Hurricane Diane
February 7 - March 24, 2019 presented by WP Theater and New York Theatre Workshop
by Madeleine George
directed by Leigh Silverman
at New York Theatre Workshop
“ASTONISHING & HILARIOUS. A perfect storm of timely tragicomedy.” -New York Times
Meet Diane, a permaculture gardener dripping with butch charm. She’s got supernatural abilities owing to her true identity—the Greek god Dionysus—and she’s returned to the modern world to gather mortal followers and restore the Earth to its natural state. Where better to begin than with four housewives in a suburban New Jersey cul-de-sac? Pulitzer Prize finalist Madeleine George pens a hilarious evisceration of the blind eye we all turn to climate change and the bacchanalian catharsis that awaits us, even in our own backyards. Tony nominee Leigh Silverman (WP Theater’s Bright Half Life) directs.
“FANTASTIC, HEARTBREAKING and Dionysus be praised!—it’s a comedy. Hilarious, shattering, and full of keen observation and profound human affection, the play both lifts us up and wrings us out.” -New York Magazine
“BRILLIANTLY IMAGINATIVE! Dionysus never really left us—she’s traveled to New Jersey to save humanity from itself. That’s the starting point of Hurricane Diane, the uproarious queer riff on Euripides’s The Bacchae, a play that was already pretty queer to begin with.” -Theatermania
Madeleine George
(Playwright) plays include Hurricane Diane, The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence (Pulitzer Prize finalist, Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award), Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England (Susan Smith Blackburn finalist), Precious Little and The Zero Hour (Jane Chambers Award, Lambda Literary Award finalist). Honors include a Whiting Foundation Award, the Princess Grace Award for Playwriting and three MacDowell Fellowships. Madeleine is an alumna of New Dramatists, a founding member of the Obie Award-winning playwrights’ collective 13P (Thirteen Playwrights, Inc.), the Fellow for Curriculum and Program Development at the Bard Prison Initiative at Bard College and the Mellon Playwright in Residence at Two River Theater in New Jersey.
Leigh Silverman
(Director) Broadway: Violet by Jeanine Tseori/Brian Crawley (Roundabout; Tony nomination), Chinglish (David Henry Hwang), Well (Lisa Kron). Upcoming: Soft Power by Jeanine Tseori/David Henry Hwang (Ahmanson Theater/Curan Theater); Wild Goose Dreams (La Jolla Playhouse/Public Theater). Recent Off-Broadway: Harry Clarke (Vineyard Theatre/Audible at the Minetta Lane), Sweet Charity (New Group), On the Exhale (Roundabout), The Outer Space (Public Theater), All the Ways to Say I Love You (MCC), The Way We Get By (Second Stage), Tumacho (Clubbed Thumb), American Hero (Williamstown Theater Festival, Second Stage), No Place to Go (Public Theater), Kung Fu(Signature Theatre), The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence (Playwrights Horizons), The Madrid (MTC), Golden Child (Signature Theatre), In the Wake(CTG/Berkeley/Public Theater, Obie Award, Lortel nomination), The Call (Playwrights Horizons), Go Back to Where You Are (Playwrights Horizons, Obie Award), From Up Here(MTC, Drama Desk nomination), Yellow Face (CTG/Public Theater), Oedipus at Palm Springs (NYTW). Encores: Really Rosie, The Wild Party, Violet.
MIA BARRON
(Carol Fleischer) recently completed a run at BAM’s Next Wave Festival of the New York premiere of Joan Didion’s The White Album, which will tour to Los Angeles in the spring. Other New York theatre includes: The Wolves (Obie, Drama Desk Awards for Best Ensemble); The Pain and the Itch, She Stoops to Comedy, The World Over (Playwrights Horizons); The Coast of Utopia, Domesticated, What Once We Felt, QED (Lincoln Center); Spirit Control (Manhattan Theatre Club); Dying for It (Atlantic); Knickerbocker (The Public). Regional work includes Williamstown Theatre Festival, New York Stage & Film, Mark Taper, Geffen, Old Globe, Long Wharf, Westport Playhouse, Huntington, Guthrie, among others. She is thrilled to be reunited with director Leigh Silverman and actor Danielle Skraastad after co-creating and acting in the Off-Broadway production of Big Times. Television includes: “Modern Family,” “NCIS,” “Law & Order,” “Elementary,” “Newsroom,” “Glee,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Blue Bloods,” “Bones,” “Medium,” the Adult Swim comedy shows “Children’s Hospital,” “Newsreaders,” and “The Venture Bros,” in which she voices the character of Molotov. She is currently playing Emily on the series “Get Shorty.” MFA from NYU
MICHELLE BECK
(Renee Shapiro-Epps). New York theater credits include A Raisin in the Sun (Broadway); Richard III, Love’s Labour’s Lost (Public Theater); world premiere of A Kid Like Jake (LCT3); As You Like It, The Tempest (BAM/Old Vic – The Bridge Project); Much Ado About Nothing (Theater for a New Audience); Measure for Measure (Epic Theatre Ensemble); The Changeling (Red Bull); Uncle Vanya (Pearl); The Sentinels (59e59). Regionally, she has performed in the world premiere of Anna Ziegler’s The Wanderers (The Old Globe), King Charles III (ACT, Seattle Rep, Shakespeare Theater); Tartuffe (McCarter/ Yale Rep); Hamlet (Shakespeare Theater); Twelfth Night (Chicago Shakespeare Festival); Proof (TheatreWorks Palo Alto – BATCC nomination); The Winter’s Tale, Cyrano de Bergerac (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). She has worked on “Luke Cage” (recurring); “Claws;” “Homeland;” “Madam Secretary.” Films include Ovum; Ambition’s Debt; Death of a Prince; Spinning into Butter. She co-wrote/directed the film Sam & Julia with Randy Harrison. She is a member of the Artists Advisory Council with Epic Theater Ensemble and Dorset Theater Festival’s Women Artist Writing Group, where her play The Others is in development.
