Gloucester Stage Company To Present THE THIN PLACE

Gloucester Stage Company, under the leadership of Interim Artistic Director Paula Plum and Managing Director Christopher Griffith, will close out its powerful 2022 season with the haunting production of THE THIN PLACE.

Directed by Dee Dee Batteast, part ghost story, part dissection of "truth," the play builds a never-ending loop between your head and your sixth sense and satisfies the cravings of both. With insight and relentless curiosity, the Tony Award-nominated playwright Lucas Hnath's play transforms the theater into an intimate séance, crafting an unnerving testament to the power of the mind, which has a mind of its own.

"I wrote down "The Thin Place" on a piece of scrap paper and thought to myself it would make a good title for a play. I didn't know what would happen in it; I just thought someday I'd like to write that play. Three years later I've written it. I won't say more about where the play comes from or what it means. Best to watch it with a blank mind. The less you know, the better," shared playwright Lucas Hnath.

"Sometimes we open doors that are hard to close. Sometimes you go to the theater and it follows you home, and if you're not careful... it never leaves," said the production's director Dee Dee Batteast. "Lucas Hnath builds this piece like a fun house mirror. He shows us ourselves as a trick. We step inside and see the funny, sometimes goulish reflection. And just when we think we've figured it out, he reveals that it is actually a two-way mirror and something has been staring back the whole time."

The suspenseful ghost story probes the profoundly human need for connection as it follows the burgeoning relationship between two women. Linda communicates professionally with the dead, who are still here, just in a different part of here, in the "thin place" and Hilda is a keen observer who's seeking answers. Through their conversations, THE THIN PLACE explores the living world, the worlds beyond, and the fragile boundary between them.

Making their Gloucester Stage debuts, Cynthia Beckert and Siobhán Carroll lead the small cast as Linda, the veteran medium, and Hilda, who is grappling with a strange loss. Accomplished actors Joshua Wolf Coleman and Bren McElroy also star in this quietly chilling story which crackles with spiritual vulnerability. And yet at the same time, the enthralling story plays with perceptions of reality and the omnipresence of death.

THE THIN PLACE will run from September 30 through October 23. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 pm at Gloucester Stage Company, 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA. Tickets are now on sale and available at GloucesterStage.com.

The production is made possible with support from The Beauport Hospitality Group. The 2022 Season at Gloucester Stage has been made possible by the Shubert Foundation and the Applied Materials Foundation.

About the Artists:

Lucas Hnath (Playwright) is a critically acclaimed playwright whose work has been produced nationally and internationally, with his most recent play, Dana H., at the Vineyard Theatre in New York. Lucas received a 2017 Tony Award nomination for Best Play with A Doll's House, Part 2. Hnath's other plays include Hillary and Clinton, The Thin Place, Red Speedo, The Christians, A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney, Isaac's Eye, and Death Tax. His work has been on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre and Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. His plays have also premiered at the Humana Festival of New Plays, Victory Gardens, and South Coast Repertory. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, and an alumnus of New Dramatists. Hnath has been recognized with many awards, including the Whiting Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Kesselring Prize, Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, Obie Award for Playwriting, Steinberg Playwright Award, and the Windham-Campbell Literary Prize.

Dee Dee Batteast (Director) is making her Gloucester Stage directorial debut with THE THIN PLACE. The accomplished actor, writer, and director's other recent regional theater credits include work with Clarence Brown Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, PlayMakers Repertory Company, and Indiana Repertory Theatre. Her television credits include Chicago Fire. Batteast earned her undergraduate degree from Ball State University, where she now serves as an adjunct professor and her MFA from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Cynthia Beckert* (Linda), a long-time resident of Los Angeles, was a member of the all-female LA Women's Shakespeare Company under the direction of Lisa Wolpe, where her favorite roles included Hamlet, Laertes, Bassanio, and Duke Antonio. She performed with Laguna Playhouse, Ensemble Theatre Company, A Noise Within, Kingsmen Shakespeare Company, and many others. Recent Central Florida appearances include Pipeline (American Stage), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (The Hippodrome), and four seasons with MCT including Grounded, Rapture, Blister, Burn, Top Girls, and Men on Boats. Cynthia is part of the workshop and premiere cast of the world's largest immersive theatre experience, Disney's Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser, helmed by Sleep No More director Mikhael Tara Garver. Cynthia earned her MFA in Acting from UC Irvine and her MA in Theatre from FSU.

Siobhán Carroll (Hilda) has appeared in a variety of productions throughout Greater Boston with credits including Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Blue Kettle and Here We Go (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company), Red Velvet (OWI), My Fascination With Creepy Ladies, and I, Snowflake (Anthem Theatre Company), The Three Sisters (Apollinaire Theatre Company), and Next To Normal (Arts After Hours). In New York, her credits include Lady Macbeth (The Cutting Room), Which Way To The Ivy Covered Well (Rochester Fringe), and Sing Goddess(HERE Arts Center). She also can be seen as Petra in the series Ms/Manage on Black Oak TV.

Joshua Wolf Coleman* (Jerry) most recently performed with Gloucester Stage in Mr. Fullerton, Between the Sheets. Regionally, he has performed in Miss Holmes (Greater BostonSC), August Wilson's Radio Golf (Trinity Rep), Cloud 9and A Christmas Carol (Ebenezer Scrooge) (Nora Theatre Company at Central Square Theater) and The Crucible(Bedlam Theatre). He has worked with luminaries of the stage, including Edward Albee, Joseph Chaiken, and Anne Bogart, at The Guthrie Theater, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and La Jolla Playhouse. Other roles include Norry the Drag Queen, the Headless Sheep, Puddn'head Wilson, Macbeth, Lysander, Friar Lawrence, Angelo, and Iago. His television work includes Kevin can F*** Himself, Shameless, Bosch, How to Get Away With Murder, The West Wing, Scandal, House, Gray's Anatomy, Touchstone's film Hidalgo and Netflix's Aftermath.

Bren McElroy * (Sylvia) is making her official Gloucester Stage debut, although she has appeared in several of its AfterDark readings. Relocating to the States after several years in Dublin, Bren is best known as Cassandra in the Irish National TV series Fair City. She has performed in theaters across the U.S., Ireland, and the UK. Her favorite appearances include Lynn Nottage's world premiere of Las Meninas (San Jose Repertory Theatre), the premiere of The Robb'd That Smiled (Dublin Fringe Festival/Old Museum Arts Theater, Belfast), Othello (American Conservatory Theater,) and The Air Conditioned Bubble (Tamarind Theater, LA). This past year, Bren has starred in twelve independent films, many premiering in' 22/'23 film festivals. Select film and television credits include ABC's All My Children, Paramount's Dead Man on Campus, and most recently, a Dublin-based film, A Story for Niamh. Also accomplished in voice acting, she was a morning news reader for KPFK in LA and recently recorded two books in a three-book series on Audible with over thirty characters. Bren navigates between Boston and NYC, and as a former National Champion in Dramatic Interpretation, coaches acting, voiceover & public speaking. She received her MFA in Acting at the American Conservatory Theater, BA in Theater, Kenyon College, and attended the British American Drama Academy and Carnegie Mellon.

All performances, unless noted, are Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 pm at Gloucester Stage Company located at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester. Tickets on sale now.

For additional information, contact The Box Office, located at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, or can be reached at 978.281.4433 or boxoffice@gloucesterstage.com

ºMember Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) Union

*Member Actors Equity Association (AEA) Union

To post a comment, you must register and login.