Seven Strangers in a Circle
(3m, 4w)
Robert and Masha meet in a bar, and less than ten minutes later, decide to marry. Months later, Masha sits with her brother Gus to discuss her divorce. Gus is inspired to ask his husband Larry to expand their family. Larry arranges to meet with a young girl who might be the key to doing so. Every scene in Seven Strangers in a Circle is a little duet, followed by a scene featuring one of those characters, and a new person, until the circle completes with a final scene between Robert and Masha, who started the whole thing. A modern take on Schnitzler’s La Ronde, but instead of focusing on sexual couplings, this play looks at lovers, spouses, siblings, roommates, employers, and parents as well, while showing that we’re all a little more connected than we realize.
The House of the Seven Gables
(5m, 3w)
An adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece, this is a story of evil and redemption that plays out over hundreds of years and multiple generations in two families: The Pyncheons and the Maules. In colonial Salem, Mass., a wealthy Colonel covets a piece of land owned by Matthew Maule, a poor farmer. When Maule refuses to sell, the Colonel accuses him of witchcraft, sees him hang, and buys his land at auction. Two hundred years later, the house he built there stands in disrepair, inhabited only by Hepzibah Pyncheon, a lonely spinster, and the mysterious Mr. Holgrave, who rents a room toward the back of the house. But a young cousin from the country is on her way to the house, and Hepzibah’s brother shall soon be released from a nearby asylum for the mentally ill. Secrets long thought buried with the dead will be revealed. Pyncheon-House itself is both a powerful character as well as a metaphor for America, in ways that still resonate today, perhaps more strongly than ever.
Smoke & Mirrors
(3m, 3w)
Elizabeth is desperately in love with Tom. Tom leads her on, but doesn’t mind occasionally sleeping with her friend, Simone. Simone wants to believe she’s above such trivial things as love, and attempts to pick up Gary, but things don’t go as planned. Tom also busies himself sexually harassing Jessica, his employee, but she’s a lot more interested in a new co-worker, Andrew … who also happens to be Elizabeth’s brother. A collage of short scenes and direct-address monologues paint a picture of early 1990s twenty-somethings, desperate to connect but unsure how. Smoke & Mirrors was produced by Stolen Fire Productions in 1996, and several monologues were reprinted in Smith & Kraus’s Best Men’s Stage Monologues and Best Women’s Stage Monologues that same year.