect Wedding and Lauren Feldman’s Grace, or The Art of Climbing (Denver Center). Mike is a recipient of a Fulbright to Berlin, the Drama League Fall Fellowship, The Boris Sagal Fellowship at Williamstown, and was the Artistic Director of the Yale Summer Cabaret for two seasons. Mike is a graduate of Harvard University and the Yale School of Drama.
(As of January 2019)
STUDIO 2NDSTAGE: Terminus (director), Moth (director), POP!. STUDIO THEATRE: The Wolfe Twins, The Invention of Love, A Number, The Pillowman. DC AREA: Affiliated Artist at Shakespeare Theatre Company, where credits include Design for Living, Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale, Major Barbara, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; Folger Theatre, Arena Stage, Round House Theatre, The Hub, and Ford’s Theatre. REGIONAL: Seattle Rep, Missouri Rep, Provincetown Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse, Milwaukee Rep, and eleven seasons at The Berkshire Theatre Festival, where he recently directed Design for Living. EDUCATION/TRAINING: Duke University, The Juilliard School, Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory.
(As of July 2015)
Birgit Huppuch most recently performed as Penthesilea in John Banville’s Love in the Wars at Bard Summerscape and Olivia in Pig Iron Theatre Company’s production of Twelfth Night. She received an OBIE Award for her work in the Foundry Theatre’s production of Ariana Reines’s Telephone directed by Ken Rus Schmoll at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Credits include Not What Happened (BAM Next Wave), The Debate Society’s Blood Play (Williamstown, The Public, Bushwick Starr, ArtsEmerson), A Map of Virtue (13P), Neighbors (The Public), Angel Reapers (Joyce Theatre, tour), Telethon and Dot (Clubbed Thumb), Gun Logistics (Drama League DirectorFest), Miss St.’s Hieroglyphic Suffering (Guggenheim), What The Public Wants (Mint Theatre), In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) (Cleveland Play House), Isabella and Pay Up (Pig Iron), and Peer Gynt (Kansas City Rep, La Jolla Playhouse). Film credits include Jonathan’s Chest (Sundance Short 2014) and The Sisterhood of Night (upcoming). She has also appeared in the web series High Maintenance. She received a BA from Williams College.
(As of October 2014)
Jolly Abraham has been a company member of The Pearl Theatre Company since 2008, where she most recently appeared in No Exit; other productions at Pearl include Hamlet, Hard Times, and The Bald Soprano. Her Broadway credits include Coram Boy and Bombay Dreams. She has appeared Off Broadway in the world premiere of Jose Rivera’s Massacre at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Twelfth Night at Sonnet Repertory Theatre, and McReele at Roundabout Theatre Company. Regionally, her credits include Scorched at Wilma Theater (Barrymore nomination), Vaidehi at Chautauqua Theater Company, Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Shakespeare Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Pentecost at The Old Globe. She spent three seasons with the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Her television and web credits include Wallflowers (webseries), Unforgettable, Smash, Lights Out, Gossip Girl, Sex and the City, Ed, multiple episodes of Law and Order: SVU/CI, Bedford Diaries, White Collar, and Nurse Jackie. Her film work includes The Adderall Diaries, A Walk Among the Tombstones with Liam Neeson, Stay, Loving Leah, and After You Left. Ms. Abraham holds a BFA from the North Carolina School of the Arts.
(As of October 2014)
Silas Gordon Brigham is a DC-based actor whose recent credits include Homeboy Thanksgiving at Capital Fringe Festival, The Real Thing (understudy) at Studio Theatre, and staged readings of Pecan Park at Theatre Alliance and The Goblin Baby at the DC Shorts Film Festival Screenplay Competition. Regional credits include The Glass Menagerie at the immediate theatre project. Film credits include Ultrasonic, which won Best in Fest at the DC Independent Film Festival in 2012. Mr. Brigham holds a BA in theatre studies from Guilford College in Greensboro, NC and attends the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory.
