Hyannis
Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt
Lead Sponsor: Kate and Jim Wolf-Pizor
Partner Sponsor: Julie Benezet and Roger Pearce
Thursday, October 22, at 4:00 pm PT
Saturday, October 24, at 7:30 pm PT
Synopsis
In a small Cape Cod town, Michelle and her mother Fran run a small shop where they sell beach gear, souvenirs, snow globes, and the best fudge around. Michelle’s son, Tommy, has just come home from his second stint in rehab, and the financial toll of his heroin addiction has hit the business’ bottom line. Meanwhile, a young woman named Lauren is home from college to tend to her ailing mother, and she and Tommy make a connection that changes them both forever. Set over the course of a summer and a winter, Hyannis takes a look at the plague of despair and drugs infecting small town America.
Playwright Perspective
Hyannis was a play that came to me very quickly – the first draft was written in about three months. I suppose it’s because I know a little something about the subject matter. As the child of two addicts, I struggled with the idea of writing a “family” play. Sometimes the subjects closest to us are the hardest to express and cleave too close to the heart. A couple of years ago, I saw a documentary on HBO about the opioid crisis in Cape Cod, a place I have visited often and is very dear to me. The juxtaposition of this crisis with the beauty of the landscape was incongruent, yet utterly compelling. I did not grow up in the Cape – I grew up in a coastal Connecticut town – so it was close enough for me to understand the culture, but far away enough for it to not feel too much like my own life.
At its core, this is a play about how addiction can ravage a family, as it did mine. This play is my heartbreak, my grief laid bare. Through this play, I was able to write a love letter to the strong, flawed New England women who raised me. It allowed me to write a mother/daughter relationship that reminds me of my mother and my grandmother’s relationship. Perhaps it was a way for me to go back to an easier time in my life, in order to tell a story that is anything but easy.
Who
| Tommy | Arthur Langlie |
| Michelle | Samantha Rosentrater* |
| Fran | Jo Twiss* |
| Lauren | Carmen Flood |
| Kieran | Nolan Sanchez |
| Anita | Meagan Prahl |
| Stage directions | Erica Jernaill |
| – | – |
| Production Stage Manager | Emily Robinson |
| Production Assistant | Arissa Jones |
* Appearing through an Agreement between ANPF and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
Where
The small Cape Cod town of Hyannis, MA.
Poster art by: Kara Q. Lewis/Alphotographic
Runtime: 1 hour 53 minutes (includes 10 minute intermission)
Kari Bentley-Quinn lives in New York City, originally from the little coast town of Stratford, CT. Her plays have been presented at or developed with Lark Play Development Center, Lesser America, The Brick Theater, The Secret Theatre, The One Minute Play Festival, Pace University, Caps Lock Theater, Effable Arts, NYMadness, Team Awesome Robot, Packawallop Productions, Artemisia Theater, and more.
Kari’s full length plays include The Permanent Night (2008 FringeNYC award winner); Paper Cranes (Backstage Critic’s Pick); The Unlikely Ascent of Sybil Stevens (Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist); The Ocean Thought Nothing (2014 O’Neill Conference Finalist); Prepared (Kilroy’s List Honorable Mention); The Worst Mother in The World (Leah Ryan FEWW Prize Finalist); and Wendy and the Neckbeards (The Relentless Award Honorable Mention).
Kari is a co-founder of Mission to (dit)Mars, a theater company based in Queens, New York City. As part of the company, Kari is a leader of the Propulsion Lab, a bi-weekly writers group that supports emerging playwrights, as well as the Launch Pad Reading Series, which gives plays written in the lab their first public readings. Alongside her fellow co-founders, Kari has facilitated the development of more than 30 new plays, many of which have been produced all over the country as well as internationally.
Kari has been a finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Leah Ryan FEWW Prize, The Playwrights Realm, and the Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, and was a nominee for the Doric Wilson Playwriting Award. Kari was the winner of the Rita and Burton Goldberg Award at Hunter College, where she got her MFA under Tina Howe, Mark Bly, and Arthur Kopit.
Adrienne Campbell-Holt is the founding artistic director of Colt Coeur and the recipient of the 2018 Lucille Lortel Visionary Director Award. Current/upcoming projects include the world premiere of Other World, by Hunter Bell, Jeff Bowen & Ann McNamee, choreography by Karla Puno Garcia. Adrienne is currently developing new plays with Oscar Olivo, Lily Padilla, Antoinette Nwandu, and Rick Cleveland.
Recent credits include Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector (New York premiere, Colt Coeur); We Are Among Us by Stephen Belber (world premiere, City Theater, Pittsburgh); Hatef**k by Rehana Lew Mirza (world premiere, Colt Coeur); Joan by Stephen Belber (world premiere, Colt Coeur, starring Johanna Day); Downstairs by Theresa Rebeck (Primary Stages, starring Tyne Daly and Tim Daly); associate director on Dear Evan Hansen, directed by Michael Greif (Broadway); Zürich by Amelia Roper (world premiere, Colt Coeur @ NYTW); Thirst by C. A. Johnson (world premiere, Contempoary American Theater Festival); Afterwords, a new musical by Zoe Sarnak and Emily Kaczmarek (Village Theater, Seattle); and What We’re Up Against by Theresa Rebeck (WP Theater).
Adrienne has a BA from Barnard College.
Winner, Ashland New Plays Festival, 2020
Finalist, Great Plains Theater Conference, 2020
Finalist, New Works Festival, Kitchen Dog Theater, 2020
Reading, Summit Performance Theater, 2020
Reading, Premiere Stages, 2020
Reading, Premiere Stages at Kean, 2019
Finalist, Premiere Play Festival, Premiere Stages, 2019
Semi-Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Playwrights Foundation, 2019
Semi-Finalist, Seven Devils Playwriting Conference, ID Theater, 2019
Semi-Finalist, Writing Fellows, Playwrights Realm, 2019
Click here to view the ANPF 2020 digital playbill.
Click here to listen to a conversation with Kari Bentley-Quinn and Callie Kimball.
“You do angry/funny better than anyone.” So says past ANPF winner Callie Kimball to friend and current ANPF winner Kari Bentley-Quinn. Today on the podcast, they discuss Kari’s ANPF 2020 play HYANNIS and Callie’s play PERSEVERANCE, which ANPF workshopped in August. Their conversation then delves into the world at large, fan-girling over Lucy Thurber, and nurturing their artist selves.
ANPF will present virtual readings of HYANNIS, directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt, on Thursday, October 22, at 4:00 pm PT and Saturday, October 24, at 7:30 pm PT. Tickets are available sliding scale starting at $10 (no additional fees):
https://www.showtix4u.com/events/17627
We will also be releasing our recording of Kari’s play THE WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD on the podcast in November. Check out a five-minute preview here.