Wives
- Written by Jaclyn Backhaus
- Directed by Margot Bordelon
Jaclyn Backhaus is a playwright, cofounder of Fresh Ground Pepper, and new member of The Kilroys. Her plays include Men On Boats (New York Times Critics’ Pick, Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons, published by Dramatists Play Service), India Pale Ale (Manhattan Theatre Club, recipient of the 2018 Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play), You Across From Me (co-written with three other writers for the Humana Festival), Folk Wandering (book writer and co-lyricist with 11 composers, Pipeline Theatre Company), and You On the Moors Now (Theater Reconstruction Ensemble), among others. She was the 2016 Tow Foundation Playwright-in-Residence at Clubbed Thumb and she is currently in residence at Lincoln Center. Backhaus holds a BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch, where she now teaches. She hails from Phoenix, Arizona, and currently resides in Ridgewood, Queens with her husband, director Andrew Scoville and their son Ernie.
(Updated Mar 2019)
Margot Bordelon is a Brooklyn-based director who specializes in new work. Current/Upcoming: Do You Feel Anger? by Mara Nelson-Greenberg at the Vineyard, and Something Clean by Selina Fillinger at Roundabout Underground. Recent projects: Eddie and Dave by Amy Staats at Atlantic Theater Company, Plot Points in Our Sexual Development by Miranda Rose Hall at LCT3, Wilder Gone by Angela Hanks for Clubbed Thumb (NYT Critic’s Pick), Do You Feel Anger? at ATL’s Humana Festival, The Last Class: A Jazzercize Play by Megan Hill at ACT in Seattle, Too Heavy For Your Pocket by Jireh Breon Holder at the Roundabout Underground and the Alliance, The Pen by Julianne Wick Davis and Dan Collins for Premieres NYC (NYT Critic’s Pick), peerless by Jiehae Park at Yale Rep, Cherry Lane, and Marin Theatre Company, and A Delicate Ship by Anna Ziegler for Playwrights Realm (NYT Critic’s Pick). Margot’s work has been seen at Ars Nova, American Theater Co., Berkeley Rep, Cherry Lane, Clubbed Thumb, Dodo, Juilliard, The Lark, NYTW, P73, Perry Mansfield, Play Penn, Portland Center Stage, Primary Stages, The Public, PWC, Rattlestick, SPACE at Ryder Farm, Steppenwolf, the Wilma, and Woolly Mammoth, among others. Margot moved east after spending six years in Chicago working as a director, writer and performer. She is a founding member of Theatre Seven of Chicago, and spent four seasons working on the artistic staff of Lookingglass Theatre. BFA: Cornish College of the Arts. MFA: Yale School of Drama. www.margotbordelon.com
From the brawny castles of 16th Century France, to the rugged plains of 1960s Idaho, to the strapping fortresses of 1920s India, all hail the remarkable stories of Great Men! — and their whiny, witchy, vapid, vengeful, jealous wives. In this kaleidoscopic, time-hopping comedy, Jaclyn Backhaus pushes past patriarchal cliché to reach an ecstatic breakthrough, untethering stories and history — and language itself — from the visions made by men.
Jody Falco and Jeffrey Steinman Emerging Playwright CommissionFeaturing
Purva Bedi
Wife 1Aadya Bedi
Wife 3Sathya Sridharan
ManAdina Verson
Wife 2
Playwrights: Dance Nation (Drama Desk Award). Other Off-Broadway: Passage (Soho Rep.), India Pale Ale (MTC), An Ordinary Muslim (NYTW), Uncommon Sense (Tectonic), IDIOT! (HERE), Rise of Dorothy Hale (St. Luke's). W/ Target Margin as Associate Artist: Reread Another, Tempest, Second Language, Ten Blocks on the Camino Real. Film: The Assistant, Sully, Equity, Kumare, Cosmopolitan. TV: “Billions,” “High Maintenance,” “Person of Interest,” “Madame Secretary,” “Nurse Jackie.” Williams College, BADA, Public Theatre Shakespeare Lab.
(Updated July 2019)
Playwrights debut. Selected works include Soho Rep.’s Passage, The Culture Project’s Betrayed (Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play), EST Marathon Series’ Jesus in Manhattan. Regionally, she was nominated for a Barrymore Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her work at The Wilma’s Scorched (Wajdi Mouawad). Other regional theatres include Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cleveland Playhouse, Kennedy Center, Williams College, and New York Stage & Film. Film: Fireflies, Koel, Grant Street Shaving Co. TV: “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “High Maintenance,” “The Enemy Within.” Upcoming: Testmatch at Yale Rep.
