THE SUITCASE UNDER THE BED by Teresa Deevy Four Short Plays Now playing and coming Soon!
One Remarkable Evening
THE SUITCASE UNDER THE BED An Evening of Four Short Plays by Teresa Deevy July 21 through September 23 Tue - Sat 7:30PM Sat & Sun 2:00PM Wed matinees 8/23, 9/6 & 9/20 No performance 9/5
Special Brunch Event with Jacqui Deevy Sunday, July 23 12pm Brunch and pre-show talk with Jacqui Deevy (Teresa’s grendniece, literary executor and keeper of the flame) before matinee performance of The Suitcase Under the Bed. At West Bank Cafe. Brunch and matinee ticket: $78.50 Brunch only: $40.00 Brunch and pre-show talk with Jacqui Deevy (Teresa’s grandniece) Also, Sat. July 22 after the matinee Post-show EnrichMint talk with Jacqui Deevy Call 212.315.0231 for reservations
THE LUCKY ONE By A.A. Milne Directed by Jesse Marchese Must close June 25 Tue - Sat 7:30pm; Sat & Sun 2pm “Convey(s) why Milne was a successful playwright before he became better known for those enduring children’s stories about Winnie-the-Pooh and friends.” New York Times “So good a play that it’s hard to understand why it’s so rarely revived and isn’t considered at least a minor classic.” Talkin’ Broadway
Spring Raffle Teresa Deevy had six plays produced by the Abbey Theatre between 1930 and 1936, and then the Abbey turned its back on her, effectively ending her career as an Abbey playwright. “I must just make an opening elsewhere,” she wrote to a friend, and then began to write for the radio—a remarkable turn of events, given that she was completely deaf. She lost her hearing due to an illness in her late teens and was never able to hear her beautifully-crafted dialogue spoken. In 2010, Mint Theater Company re-introduced author Teresa Deevy to the world with our acclaimed production of the play the Abbey turned down, Wife to James Whelan, followed by Temporal Powers in 2011 and Katie Roche in 2013. Mint has received worldwide recognition for our effort to restore Teresa Deevy to her proper place in the canon of Irish dramatic literature. Fintan O’Toole, one of Ireland’s leading public intellectuals and drama critics, acknowledged the importance of both Deevy and Mint’s exploration of her work in the pages of the Irish Times in 2013: Deevy was the great white hope of the Abbey in the mid-1930s. Katie Roche was included alongside the staples of O’Casey and Synge on the Abbey’s tour of the US in 1937. And then she was simply dropped, suddenly and without explanation. Deevy’s next play, Holiday House, was accepted by the Abbey but then shelved, and she was never told why. That breach has never been properly repaired. The Abbey has twice staged Katie Roche in recent decades... But there has been no coherent exploration of Deevy’s work as a whole by any Irish company. Instead, the Mint Theater in New York, which specialises in rediscovering lost work, has engaged in what it calls the Teresa Deevy Project. This summer, Mint will resume our Teresa Deevy Project with The Suitcase Under the Bed, so named for the location where Deevy’s writing was stored for decades, prior to Mint’s Artistic Director Jonathan Bank’s arrival at the Deevy family home in Waterford in 2010.
Reserve your First Priority Club tickets by calling 212-315-0231.
Meet the
Four short plays. One remarkable evening.
Cast
THE KING OF SPAIN'S DAUGHTER “Annie Kinsella was born with romance in her soul,” the Irish Independent wrote when The King of Spain’s Daughter premiered at the Abbey in 1935. “To her, life was the splendid glowing vision of a poet…yet she lived among peasants who saw her romanticism as wildness and folly, and merely called her liar when the splendor of her imagination gave the semblance of reality to her dreams.”
Gina Costigan Irish Rep: Crackskull Row
Ellen Adair Mint: What the Public Wants
“One of the best known and most highly esteemed of Teresa Deevy’s plays. And rightly so. For Annie Kinsella… is one of the author’s most striking creations.” “This character study of a young girl—a girl whose thoughts are fired by dreams of romance in faraway places—has in it all the subtlety and delicacy that are the fine hallmark of Miss Deevy’s work.”
Sarah Nicole Deaver Waiting for Lefy (dir. Moritz von Stuelpnagel)
STRANGE BIRTH (World Premiere)
Cynthia Mace Yale Rep: Romeo & Juliet
Sara Meade works at a small rooming house where she observes with determined detachment the heartache of each resident; a caution against falling in love herself. Suddenly the day’s post brings a letter that challenges her resolve. This delicate, sweet play was published twice but has never been staged. A review in Irish Writing said it “shows the author in full mastery of her powers.”