(As of October 2014)
Dane Laffery has recent Off Broadway credits that include set and/or costumes for Bad Jews and Tigers Be Still (Roundabout), Disgraced (Lincoln Center Theater), Arlington (Vineyard), American Hero and The Talls (Second Stage), The Maids (Red Bull), I Remember Mama and The Patsy (Transport Group), The Other Place (MCC), Sixty Miles to Silver Lake (Soho Rep.), The Few and Rag and Bone (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), Bad Jazz (Play Company), 12 Chairs and Exit (Keigwin + Co, The Joyce Theatre). His work has been presented at major theaters around the US including The Old Globe, the Humana Festival, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Denver Center Theatre Company, Baltimore Center Stage, Dallas Theatre Center, New York Stage and Film, Asolo Rep, Signature, Yale Opera, and Two River Theatre. He has worked internationally in Tokyo, Oslo, Osaka, and throughout Australia, including on “The Roast,” which airs nightly on ABC2. He has been nominated for the Drama Desk Award, four American Theatre Wing Henry Hewes Design Awards, and the Sydney Theatre Award.
(As of October 2014)
Scott Zielinski has created designs for over 300 productions of theatre, dance, and opera throughout the world. He has worked extensively in New York and at regional theaters throughout the U.S. including Arena Stage, The Kennedy Center, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, and previously at Studio Theatre. Internationally he has designed in Adelaide, Amsterdam, Avignon, Berlin, Bregenz, Edinburgh, Fukuoka, Gennevilliers, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Linz, Ljubljana, London, Lyon, Melbourne, Orleans, Oslo, Ottawa, Paris, Reykjavik, Rouen, St. Gallen, Seoul, Shanghai, Shizuoka, Singapore, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, Vienna, Vilnius, and Zurich.
(As of November 2017)
Daniel Kluger's recent New York credits include The Village Bike (MCC); Your Mother’s Copy of the Kama Sutra (Playwrights Horizons); The Few, Ode to Joy, and The Correspondent (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); Women or Nothing (Atlantic Theater Company); Nikolai and the Others (Lincoln Center); Somewhere Fun and The North Pool (Vineyard); Tribes and Hit the Wall (Barrow Street Theatre); and The Seagull (Lake Lucille). His regional credits include productions at The Old Globe, Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf, Pig Iron, TheatreWorks, and American Players Theatre.
(As of October 2014)
Lauren Halvorsen is in her ninth season as Studio’s Associate Literary Director. Her dramaturgy credits here include Doubt, P.Y.G. or the Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle, Admissions, Kings, If I Forget, Vietgone, The Wolves, Skeleton Crew, The Father, Three Sisters, The Hard Problem, Hand to God, Moment, Between Riverside and Crazy, Chimerica, The Wolfe Twins, Belleville, Water by the Spoonful, Tribes, The Real Thing, The Motherfucker with the Hat, The Aliens, Bachelorette, The Big Meal, and Time Stands Still. Previously, Lauren spent three seasons as Literary Manager of The Alley Theatre. She was the Artistic Associate of the WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory for six years and has worked in various artistic capacities for The Kennedy Center, City Theatre Company, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, First Person Arts Festival, and The Wilma Theater. Lauren is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College.
(As of December 2019)
T. Scott Wooten returns to Studio Theatre where he stage managed Red Speedo and assistant stage managed The Apple Family Plays. He was previously the Artistic Associate of American Stage Theatre Company in St. Petersburg, FL for nine seasons and a resident Stage Manager at Maltz Jupiter Theatre. He has worked in various capacities on over 90 productions and received two 2013 Theatre Tampa Bay Award nominations for his direction and sound design of My Name is Asher Lev. His adaptation REEFER MADNESS!!! THE PLAY!!! received the Best Play Audience Choice Award at the 2010 Orlando International Fringe Festival. He recently directed The Chosen by Aaron Posner and Chaim Potok at American Stage Theatre Company.
(As of October 2014)