BECCA BLACKWELL
(Diane) is an NYC based trans actor, performer and writer. Existing between genders, and preferring the pronoun “they,” Blackwell works collaboratively with playwrights and directors to expand our sense of personhood and the body through performance. Some of their collaborations have been with Young Jean Lee, Half Straddle, Jennifer Miller’s Circus Amok, Richard Maxwell, Erin Markey, Sharon Hayes, Theater of the Two Headed Calf and Lisa D’Amour. Film/TV includes: Untitled Noah Baumbach Project, “Shameless,” Deadman’s Barstool, and “Jack in the Box.” Becca is a recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Artist Award. Becca is the writer and performer of the solo show They, Themself and Schmerm.
DANIELLE SKRAASTAD
(Pam Annunziata) was last seen in Annie Dorsen’s play The Slow Room at Performance Space NY. Recent credits include Homebody by Tony Kushner at The Ancram Opera House and the World Premieres of The Remains by Ken Urban and Linger by Craig Garcia. Danielle was last seen on Broadway in All My Sons. Off-Broadway credits include Lisa Kron’s In The Wake at The Public and Tony Kushner’s iHo which was a co-production between The Public and The Signature. Danielle has been seen at The Signature in The Moundbuilders and at Playwrights Horizons in The Pain and the Itch. Other NY works include Big Times co-written by Danielle, Maggie Lacey and Mia Barron. Big Times was directed by Leigh Silverman and produced by WET. Danielle has also been seen at PS 122 (Carrie), The Cherry Lane (Lascivious Something and Fugue), The Ohio (Cressida Among the Greeks). Regionally, Danielle has worked at The Studio, Premiere Stages, Two River, The McCarter, StageWorks/Hudson, Cleveland Playhouse, The Old Globe. MFA: NYU Grad Acting.
KATE WETHERHEAD
(Beth Wann) is thrilled to reprise her role as Beth in Hurricane Diane after its premiere at Two River Theater in 2017. Kate is the co-creator, writer, director and star of the comedy Submissions Only (currently streaming on The Stage Network), as well as co-author of the Jack & Louisa book series for Penguin Workshop. Broadway: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Legally Blonde. Off-Broadway: The Other Josh Cohen (Drama Desk nomination), Clever Little Lies, Ordinary Days, Tatjana in Color, and Sarah, Plain and Tall. Kate has worked regionally at theaters such as The Guthrie, Dallas Theater Center, George Street Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse, Bucks County Playhouse and Goodspeed Opera House.
New York Theater Workshop
(Co-Producer) New York Theatre Workshop, now in its fourth decade of incubating important new works of theatre, continues to honor its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape all our lives. Each season, from its home in New York’s East Village, NYTW presents five new productions, over 80 readings and numerous workshop productions for over 45,000 audience members. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs, including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies and artist fellowships. Since its founding, NYTW has produced over 150 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson’s Rent; Tony Kushner’s Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul; Doug Wright’s Quills; Claudia Shear’s Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde; Paul Rudnick’s The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla; Martha Clarke’s Vienna: Lusthaus; Will Power’s The Seven and Fetch Clay, Make Man; Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest, Far Away, A Number and Love and Information; Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen’s Aftermath; Rick Elice’s Peter and the Starcatcher; Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová and Enda Walsh’s Once; David Bowie and Enda Walsh’s Lazarus; Dael Orlandersmith’s The Gimmick and Forever; Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown; and eight acclaimed productions directed by Ivo van Hove. NYTW’s productions have received a Pulitzer Prize, seventeen Tony Awards and assorted Obie, Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Awards.