HOLIDAY HOUSE (World Premiere) It’s August at the seaside and the family is arriving for the summer holiday. Derek expects to be the center of attention, the one thing they all have in common. There will be Doris to whom he was once engaged, Jil to whom he is now married, and his brother Neil, now married to Doris. “Of course Mother takes it for granted always that people are happy, and that everyone loves seeing everyone else,— but they don’t, not always.”
IN THE CELLAR OF MY FRIEND (World Premiere) Belle believes that she and Barney came to an understanding last night, but she arrives this morning to a great surprise and a new understanding. A hint of mysticism adds to the mystery of this haunting play.
Colin Ryan Broadway: Waiting for Godot
Aidan Redmond Mint: Temporal Powers, Wife to James Whelan
A.J. Shively Broadway: Bright Star (Drama Desk nom.)
Creative team: Direction: Jonathan Bank Sets: Vicki R. Davis Costumes: Andrea Varga Lights: Zach Blane Sound: Jane Shaw Props: Joshua Yocom Dialects & Dramaturgy: Amy Stoller
Thank you to everyone who helped make our Spring Benefit in April at the Colony Club a huge success!
Benefit Host Committee Member John David Metcalfe chats with Mint’s Associate Producer Rebecca Robertson.
Mint’s Development Consultant Ellen Mittenthal chats with Board Member Gretchen Adkins.
Benefit guests James Roe and Gemzel Hernandez chat with other attendees over cocktails.
Board Member Kathryn Swintek enjoys cocktails and conversation with fellow Benefit attendees.
Long-time Mint supporter and attendee Ruth Friendly smiles for the camera.
Benefit guest Jivan Wolf mingles with Mint staff and guests during cocktail hour. Benefit guests enjoy dinner in the Colony Club’s beautiful ballroom. Photos by Todd Cerveris.
The Lucky One cast member Cynthia Harris mingles with Benefit guests.
Jacqui
A Day by the Sea cast member Julian Elfer and The Lucky One cast member Michael Frederic play the roles of critic and A.A. Milne in a special performance.
Deevy Weekend
Jacqui Deevy is Teresa’s grandniece and literary executor — a role she inherited from her father. Jacqui grew up living in “Landscape”, the Deevy family home in Waterford, where Tessa (as she was known by her family and friends) was born and lived. Jacqui and director Jonathan Bank first met at Landscape in 2010, where together they poured over the contents of the “suitcase under the bed.” Jacqui will share stories of Tessa and her family, and share her insights on the work of her great Aunt. The Suitcase Under the Bed contains work that she has never seen performed, making her presence in New York an event with special meaning.
Post-show discussion: Sat, July 22nd, after the matinee. Special Brunch Event: Sun, July 23 before the matinee. Where: West Bank Cafe, 407 West 42nd Street Cost: $78.50 — includes Brunch, Premium Seating for the matinee, and a copy of Teresa Deevy Reclaimed, signed by Jacqui Deevy. For more information or to reserve your place, call: 212.315.0231
Dear Friends, I’ll be heading back into the rehearsal room very soon to work on my fourth Teresa Deevy production, this time an evening of four short plays that I’m calling The Suitcase Under the Bed. It is hard for me to realize that some First Priority Club members have not seen any of our previous Deevy productions, but I know it’s true. Between August of 2010 and March of 2013 we produced three of her full-length plays and published them all in a book called Teresa Deevy Reclaimed. I’ve always known we would return to her work at some point. The reason for staging The Suitcase Under the Bed this summer is to coordinate with the Abbey Theatre’s decision to bring Tessa home to their mainstage this August, with their production of Katie Roche. When the new directors of the Abbey announced their season, the Irish Times wrote this about the choice of Katie Roche: “Deevy, abandoned by the Abbey, has received increased interest in recent years. Restoring her to the Abbey stage may count as righting a wrong.”
FIRST PRIORITY CLUB NEWS THE SUITCASE UNDER THE BED An Evening of Four Short Plays by Teresa Deevy July 21 through Sept. 23 Tue - Sat 7:30pm Sat & Sun 2:00pm Wed matinees: 8/23, 9/6, & 9/20
Increased interest indeed! I look forward to seeing you at the theater this summer!
Reserve your FPC Tickets now! FPC Hotline: (212) 315-0231
Jonathan
from your friends at Mint Theater
Happy summer! www.minttheater.org (212) 315-0231 330 West 42nd Street, Suite # 1210 New York, NY 10036