Youth Underground, Central Square Theater’s resident youth performance ensemble, presents a free reading of a new play exploring LGBTQ and Trans Rights. Created over a six-week intensive, and drawn from interviews with the teens, educators, activists, and community members, this new play shares a variety of perspectives, centering youth experiences related to inclusion/exclusion, belonging and visibility, the impacts of the shifiting political and legal landscape, and well-meaning liberal folks saying dumb stuff. YU’s summer intensive is a partnership with the Cambridge Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program.

Please note the 2:30pm performance takes place at Central Square Theater while the 7pm performance takes place at Starlight Square. All tickets are free.

Underground Railway Theater: Engine of Delight and Social Change – an eBook

Founding Artistic Director Wes Sanders will be in town to celebrate a rare achievement. Not many theaters have been active for 40+ years, as Underground Railway has been, and fewer have an eBook complete with videos chronicling its first 20 years of touring its original repertoire nationally and abroad.

Diego Arciniegas, Wes Sanders, Debra Wise, actors Valerie Stephens.

Join Wes, Underground Railway Artistic Director Debra Wise, actors Valerie Stephens and Diego Arciniegas (and some surprise guests!) for stories of adventure and misadventure from the road, and excerpts from cabarets, comic satires, plays tangling with politics, and puppet spectacles performed with symphony orchestras.

Purchase the eBook online at URTheaterEBook.com

Youth Underground Presents
in partnership with the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program of Cambridge

How Do We Heal?

A Staged Reading of a New Play Exploring Youth Mental Health

Arranged by Iris Rhian
Directed by Vincent Ernest Siders
Wednesday, August 11 at 2:30pm & 7PM
Starlight Square

What is Youth Underground?

Youth Underground is the resident performance ensemble at Central Square Theater, consisting of economically and culturally diverse Cambridge, Boston, & Greater Boston youth, ages 13-25. Each year, the group creates and performs original theater investigating social issues relevant to young people.

About the Work

How Do We Heal? is a new play exploring youth mental health. Created over a six-week intensive, and drawn from interviews with Youth Underground teens and members of their community, How Do We Heal? considers questions like “Why do we only address mental health when there’s a crisis?”, “Why do adults often seem dismissive or unprepared for youth mental health challenges?”, and “How has the Pandemic affected youth mental health?”. YU’s summer intensive is a partnership with the Cambridge Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program.

This script is a work in progress, and will be further workshopped and developed by the YU Delegates and Ambassadors ensembles during the academic year. The final play will premiere on the CST Mainstage in June 2022, and then tour to area schools, colleges, and community spaces during the 2022-2023 season.

The Cast

Hosiah Blair
Janelle Casanova-Dejesus
Eden Cherisme
Bennett Corso
Anaiya Jacobs
Agustina León Perdomo
Kale Pace
Makaila Ramirez
Joshua Shacklewood
Sara Solomon
Matthew West jr.
Solan Yesus

Production Team

Youth Underground Playwriting Fellow, Iris Rhian
Director, Vincent Ernest Siders
Stage Manager, Ty Ruwe
Teaching Assistant, Caitlin Morley
Playwriting Assistant/Music Design, Zay Pearson
Movement Design, Eva Murray
Education Manager, Kortney Adams
Education Assistant, AJ Helman

Special Thanks to

Rebecca Schneebaum, Ray DuBois, Betsy Bard, Debra Wise, Cassie Chapados, Carmen DeBenedictis, The Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program, several student and alumni friends of Youth Underground, and all of the interview participants.

Join Youth Underground!

Are you a young person aged 13-25 who would like to participate in creating work like this? Come join us! The Delegates and Ambassadors meet once a week during the school year. Contact us for details:

Kortney Adams
kaa@centralsquaretheater.org
617-307-4257

WHAT:
Cain by Alan Brody
Wednesday, April 22 12pm

Company Info:
Adam Zahler – Director
Daniel Rios – Cast Member
Adrian Peguero – Cast Member
Catherine Giorgetti – Stage Manager/Reader

Boston Theater Marathon XXII: Special Zoom Edition
presented by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre

The Akhmatova Journals

by Ginger Lazarus

Directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary

November 19, 7:30

The two-woman play delves into the life of once-praised Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, who is now languishing in obscurity. She’s desperately seeking the release for her imprisoned son, when a chance visit by writer Lydia Chukovskaya initiates a powerful literary partnership, centered on poetry and haunted by the shadow of the prison wall. 

Ginger Lazarus is an award-winning Boston-based playwright, screenwriter, and teacher. She collaborated with Central Square Theater’s Youth Underground to create Here and There, a play about immigration, currently on tour. Other productions include The Housekeeper with Fresh Ink Theatre, Burning with Resonance Ensemble (NY) and Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (2013 Boston My Theatre Award for Best New Work), The Embryos with Fresh Ink, A Blessing and a Curse: A Duet of Plays on Motherhood presented by Spiced Wine Productions, and Matter Familias with Boston Playwrights’ (IRNE nomination for Best New Play). She served as a script consultant for Debra Granik’s highly praised feature, Leave No Trace.

Bridget Kathleen O’Leary is a freelance director, dramaturg and theater educator. From 2008-2018 she served as the Associate artistic director at New Repertory Theatre. Select directing credits include: Heartland, Ripe Frenzy (IRNE Award winner for Best New Play), Blackberry Winter (Elliot Norton Nomination, Best New Play), Pattern of Life (IRNE Award winner for Best New Play), Lungs, Collected Stories (Elliot Norton Nomination, Best Production 2012), Doll House (Elliot Norton Nomination, Best Production, 2011), and Fool for Love. Other directing credits include: Grand Concourse, for Speakeasy Stage Company; Othello, for Actor’s Shakespeare Project; The Flick, for Gloucester Stage Company; The Other Place, for The Nora Theatre Company and Underground Railway Theater; Recent Tragic Events and Aunt Dan and Lemon, for Whistler in the Dark; Reconsidering Hanna(h) and The Devil’s Teacup (IRNE Nomination, Best New Play, 2007) at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. Bridget is on the Executive Committee for the National New Play Network (NNPN) where she serves as the Chair of the Literary Committee overseeing the selection process for both the NNPN Showcase of new works and the Kennedy Center’s MFA Playwrights’ Workshop. She was the production dramaturg on the premiere of Finish Line: A documentary play about the 2013 Boston Marathon (Elliot Norton Nomination, Best New Play) at the Boch Center and has worked as a dramaturg with the Kennedy Center and Washington University’s Hotch Fest. From 2012-2017, Bridget was the creator and curator for the Next Voices reading series at New Repertory Theatre. Before moving to Boston, Bridget worked in Washington, D.C. with the Olney Theatre Center, Theater Alliance, Cherry Red Productions, Charter Theater, Studio Theatre, Second Stage, and Phoenix Theatre DC, of which she was a founding member. Bridget received her MFA in directing at Boston University.