ELEMENO PEA Continues Boston Playwrights' Theatre 2017-18 Season

Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) continues its 2017-18 season with the Boston premiere of Elemeno Pea by Molly Smith Metzler. Running from November 2-19, the comedy is directed by Shana Gozansky.

The play centers on Devon and Simone, working class sisters who reunite at the posh summer home of Simone's wealthy employer on Martha's Vineyard. Their end-of-summer sibs fest takes a turn when Simone's boss Michaela unexpectedly returns home after a marital blowout.

Like the young sisters in Elemeno Pea, Metzler found the exclusive enclave to be very different than the town in Upstate New York where she grew up when she spent a post-college summer on the island working at an upscale club.

"The yacht club world looked pretty enticing to me, all sun kissed and luxe," she says. "But after a few months, I started to sense a real darkness under the hood. The tension between new money and old money was a rich stew in terms of drama, and the stories I overheard while serving drinks were darker and more unhappy than you'd guess. . .When I started writing a play about class, ambition, and women ten years later, I knew Martha's Vineyard was the perfect place to set it."

Even though Metzler "finished" Elemeno Pea with its premiere at Actors Theatre of Louisville's 2011 Humana Festival of New American Plays and subsequent productions at South Coast Rep and other theatres around the country, "I found myself going back to the play in 2015 anyway. I had had a child at that point, and the play's imperfections gnawed at me. I didn't think I had been fair to one of my characters, Michaela. I knew I could write a more honest and compassionate draft, one that asked a bigger question. And, with absolutely no real reason to do so, I started working on the play again."

Metzler continued her work with the 2015 production of the play at City Theatre in Pittsburgh, where-when they asked if they could produce the original version of the script-she asked if she could do some "tinkering."

"I started pulling threads and kept pulling them, long after the Pittsburgh show closed," she says. "In the end, it was a "page one" [complete] rewrite I did. And I am very proud!"

Metzler's plays-including Humana Festival 2017's Cry it Out, Elemeno Pea, The May Queen, Carve, Close Up Space and Training Wisteria (first produced at BPT in 2002)-have been performed throughout the country. For television, Metzler has written for Orange Is the New Black (Netflix), Casual (Hulu), Codes of Conduct (HBO), and is currently a writer/co-producer on Shameless (Showtime). Metzler graduated from the Boston University Playwriting Program in 2002.

"We're honored to be producing this newest version of Molly's wonderful play but even happier to have her back in our theatre again," BPT Artistic Director Kate Snodgrass says. "She has a true gift for comedy, but it's her characters who pull us into the world and who make us care. I can't wait for this gifted cast, designers, and director to get started! And I can't wait to work with Molly again."

A post-show conversation with Snodgrass, Metzler, Gozansky, and the cast will follow the Nov. 4 performance.

BPT's season continues in March with the world premiere of Brawler by Walt McGough (in collaboration with Kitchen Theatre Company) and the North American premiere of The Rosenbergs (An Opera) in April-in collaboration with the Brandeis University Department of Theatre Arts-with music by Joachim Holbek and libretto by Rhea Leman.

Founded in 1981 at Boston University by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, Boston Playwrights' Theatre (BPT) is an award-winning professional theatre dedicated to new works. At the heart of BPT's mission is the production of new plays by alumni of its M.F.A. Playwriting Program, the latter in collaboration with Boston University's renowned School of Theatre. The program's award-winning alumni have been produced in regional and New York houses, internationally, as well as in London's West End. BPT's productions have been honored with numerous national, regional, and Boston awards, including IRNE Awards for Best New Script and Boston Critics' Association Elliot Norton Awards.

Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized private research university with more than 30,000 students participating in undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. BU consists of 17 colleges and schools along with a number of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes which are central to the school's research and teaching mission.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Molly Smith Metzler is a proud alumna of Boston University's graduate playwriting program, where she studied under Derek Walcott and Kate Snodgrass. Her plays include Cry it Out, Elemeno Pea, The May Queen, Carve, Close Up Space, and Training Wisteria, which was first produced at Boston Playwrights' Theatre and then transferred to The Kennedy Center's American College Theater Festival. Regional: Northlight (upcoming), Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival, South Coast Rep, The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Chautauqua Theater Company, City Theatre, Play Makers Rep, Geva Theatre Center, Cape Cod Playhouse, and more. Off-Broadway: Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova, Cherry Lane, SPF (Summer Play Festival). Metzler's awards include the Lecomte du Nouy Prize from Lincoln Center, the National Student Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education's David Mark Cohen Award, the Mark Twain Comedy Prize, and a finalist nod for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She is currently under commission at Manhattan Theatre Club and South Coast Repertory. In television, Metzler has written for Orange Is the New Black (Netflix), Casual (Hulu), Codes of Conduct (HBO), and is currently a writer/co-producer on Shameless (Showtime). She is also a screenwriter, currently adapting Ali Benjamin's novel The Thing About Jellyfish into a film for OddLot and Pacific Standard (Reese Witherspoon's company). Metzler was educated at SUNY Geneseo, Boston University, New York University's Tisch School for the Arts, and The Juilliard School.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Shana Gozansky is a freelance director and teaching artist. She recently directed Paradise at Central Square Theater. Her work has been produced at Trinity Repertory Company, The Hangar Theatre, The Calderwood Arts Pavilion, Clark University, College of the Holy Cross, The Bowery Poetry Club, Dickinson College, Manhattan Theatre Source, and The Red Room. She has assisted on productions at Berkeley Rep, The Geffen, Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, Henry Miller's Theater, and Trinity Repertory Company and has taught acting and directing at Brown University, College of the Holy Cross, the Hangar Theatre, and Trinity Repertory Company. Shana holds a M.F.A. in Directing from the Brown University/Trinity Repertory Company M.F.A. Programs and a B.A. in Theater from Bard College, was an Artistic Associate at The Hangar Theatre, an Artist-in-Residence at chashama and The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and is a Drama League Directing Fellow.

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