Written by Betsy Bard
Directed by Vincent Ernest Siders
Each season, Youth Underground creates a new piece of Investigative Theater. This year’s theme is voting and civic engagement.
Come hear a reading of the work in progress.
This is a free event, but you are encouraged to RSVP by for the 2:30pm performance or the 7pm performance online, or by emailing Kortney Adams at kaa@centralsquaretheater.org.
Ardent Girls
by Amy Merrill
directed by Jessica Ernst
Tuesday, June 5 at 7pm (RSVP Online)
Tickets are free. Reservations recommended.
Recovering from typhoid and badly in need of inspiration, Chicago reformer Jane Addams travels to Russia to meet her idol Leo Tolstoy. Ardent Girls is about personal and social change and how lessons get learned in the most unlikely situations. Jessica Ernst (The Women Who Mapped the Stars) directs.
Dream House
by Cassie Seinuk
directed by Rebecca Bradshaw
Sunday, June 3 at 7pm (RSVP Online)
Tickets are free. Reservations recommended.
West, a 27 year old RISD graduate, has just spent the past seven years of his life working as a customer service rep at an online banking company – that is until a collapse at work and subsequent diagnosis puts an expiration date on West’s life. His doctor lays it out on the table for him; he is dying, his brain tumor is inoperable and he only has a few months to live. She then encourages him to stay with family and do the things he’s always wanted to do. Shocked by the news, West quits his job and moves back to semi-rural Amherst, Massachusetts, back to his overbearing yet nurturing Mother’s home, where he sets out to build the tree house of his dreams before his time runs out.
Dream House explores regret, language, and legacy in this comic tragedy where an epic tree house is built onstage and a family must face mortality, missed opportunities, and unfulfilled expectations.
Where We’re Born
by Lucy Thurber
directed by Cassie Chapados
Sunday May 13 at 7pm (RSVP Online)
Tickets are free. Reservations recommended.
Where We’re Born follows a young woman who returns home after her first few months at college and finds that she must learn to reconcile the ways in which her upbringing shaped her with the problems she now sees with where she grew up.
“This play is deeply personal for me because my own small-town upbringing mirrors Lilly’s in many ways. The problems we cannot see when they surround us all of a sudden come into focus when we remove ourselves from that situation. These problems do not mean we cannot love where we were born, but instead allow us to see it in its fullness; the good with the bad, the hope with the dismay, the truth without our rose colored glasses.” – Cassie Chapados
Lucy Thurber is the author of ten plays: Where We’re Born, Ashville, Scarcity, Killers and Other Family, Stay, Bottom of The World, Monstrosity, Dillingham City, The Locus and The Insurgents. The Insurgents was commissioned by Contemporary American Theater Festival and produced at their 2011 Festival. Bottom of The World opened the 2010/11 season at The Atlantic Theater. A reworking of Killers and Other Family played Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2009, directed by Caitriona McLaughlin. Lucy wrote the text for QUIXOTE, conceived and directed by Lear deBessonet, a site-specific performance with the Psalters made for and with The Broad Street Community; also with Lear deBessonet and produced by 13P, Monstrosity. The Atlantic Theater Company opened its 2007/08 season with Scarcity. Rattlestick Playwrights Theater has produced three of her plays, Where We’re Born, Killers and Other Family and Stay. Monstrosity was workshopped at Encore Theatre Company (San Francisco). She was the recipient of the 2000-01 Manhattan Theatre Club Playwriting Fellowship. She was a guest artist at Alaska’s Perseverance Theatre twice, where she helped to adapt both Desire Under The Elms and Moby Dick. She has had readings and workshops at Steam Boat Springs, Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Primary Stages, MCC Theater, Encore Theatre Company, PlayPenn, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The O’Neill with WET, New River Dramatists and Soho Rep. She was one of three playwrights in residence at The Orchard Project, summer 2007. Scarcity was published in the December 2007 issue of American Theatre magazine. She is published by Dramatists Play Service. Thurber is a member of New Dramatists, 13P, MCC Playwrights’ Coalition. She has been commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, and she is currently writing a new play under a commission from Yale Rep. She is the recipient of the 1st Gary Bonasorte Memorial Prize for Playwriting 2008 and a proud recipient of a Lilly Award. Lucy currently teaches at NYU and Sarah Lawrence College.
Cassie Chapados is a recent graduate of Boston College and is currently serving as the technical director at Central Square Theater. When she isn’t busy building and fixing things for CST she is working towards becoming a professional director. Recent directing credits include Despite Everything, Nora’s contribution to the 2018 Boston Theatre Marathon, What Every Girl Should Know (Boston College), You’re Home Now (Boston Theater Marathon), and Treasure Island (Magic Circle Theatre). She is also the assistant director for The Nether with Flat Earth Theater in June. She is so grateful to Lee for giving her the opportunity to work on a play so close to her heart, the CST family for all of their support, and her wonderful cast for going along for the ride.
GLOCKENSPIELSEXPARTYBAVARIAGOODBY
Monday, May 15 at 7pm (RSVP Online)
Tickets are free. Reservations recommended.
Veronika Duerr and her writing partner Johnny Drago are showcasing a new work, GLOCKENSPIELSEXPARTYBAVARIAGOO
Veronika Duerr is an AEA actor, director and producer currently living in Boston. Recent credits include Resilience at New Rep, Men On Boats (SpeakEasy Stage Company); Going to See the Kid, 45 Plays for 45 Presidents, and Home of the Brave (Merrimack Repertory Theatre). She has worked in regional theatre in NYC, Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta. She co-found The Weird Sisters Theatre Project in Atlanta, Ga in 2011. The Weird Sisters Theatre Project is committed to creating theatre by women, for everyone. She holds a BFA in theater from The Savannah College of Art and Design. In 2009, Veronika received the Suzi Bass award for best actress in a leading role and in 2013, she was awarded the title of “Best Actress in Atlanta” by the Broadwayworld.com organization. In 2015, Veronika completed an artistic fellowship in directing with the Alliance Theatre.
Johnny Drago is a Brooklyn-based playwright and performer, whose work has been produced or developed by Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Lark, The Barter Theatre, New American Folk (Chicago), 7 Stages, The Weird Sisters Theatre Project, The Process Theatre Co., and Actor’s Express. Plays include Last Will and Testament, I Love My Brother, Hot Pink, Cul-de-Sac, Blood for Blood, The Birdwatchers, and Baby and Jennifer Defy the Laws of Timespace and All That That Implies. At Dismantle Theater (with choreographer Erik Thurmond), Johnny creates experimental performance essays along the border between theatre and dance. He holds an MFA from Indiana University.