In their remote cottage on the British coast, a long-married pair of retired nuclear physicists live a modest life in the aftermath of a natural disaster, giving scrupulous care to energy rationing, their garden, their yoga practice. When former colleague Rose reappears after 38 years, her presence upends the couple’s equilibrium and trust. As the fallout from long-ago decisions comes hurtling into view, Rose unveils a proposal that threatens more than their marriage. A hit in London and New York, Lucy Kirkwood’s latest is a taut and disquieting thriller about responsibility and reparation—what one generation owes the next.
Runtime: This performance will run approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes with no intermission.
Environmental Warning: Please note that this production will feature smoking of an herbal cigarette.
The Children is generously underwritten
by Teresa and Dan Schwartz.
In 2009, Lucy Kirkwood’s play it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now was produced by Clean Break Theatre Co. at the Arcola Theatre, London. The play was nominated for an Evening Standard Award for Best Newcomer and made her joint winner of the John Whiting Award (2010). NSFW premiered at the Royal Court, starring Janie Dee and Julian Barrett, in 2012. Chimerica premiered at the Almeida Theatre in 2013 and subsequently transferred to the West End, earning the Best New Play at the 2014 Olivier and Evening Standard Awards, as well as the Critics Circle Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Recent work includes The Children, which premiered at the Royal Court in 2016 and on Broadway in 2017, and Mosquitoes, presented by special arrangement with Manhattan Theatre Club, opened at the National Theatre in 2017. Lucy also writes for television. She has written for Skins (Company Pictures), created and wrote The Smoke (Kudos/Sky 1), and is currently writing a mini-series of her play Chimerica for Playground Productions. She also wrote and directed the short film The Briny and is developing projects with Clio Barnard and Lenny Abrahamson.
David Muse is in his ninth season as Artistic Director of Studio Theatre, where he has directed The Remains, The Effect, The Father, Constellations, Chimerica, Murder Ballad,, Belleville, Cock, Tribes, The Real Thing, An Iliad, Dirt, Bachelorette, The Habit of Art, Venus in Fur, Circle Mirror Transformation, reasons to be pretty, Blackbird, Frozen, and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow. Previously, he was Associate Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he has directed nine productions, including Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Coriolanus, and King Charles III (a co-production of ACT and Seattle Rep). Other directing projects include Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune at Arena Stage, The Bluest Eye at Theater Alliance, and Swansong for New York Summer Play Festival. He has helped to develop new work at numerous theatres, including New York Theatre Workshop, Geva Theatre Center, Arena Stage, Ford’s Theatre, and The Kennedy Center. David has taught acting and directing at Georgetown, Yale, and the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy of Classical Acting. A nine-time Helen Hayes Award nominee for Outstanding Direction, he is a recipient of the DC Mayor’s Arts Award for Outstanding Emerging Artist and the National Theatre Conference Emerging Artist Award. David is a graduate of Yale University and the Yale School of Drama.
(As of April 2019)
Naomi Jacobson returns to Studio Theatre after appearing in The Remains last season. She is a Shakespeare Theatre Company Affiliated Artist and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company member. Off Broadway, she performed in Scenes from an Execution at Atlantic Theater Company. Select regional credits include The Guardsman at The Kennedy Center, Pericles at the Goodman Theatre, The Real Inspector Hound and The Critic at the Guthrie Theater, and Shakespeare In Love at Baltimore Center Stage and Cincinnati Playhouse. She’s performed locally at Arena Stage, Ford’s Theatre, Signature Theatre, Round House Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Wolf Trap, and most recently in the one-woman show Becoming Dr. Ruth at Theater J. Television and film credits include Homicide (NBC) and Her Father’s Eyes (A&E). Naomi is a recipient of the inaugural Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship, the Anderson-Hopkins Award for Excellence in the Theater Arts, three Helen Hayes Awards, and a DC Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant.
(As of April 2019)
Jeanne Paulsen’s Broadway credits include The Kentucky Cycle (Tony nomination for Best Featured Performance) and The Crucible with Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, directed by Richard Eyre. Select regional theatre credits include Emily Reed in Alabama Story at Repertory Theatre of St. Louis; Erma Bombeck in Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End at Arizona Theatre Company; Camilla Parker Bowles in King Charles III, directed by David Muse, a co-production at ACT in San Francisco, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Shakespeare Theatre Company; Patty in One House Over at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre; Rosie in Faith Healer at South Coast Repertory, for which she received an LA Drama Critic’s Circle Award for Lead Performance; numerous roles at Denver Center Theatre Company, A Contemporary Theatre, and Intiman Theatre in Seattle; and seven seasons at Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
(As of April 2019)
Richard Howard is making his Studio Theatre debut. On Broadway he appeared in Emily Mann’s Execution of Justice. Off Broadway credits include Ten by Tennessee directed by Michael Kahn and Ping Chong’s adaptation of Throne of Blood at BAM. As a veteran company member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has performed in over 60 productions including the title roles in Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Pericles, Richard II, and Henry IV 1&2, as well as leading roles in Curse of the Starving Class, Night of the Iguana, Up, Cherry Orchard, Noises Off, The Royal Family, Pentecost, and The Three Musketeers. Other regional theatre credits include productions at The Guthrie Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, and Arena Stage. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School.
