2020 Productions

Fefu and Her Friends

October 23, 24, 25

  • Written by Maria Irene Fornes
  • Senior Project in Drama members: Brynn Gauthier ’21, Lindsay Irwin ’21, Alexa Lyons ’21, Miku Migita ’21, Elena Rey ’21

Note: This is a private live stream open to members of the Vassar College community only. Due to licensing restrictions, there will be no public accessible viewing. The sharing, copying of this live stream is strictly forbidden. This production will have no live audience in attendance based on the guidelines from Vassar College on gatherings due to the current COVID-19 pandemic situation.

About the play: In 1935, Fefu, and seven of her friends, gather at her New England home. Over the course of a single day, these women grapple with their communal desires, fears, and social limitations.

This play is presented through special arrangements with Broadway Play Publishing, Inc.

Fefu and Friends program

The Maids

October 30 at 8:00 p.m. and October 31 at 2:00 p.m.

  • Written By Jean Genet
  • Directed by Senior Project in Drama member: Jacob Ettkin ’21

About the play: Two maids are trapped in the apartment of the Madame they work for. When Madame's away, the sisters play a twisted game, role playing the identities of Madame and of each other. The game ends when they kill Madame and escape her apartment. They don't know how to end the game or who they’ll become in the process.

This play is presented through special arrangements with Concord Theatricals.

Jacob Ettkin’s Senior Project program

Buried Child

November 13 at 8:00 p.m. (very limited for students)
November 14 at 2:00 p.m. (very limited for students)
November 15 (private livestream) at 2:00 p.m.

  • Written by Sam Shepard
  • Directed by Max J. Kelly ’21
  • Senior Project Members in Drama 390: Abigail Goldman ’21, Maxwell Kelly ’21, Schuyler Osgood ’21, Elijah Solomon ’21

About the play: Dodge, an aging alcoholic wastes away on the couch watching static on TV. His wife, Halie, berates him for his bad habits while carrying on an affair. Their adult sons carry with them traumas from other times. A child lies buried in the backyard. The only grandson, Vince, arrives and he brings with him an outsider; his girlfriend, Shelly. At first, upset by the strange circumstances, she becomes determined to spill open the family’s secrets.

This play is presented through special arrangements with Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Buried Child program

NOTE: The one time private livestream is not available to the public. To those authorized access to view, the copying, sharing or otherwise duplication of access or the content is strictly prohibited due to licensing restrictions.

The Steppenwolf production of this version of Buried Child was first presented on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York City on April 30, 1996, by Frederick Zollo, Nicholas Paleologos, Jane Harmon, Nina Keneally, Gary Sinise, Edwin Schloss and Liz Oliver. First presented in New York City at the Theater for the New City, in 1978.

Cornelia

February 27, 28, 29, at 8:00 p.m. and February 29 at 2:00 p.m.
Streep Studio, Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film

  • By Mark V. Olsen
  • Directed by Christopher Grabowski
  • Senior Project Members: Nick Franzen, Emma LaPlace, Avery Vaughn

An epic slice of history centering on 1970’s Alabama politics. Beautiful, divorced beauty queen Cornelia Folsom is a force of nature who works her way into the heart of Governor George Wallace. Together they plan to take over the state and then the White House, until an assassination attempt halts his presidential campaign. But no obstacle is too great for Cornelia to overcome, as she secretly harbors her own political ambitions amidst a hostile campaign staff, her rarely-sober mother, and Southern shenanigans in this sweeping, provocative tale of sex, power, and bare-knuckled American politics.

This production made possible through special arrangements with Samuel French, Inc.

Jacob Liss ’20 Senior Thesis

Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 3:00 p.m.
Zoom Webinar

THE CULTURAL LIGHTNESS OF HORRIBLE THINGS: Or UDO AND FRITZ DIG THEIR OWN GRAVES WHILE WE WATCH AND LAUGH
Two hapless soldiers, Udo and Fritz, having been ordered by their magnanimous and infallible government to commit a particularly gruesome and unsightly act, are sentenced to die for doing precisely what they were told, but not before they dig their own graves so they can think about what they’ve done. To pass the time they probe the deepest depths of not only the soil before them, but also their psyches: the proper times to use alliteration, the ideal haunting practices of ghosts, the virtues of choux pastry, and, most importantly, how deep should a hole really be.

h.b. floating palace

Friday, May 1 at 9:30 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. EDT
Saturday, May 2 at 9:30 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. EDT
(see time zone listing per dates)
Zoom Webinar

An original play by Rahul Makwana ’20*, directed by Henery Wyand ’20*, production management by Sarah Rivers ’20*

h.b floating palace is a meditation on the life of an elderly Indian couple—Sher and Puja—who, after spending twenty years in a suburban home in Massachusetts, suddenly find themselves living on a houseboat in the scenic Kashmir Valley in Northern India. Originally intended as a retirement, and an escape, Sher and Puja soon find that their new life in Kashmir does not free them from the past. As Sher searches for a missing childhood friend and Puja attempts to keep family disputes at bay, the play explores how two tragic events—the 1947 partition of India-Pakistan and the Kashmir conflict—continue to shape national identity and state formation in India today. h.b floating palace repeatedly blurs the fault lines between the past and the present, memory and imagination, personal and collective trauma, romance and suffering, nostalgia and tragedy, mapping the story of Sher and Puja’s life onto the arbitrary border lines that have shaped India in the past seven decades. A radio play presentation. *a senior project in Drama.

Friday, May 1 at 9:30am = EDT East Coast

Friday, May 1 at 10:30am = JST Japan

Friday, May 1 at 7:00pm = IST India

Friday, May 1 at 6:30am = PDT West Coast

Mississippi Mud

May 14 (preview), 15 and 16 at 7:00 p.m. and May 17 at 5:00 p.m.
Zoom Webinar

An original play by Shona Tucker, Directed by Logan Pitts ’17*

Synopsis: Set in 1923 on the Mississippi-Alabama line, Mississippi Mud by Shona Tucker, based on a true story, is the first part of a trilogy about the African American female journey to selfhood. This piece is a coming-of-age story of Patsy Hubbard, Jr., a tall, angular, gangly sheltered black girl of the Alabama small town of Aliceville. In a heightened story theater style, we journey with Patsy as she discovers some harsh realities about her world.

*Supported in part by the Martha W. Farmer Visiting Artist Program

Mississippi Mud playbill