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Theatre Productions

Each year, the Department of Theatre offers a variety of production projects, covering a wide spectrum of genres and styles.

 

We are so excited to announce our 2023-2024 production program. We look forward to another year of thoughtful and exciting work from our students, faculty, guest artists, and staff!

cover images of 2023/2024 Northeastern University Theatre Department productions
2023/2024 Northeastern University Theatre Department productions

Participation in Department of Theatre Productions is open to all current Northeastern Students regardless of major.  Please visit our Production Auditions Page for more information about auditioning or reach out to Operations Manager Marti McIntosh about how to get involved.

Please visit our Tickets and Audience Information Page for more information about specific performances and to register for tickets.

23/24 Productions

USUAL GIRLS

Written by Ming Peiffer
Directed by Samantha Richert Boehm

Scenic Design by Jenna McFarland Lord
Costume Design by Lara Graber-Mitchell (’24)
Lighting Design by Caitlin Smith Rapoport
Sound Design by Mike Frengel
Production Stage Manager:  Karen Gallagher (’25)

Performances: March 28 – April 7

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Cast List

Kyeoung: Cecilia Liang
Woman: May Aurluecha
Anna: Abby Barton
Lindsay: Isabelle Roberts
Marina/Friend: Katy Silva
Sasha: Eve Davidson
Older Girl 1 / KKG Sister 1: Isadora Sylvia-Ribeiro
Older Girl 2 / KKG Sister 2: Sophie Schmults
Older Girl 3 / KKG Sister 3: Gabrielle Vecciarelli
Rory / Older Boy: Jude Riley
Father / Older Boy: Atharva Nimbalwar
Older Boy: Buzz MacIntyre

Production Synopsis by Director Samantha Richert Boehm:
USUAL GIRLS is a play about the joys and horrors of growing up being a woman. Kyeoung has spent her entire life negotiating the double standards imposed on her as an Asian American woman. Bullied by boys in childhood, ostracized by girls as a teen, her experiences with sexuality grow more and more challenging as she embarks into womanhood through America’s white patriarchal societal standards of sexuality. Usual Girls chronicles the wonder, pain, and complexity of growing up female. Filled with wit and raw honesty, this biting and brutal comedy was nominated for a 2019 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.
Usual Girls is a show about the joys and horrors of growing up being a woman — the extreme joys and the extreme horrors.” – Ming Peiffer
“Peiffer’s play explores female sexuality without attaching it to a love story.  It’s a gutsy, vulnerable piece of writing and part of what feels like an immensely heartening wave of intelligent, compassionate, unafraid-to-get-ugly plays… [Usual Girls] remains clear-eyed and forceful, and it shines a neon light on how much of growing up, for usual girls, is a process of unlearning.” – New York Magazine

“Usual Girls is exciting to watch.  With hilarity and grimness, it connects the dots between pleasure, pain and shame.” – New York Times

Content Advisory: This play focuses heavily on sexual themes, racism and addiction abuse. There is explicit content involving alcohol and drug abuse, racial discrimination, and various references and depictions of pornography, body image, child endangerment, sexual identity, assault and rape.

Atmospheric Advisory:  This production includes the use of flashing lights, loud noises, and theatrical water-based haze.

Completed 23/24 Productions

Sisterhood of the Survivors

Written by Bianca Vranceanu (’22)
Directed by Victor Talmadge

Costume Design by Chelsea Kerl
Lighting Design by Caitlin Smith Rapoport
Projections Design by Zeke D’Ascoli (’23)
Scenic Design by Kathleen Chadwick
Sound Design by Anna Drummond
Dramaturgy by Hannah Levinson (’20)
Movement Direction by Ilya Vidrin
Intimacy Coordination by Samantha Richert Boehm
Production Stage Manager: Hannah Marks (’24)
Assistant Stage Manager: Jeje Dennis (’26)

Performances October 12 – 22

Cast List

Elena: Erin Fitzpatrick
Clara: Sophie Schmults
Maria: Rory O’Neill
Ilinca: Emily Rosakranse
Monica: Rachel Oppong

Production Synopsis by Playwright Bianca Vranceanu:
Based on the real stories of four Romanian human trafficking survivors, Sisterhood of Survivors is set in a long-term recovery shelter and explores the three periods of each woman’s life: their childhood, their human trafficking experience, and their healing journey. The monologue style play showcases how trust and strength is built through telling their stories, and how through their shared experience they can build relationships with one another and attain a life of freedom, independence, and resilience.

Content Warning:  This play focuses on the stories of survivors of human trafficking. Throughout the play themes of violence, exploitation, and abuse appear.

Atmospheric Warning:  This production includes the use of water based theatrical haze, water based theatrical fog, flashing/strobing lights, and loud noises.

