Fall 2020
Electra by Sophocles, translated by Anne Carson, directed by Javier Antonio González, Thursday 10/15/20 - Saturday 10/17/20
After ten years away from home, Electra's little brother, Orestes, has returned to the cursed palace committed to his role: that of murdering his own mother. Electra sustains a mourning ritual for her murdered father for all to see, as she awaits her brother's foretold arrival. Electra is the climax in a family's ongoing cycle of revenge. In the hands of Anne Carson, the tragedy is an urgent retelling, ripe with poetic humor and truth.
Stupid Fucking Bird by Aaron Posner, directed by Colette Robert, Thursday 12/10/20 - Saturday 12/12/20
A funny, raw remix of Anton Chekhov's, The Seagull, Stupid Fucking Bird explores and explodes the sometimes difficult, sometimes hilarious pursuit of love, life, and art.
Spring 2021
On Loop
by Charly Evon Simpson
directed by Alice Reagan
Thursday, February 18, 8 PM
Friday, February 19, 8 PM
Saturday, February 20, 3 PM and 8 PM
A New Plays at Barnard Commission
In On Loop, Jo, a young Black woman, seeks her past and future in the spiraling rings of tall trees and waving grasses. As she explores, she questions whether the woods are a place of solitude and safety or menace and danger...and who she may have to leave behind to find out.
Senior Thesis Festival
Senior Thesis Weekend II Program
Friday, April 16 at 7 PM
Research Presentation
Enabling Homoerotic Sensibility: Mei Lanfang’s Ideal Woman in Peking Opera Film
Forever Enthralled by Genevieve Yiming Wang 王一茗.
Saturday, April 17 at 12:30 PM
Solo Performance
Addi Bjaringer
Brianna Johnson
Jackson Kienitz
Nafisa Saeed
Playwriting
Friday, April 16 at 8 PM
R.I.P. Andy Cohen by Adam Glusker
Saturday, April 17 at 3 PM
Obsessed by Starr Shapiro
Saturday, April 17 at 5 PM
Butterfingers and Naan by Hope Johnson
Senior Thesis Weekend I Program What Every Girl Should Know by Monica Byrne Directed by Perry Parsons Thursday April 8, 7pm Saturday April 10, 9pm
CloudMelt by Heidi Kraay Directed by Emily Liberatore Thursday April 8, 9pm Friday April 9, 7pm
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood Directed by Alexandra Haddad Friday April 9, 9pm Saturday April 10, 7pm
A note from the thesis directors:
These plays touch on issues of womanhood, gendered discrimination, and/or gendered violence. All actors who feel comfortable playing women and/or female-assigned people are welcome to audition.
As student directors, we are actively working towards anti-racist theatre spaces, and we are dedicated to telling these stories in a way that does not situate whiteness as the default human experience.
We’re so excited to work with you! Please reach out to us if you have any questions.
–– Alex, Perry, & Emily
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, directed by Alexandra Haddad
The Penelopiad is a decolonization of the epic poem The Odyssey. The play is set in Ithaca, where Odysseus’ wife Penelope has twelve young handmaids that tend to her and help her survive during her husband’s absence, while a group of increasingly rabid suitors force her to choose a new husband. Penelope continues to wait, and the suitors turn - often violently - to her handmaids. In The Penelopiad, the handmaids are given a voice. This is the story they tell with it.
While the play exists in the world of Ancient Greek myth, it is contemporary and in modern language. The chorus structure highlights how the maids are dehumanized, their individual identities stolen. My vision is for the actors playing the maids to alternate as Penelope and the other noble characters. The maids’ performance is a reclamation of the myth that has silenced them for millennia. Through their performance, they become the storytellers.
This play features gendered and sexual violence. I bring a background in intimacy choreography that centers a consent-based rehearsal environment. As a director, I prioritize ensemble building and finding joy, even in tragedy. If you have any questions, please email me at adh2171@barnard.edu.
What Every Girl Should Know by Monica Byrne, directed by Perry Parsons
What Every Girl Should Know centers around four adolescent girls in a Catholic reformatory in 1914 Manhattan. Joan, the new girl, introduces the others to the teachings and ideology of women’s rights activist Margaret Sanger. They jokingly create a religion around “St. Margaret” but a bizarre conversion experience convinces them of its truth. Their fantasies intensify until the new religion subsumes all aspects of their normal lives. When a terrible secret is revealed, their delusions finally come to a breaking point.
This production will explore toxic systems of power and their antidotes. How do they change us and how do we change them?
Even when the girls are introduced to the idea of liberation, their ability really to be free is limited by the walls of the reformatory. St. Margaret gives them hope, but in many ways, their new religion is just the old one in a different costume. Only once the girls are forced to see through the guise of the corrupt Catholic Church, are they able to conceive of true escape… but not everyone will make it out.
Content Warning: This play references sexual violence.
CloudMelt by Heidi Kraay, directed by Emily Liberatore
Agnes: Widow. Mother. Runaway. 72. White. Planning her last night.
Wren: Adopted daughter. Runaway. Old soul. 16. Black. Searching for the truth.
In CloudMelt by Heidi Kraay, Wren stumbles upon Agnes as she prepares to chug Drano in the cabin where she and her late husband Charles once honeymooned. She’s eager for Wren to leave so she can reunite with Charles in the afterlife–– “We. Said. When we die. We’d meet on the moon.” But somehow, paranormally, Wren’s body and mind slowly become occupied by Charles. Through conversation, reincarnation reunites the living and the dead through unlikely bodies and minds. But CloudMelt is not actually a story of the occult. It is the story of an empathetic teen who finds a senile mother and pretends to channel her husband in order to save her from a clouded suicide.
Rehearsals for CloudMelt will involve meditative bonding exercises and devised work to differentiate Agnes’ relationships with Wren and Charles. Our ensemble will collaborate to investigate the many socially significant themes of this play, including dementia, interracial disconnect, adoption, suicide, queerness, age–inappropriate intimacy, and daughterhood.
Content warning: Suicidal ideation/preparation, delusions, age–inappropriate intimacy, and mourning.