(As of April 2019)
Tom Kamm has designed over 50 sets for theatre, opera, and dance. He designed seven projects for director Robert Wilson including The Civil Wars (American Theater Wing Award) and The Forest, with music by David Byrne. Tom has designed premieres of new works by playwrights Tony Kushner, Charles Mee, Robert O’Hara, and José Rivera. He is also the founding principal of Kamm Architecture, a firm specializing in design of theaters, schools, and custom residential projects. Tom received his BA in Drama from UC San Diego and holds an M.Arch degree from the Yale School of Architecture.
(As of April 2019)
Nephelie Andonyadis recently designed the costumes for Marya Sea Kaminski’s adaptation of The Tempest at Pittsburgh Public Theater and the sets for Topdog/Underdog at Avant Bard and Winnie the Pooh at Adventure Theatre. Other recent designs include the set for Magic Fruit and costumes for The Cardinal, both with Cornerstone Theater Company and in collaboration with the communities of Los Angeles and Flushing, Queens; and costumes for Lost in the Stars with SITI Company and The Odyssey at Seattle Repertory Theatre. Upcoming projects include The Juliet Letters with Urban Arias and Occupant with Theater J, as well as The Jordan Downs Play and Festival with Cornerstone Theater Company and As You Like It with Seattle Public Works at Seattle Repertory Theatre. Nephelie was a recipient of the NEA/TCG Design Fellowship and has been a Professor of Theater Arts at the University of Michigan and at The University of Redlands. She is an ensemble member of Cornerstone Theater Company and earned her BS from Cornell University’s School of Architecture and her MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
(As of April 2019)
Miriam Nilofa Crowe is a New York-based lighting designer for theatre, dance and music. She recently designed the world premiere of Teenage Dick (Ma Yi + The Public Theater) and Rosanne Cash’s The River and the Thread, which won three Grammy Awards. Other recent projects in New York include Kennedy (Theatre at St. Clement’s), Charlie’s Waiting (Parity Productions), Hurricane Party (The Collective NY), home/sick and Seagullmachine (The Assembly), This is Modern Art and Platonov (Blessed Unrest), Anna (Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre), PS 160 (Gabrielle Mertz), The Penalty (The Apothetae), 2hymn vb (Anneke Hansen), Six Characters: A Family Album (Theodora Skipitares), Medea (Bryan Davidson Blue), and Symphony for the Dance Floor (BAM). Regional productions include Fences, Having Our Say and Raisin in the Sun (Triad Stage). She is a founding member of Wingspace Theatrical Design and has an MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama.
(As of April 2019)
Broken Chord designed The Parisian Woman and Eclipsed on Broadway. Off Broadway credits include The Lying Lesson at Atlantic Theater Company, OZET at Incubator Arts Project, Bull in a China Shop at Lincoln Center Theater, When We Were Young and Unafraid at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Good Negro and Party People at The Public Theater, and Appropriate at Signature Theatre. Regional credits include Tom Sawyer at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Ruined at Berkeley Rep, Hair at Dallas Theater Center, Make Believe at Hartford Stage, Top Girls at Huntington Theatre, UniSon at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Macbeth and Hamlet at Shakespeare Theatre Company, and These Paper Bullets! at Yale Rep.
(As of April 2019)
Adrien-Alice Hansel is the Literary Director at Studio, where she has dramaturged the world premieres of Queen of Basel, The Remains, No Sisters, I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart, Animal, Laugh, Red Speedo, Dirt, Lungs, and The History of Kisses as well as productions of Cry It Out,Translations, Curve of Departure, The Effect, Wig Out!, Straight White Men, Cloud 9, Hedda Gabler, Constellations, Jumpers for Goalposts, Bad Jews (twice), The Apple Family Plays, Invisible Man, Sucker Punch, The Golden Dragon, and The New Electric Ballroom, among others. Prior to joining Studio, she spent eight seasons at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she headed the literary department and coordinated project scouting, selection, and development for the Humana Festival of New American Plays. She also served as production dramaturg on roughly 50 new, contemporary, and classic plays there, including premieres by Naomi Wallace, Gina Gionfriddo, Kirk Lynn and Rude Mechs, Rinne Groff, The Civilians, Anne Bogart and SITI Company, Jordan Harrison, and John Belluso. She is the co-editor of eight anthologies of plays from Actors Theatre and editor of eight editions of plays through Studio. Adrien-Alice holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
(As of April 2019)
Anthony O. Bullock returns to Studio Theatre after previously being the Resident Stage Manager for two seasons. Prior Studio credits include The Hard Problem, Cloud 9, Hedda Gabler, Moment, Between Riverside and Crazy, Chimerica, Jumpers for Goalposts, and Laugh. Additional DC area credits include Signature Theatre, Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, and Theater J, where he will be their new Resident Stage Manager for the 2019-2020 season. Other regional credits include McCarter Theatre Center, Barrington Stage Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Passage Theatre, and Shakespeare & Company, among others. He toured with The White Snake by Mary Zimmerman in association with the Goodman Theatre, as part of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival in Wuzhen, China. Anthony received his BFA from Oklahoma City University. He is also on the board of The Stage Managers’ Association as the Eastern Regional Director. He is a proud member of AEA.
(As of April 2019)