Listen to the Spotify Playlist

View Performance Program       

The Moors

Written by Jen Silverman
Directed by Jonathan Carr

Scenic Design by Justin Lahue
Costume Design by Frances McSherry
Lighting Design by Isaak Olson
Sound Design by Aubrey Dube
Production Stage Manager:  Nico Fernandez (’25)

Performances: November 9 – 19

Watch the Cast explain THE MOORS in 10 Words

Read the Production Program

 

Cast List

Agatha: Halle Brockett
Huldey: Brenna Thornton
Emilie: Abby Kesselman
Marjory: Maerose Pepe
The Mastiff: Noah Braunstein
A Moor-Hen: Lily McCollum

Production Synopsis by Director Jonathan Carr: 
The Moors plunges us into the very serious world of the Brönte sisters: grand houses, traditional families, England in the 1800s.  Wait— what? Nobody in The Moors talks like that, and there’s barely a house— we can’t even tell what room we’re in, or who the maid is.  How did Wuthering Heights get to be funny? The only constant is turmoil as passionate women conspire to take control of their own lives. Emotions and desires run high, especially for the most introspective of all the characters: the dog.

“This black comedy by American writer, Jen Silverman, is a homage to the Brontës and a gothic pastiche in one.” – The Guardian

“With its quizzical tone, The Moors establishes a world of shifting possibility—nothing is as it seems, and nothing will change, but everything will be different.” – New Haven Review

“A disorienting mix of gothic tropes turned sideways, the patriarchy turned upside-down, talking animals turned to romance, and a chiming clock that marks time in the 1840s, the present, and no time at all.” – Isthmus

Content Advisory:  Play contains adult humor and content, sexual themes, scenes of violence, and mentions of sexual assault.

Exception to the Rule production poster

Exception to the Rule

Written by Dave Harris
Directed by Donvan Holt (’24)

Scenic Design by Baron E. Pugh
Costume Design by Kiara Escalera
Lighting Design by Makenna Harnden (’24)
Sound Design by Anna Drummond
Production Stage Manager:  Hannah Marks (’24)
Deck Stage Manager:  Mea Sangiacomo

The Department of Theatre is proud to collaborate with The Front Porch Arts Collective and Suffolk University on this production! 

Performances: February 21 – 25

View Production Program

Cast List

Mikayla: Mischa Moxey
Tommy: Jeancarlos Perez
Dayrin: TJ Robinson
Dasani: Jada Saintlouis
Abdul: Diego Cintrón
Erika: Essence Brevard-Alouidor

Production Synopsis by Director Donovan Holt (’24):
Stuck in detention in the worst high school in the city, six Black students try to make it through, fighting, flirting, and teasing. How does our society treat the kids that are considered “low achieving? What does it mean to be a token black kid in a sea of other black kids?

“Harris toys with stereotypes about Blackness in order to turn them inside out, pointing to the history, circumstances and motivations behind ways of thinking and behavior.” – New York Times

“With Exception to the Rule, provocative playwright Dave Harris takes audiences into the broken carceral system that exists within predominantly Black high schools across the nation.” – New York Theatre Guide

Content Advisory:  Profanity, subjects of generational trauma, PTSD, mentions of slavery, gun violence/ gang activity, detention to prison pipeline, cannabis.

Atmospheric Advisory:  This production will include the use of theatrical water-based haze, loud noises, and flashing lights.

CAPSTONE PROJECTS FESTIVAL

The Department of Theatre is thrilled to present a festival of original works created by some of our graduating students for their Capstone Projects.  Presentations of these original works will be in the Ryder Theatre Lab (334 Ryder Hall).

PRESENTATIONS:

Thursday March 14:

  • Joop’s Story:  A Veiled Resistance at 7pm, 7:45pm, 8:30pm, 9:15pm

Friday March 15:

  • Hex & The Invisible Line at 7pm

Saturday March 16:

  • Hex & The Invisible Line at 3pm
  • Joop’s Story:  A Veiled Resistance at 7pm, 7:45pm, 8:30pm, 9:15pm

 

PROJECTS:

Joop’s Story:  A Veiled Resistance – a Guided, Immersive Experience created by Andie Weiner (’24)

  • An installation about the Netherlands during the Holocaust, and specifically the role of women during the Holocaust. It weaves in a true story of one family’s bravery to take in a Jewish baby and another mother’s hardship to give her newborn to strangers.
  • Content Advisory:  This presentation includes references to the Holocaust, genocide, and antisemitism.

The Invisible Line – a play written by Mer Brown (’24)

  • Diamond, Malaika, and Justus are black students at Redwood High – a school where 85% of the students are white. As they start a new school year, they start to take notice of how the lack of diversity is and has affected the way they act and think.
  • Content Advisory:  This production includes the use of strong language, discussion of microaggressions, and mentions of “the n-word.”

Hex – a play written by Maerose Pepe (’24)

  • What happens when you combine witchcraft, the power of Stevie Nicks, and three broken hearts? Welcome to the coven.
  • Content Advisory:  This production includes mentions of blood, violence, drug use, abuse, sexual trauma, and depictions of misogyny.

Tickets, Auditions, & Resources

Audition for a Production

Auditions for our Spring 2023 Studio Theatre Productions have completed. We are so grateful to everyone who auditioned.  We were overwhelmed by your talent, commitment, and generosity.  We hope to see all of you back for our Fall 2023 Auditions in September.

More About Auditions       

Production Handbook

This Production Handbook promotes constructive communication and offers easily accessible information for all students involved in our Production Program. It also provides an overview of the various roles in the production process, explaining and clarifying the expectations and responsibilities of each.

View the Production Handbook       

Production Spaces

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