Playwrights debut. Off-Broadway: India Pale Ale (MTC), An Ordinary Muslim (NYTW), Two Mile Hollow (WP Theater), The Winter’s Tale (The Public/Mobile Unit), Hamlet (Waterwell). NYC: Ultimate Beauty Bible (Page 73), Frontieres Sans Frontieres (Bushwick Starr). Film: Premise (Upcoming); All The Little Things We Kill, Bikini Moon, Dastaar (SXSW); Tourists, Open Roads (Nantucket). Television: “Succession,” “Elementary,” “The Tick,” “Blindspot,” “The Blacklist,” “Two Second Horror Stories.” 2013 Princess Grace Award Winner. MFA: NYU
Playwrights debut. Broadway: Indecent. Off-Broadway: Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (MCC), The Lucky Ones (Ars Nova), Eddie and Dave (Atlantic), Indecent (Vineyard), The Servant of Two Masters (TFANA). Regional: Radio Island (NYSAF), As You Like It (Shakespeare Theatre Company, DC), The Winter’s Tale (Yale Rep), 4000 Miles (Cincinnati Playhouse), Peerless (Barrington Stage). TV: “Mozart in the Jungle,” “The Strain,” “Wormwood.” Film: The Kitchen. MFA: Yale School of Drama. adinaverson.com
Creative Team
Amith Chandrashaker
Lighting DesignerErin Gioia Albrecht
Production Stage ManagerReid Thompson
Scenic DesignerValérie Thérèse Bart
Costume DesignerKate Marvin
Sound Designer and Original MusicJ. Jared Janas
Hair and Wig DesignLissette Velez-Cross
Assistant Stage ManagerPlaywrights debut. Off-Broadway: Fairview (Soho Rep., Berkeley Rep, TFANA); Boesman & Lena (Signature), The Lucky Ones (Ars Nova), Blue Ridge (Atlantic), Cardinal (2ST), Fire in Dreamland (Public). Opera: The Flying Dutchman (Houston Grand Opera), Falstaff (Opera Omaha), The Scarlet Letter (Opera Colorado). Dance: Alexander Ekman, Liz Gerring, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Rennie Harris, Aalto Ballettt Theatre Essen, Staatstheater Nürnberg, The National Dance Company of Wales, and The Royal New Zealand Ballet.
Playwrights Horizons: Bella, A Life, Men On Boats, Marjorie Prime, The Christians. Broadway: Bullets Over Broadway, Matilda, Bronx Bombers, Hands on a Hardbody. Other Off-Broadway: Charm, Punk Rock, The Village Bike, The Third Story (MCC); Sundown, Yellow Moon (Ars Nova/WP Theater); Red Speedo (NYTW); Abundance (TACT); Venice (The Public); Bronx Bombers (Primary Stages). Regional: multiple productions at The Old Globe and La Jolla Playhouse, most recently the development of John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons. MFA: UC San Diego.
Playwrights debut. Off-Broadway: Something Clean, Too Heavy For Your Pocket (Roundabout), Eddie and Dave (Atlantic), Wilder Gone (Clubbed Thumb); Fruiting Bodies, Among the Dead, House Rules (Ma-Yi); A Delicate Ship (Playwrights Realm), Half Moon Bay (Lesser America), La Susanna, Fidelio (Heartbeat Opera). Upcoming: Miss You Like Hell (Baltimore Center Stage), Queen (Geva), You Lost Me (Denver Center), What The End Will Be (Roundabout). MFA: Yale. Member of Wingspace and USA-829. reidthompsondesign.com
Playwrights debut. Off-Broadway: Little Women (Primary Stages), Too Heavy For Your Pocket (Roundabout), Vanity Fair (Pearl Theatre), Poor Yella Rednecks (MTC, South Coast Rep), The Servant of Two Masters (TFANA, Seattle Rep, Guthrie). Regional: POP! (scenic, Yale Rep), Song of Summer (Trinity Rep), A Doll’s House, Part 2 (Actors Theatre Louisville), Listen Wilhelmina! (costume/scenic, Wolf Trap), Rigoletto (Minnesota Opera), The Great Leap (Denver Center). MFA: Yale School of Drama. valeriebart.com
Playwrights debut. Off-Broadway: Happy Days (TFANA, Mark Taper Forum), Fruiting Bodies (Ma-Yi), Chimpanzee (HERE), [Porto] (WP), Somebody’s Daughter (Second Stage Uptown), Wilder Gone (Clubbed Thumb), Fidelio (Heartbeat Opera). Regional: The Magician’s Daughter (Geva Theatre), Sweat (Asolo Repertory Theatre), Men on Boats (A.C.T.), A Doll’s House, Part 2 (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Indecent (Guthrie). Associate Artist with Target Margin Theater and Little Lord. MFA, Yale School of Drama. katemarvinsound.com
Playwrights: Mankind, Bella. Broadway: Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, Gettin' the Band Back Together, Bandstand, Indecent, Sunset Boulevard, The Visit, The Real Thing, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, Motown, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, All about Me, Next to Normal. Recent Off-Broadway/Regional: Toni Stone (Roundabout), BLKS (MCC), Nantucket Sleigh Ride (Lincoln Center), Alice by Heart (MCC), Jagged Little Pill (A.R.T.), Yours Unfaithfully (Mint Theatre, Drama Desk nomination).
Playwrights: The Pain of My Belligerence, Noura, I Was Most Alive With You. Regional: Skeleton Crew (Westport Country Playhouse); Born For This (Cutler Majestic Theatre); Jagged Little Pill (A.R.T.); Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III (Actors’ Shakespeare Project); A Bright Room Called Day (Emerson Stage); Alcina (Opera del West); Fidelio (NEMPAC Opera); The Tempest (Actors’ Shakespeare Project); From the Deep (FringeNYC). BFA: Stage Management, Emerson College.
Winking and exuberant! Jaclyn Backhaus’ Wives is a swift and playful feminist manifesto.
Jaclyn Backhaus’ feverish, feminist comedy is performed with enjoyable brio by the cast.