SMART Opens at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater Next Month

The 2024 Season at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater will open with Smart, by Mary Elizabeth Hamilton, directed by Jess Chayes. Performances run Thursdays through Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m., June 8-23, 2024. Preview performances at 7:00 p.m. on June 6 and 7 are discounted and open to the public. 

Elaine's cantankerous, ailing mother, Ruth, won't let aides in the house to help her, making it impossible for Elaine to go to work. In desperation, Elaine buys a “Jenny”, a smart device which doubles as a babysitter/companion for her mom – while allowing Elaine to check on Ruth from anywhere. Jenny quickly feels like another member of the family, playing games with Ruth and talking Elaine through her insomnia. But what if Jenny isn't the only one listening? A play about how and why we let technology into our homes, and the unexpected changes that tech can bring.

Mary Elizabeth Hamilton (Playwright)

Mary Elizabeth Hamilton is a Brooklyn based playwright, tv writer and mom. She holds her MFA from The University of Iowa and an Artistic Diploma from Juilliard. Mary was a Jerome Fellow at The Lark and has participated in Youngblood, The O'Neill, Ars Nova, I-73, New Georges' The Jam, and Play Penn. Her play 16 Winters won ASC's New Contemporaries Award and her Sloan commission, Smart, was produced off Broadway at Ensemble Studio Theater and optioned by AMC. Mary was a Story Editor on “Why Women Kill”, wrote the podcast "Power Trip" starring Tatiana Maslany, and is a resident playwright with New Dramatists.

Jess Chayes (Director)

Jess Chayes is an award-winning director and producer of new work. She spent three seasons at Northern Stage as the inaugural BOLD Associate Artistic Director and is a founding co-artistic director of New York-based ensemble The Assembly, with whom she has co-created and directed eleven original productions. Recent productions include: In Corpo (The Assembly), Jane Anger (Shakespeare Theatre of DC, Jen Campos Productions), The Antelope Party (Dutch Kills),  Off Peak (Hudson Stage and 59E59), Jordan & Venus Rising (Northern Stage), as well as new work development with The New Group, Playwrights Horizons, and Clubbed Thumb. Jess is a NYTW Usual Suspect and a co-founder of the New Georges Jam. Recipient of the Lucille Lortel Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women and the Collaboration Award from the Women in the Arts & Media Coalition. www.jesschayes.com

Blair Baker (Gabby)

Blair Baker (they/she) is an actor, director, and writer. Theatre: The Slow Dance (59e59), Peter Pan Goes Wrong (Center Theatre Group), The Play That Goes Wrong (First National Tour, Off-Broadway), The Humans (Broadway, Roundabout Theatre Company), Goldie, Max & Milk (59e59), Oleanna (Broadway, Mark Taper Forum, Bristol Riverside Theater), title role in Hvmlet (SheNYC). TV/Film: Bull, The Ghost of Christmas Always (Hallmark) Billions, Blue Bloods, Harlem. Upcoming: The Perfect Couple (filmed on Cape Cod!) on Netflix. www.blairbaker.info 

Kea Trevett (Elaine)

Kea Trevett (she/her) NY theater credits include Roundabout, Classic Stage Company, Lincoln Center, Ars Nova, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and The Sheen Center, New Georges, The Lark, Page 73, and Cherry Lane. Regional credits include The St. Louis Shakespeare Festival and Hamptons Shakespeare Festival. TV/Film: Fosse/Verdon, Middlehood, The Kindergarten Teacher, Milkwater. Kea teaches playwriting and Shakespeare in performance for Theatre For A New Audience and Lincoln Center, and is a founding member of Apocalyptic Artists Ensemble, whose recent projects include an NYC tour of Romeo & Juliet co-produced with the Classical Theatre of Harlem, and a film adaptation of As You Like It, directed by Kea. MFA: Columbia University.  www.keatrevett.com

Christine Farrell (Ruth)

Christine Farrell is an actress, playwright and educator. She is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, SAG/AFTRA and AEA and a Professor at Sarah Lawrence College. Her Acting credits on film include Ice Storm, Fatal Attraction; on stage: Comedy of Errors, Uncle Vanya, Catholic School Girls, Broken Glass, The Dining Room.  Her published plays, Mama Drama and The Once Attractive Woman were developed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, She appeared for nine seasons as Pam Shrier, the ballistics detective on “Law and Order.”  She has been a recipient of an Affiliate Artist Grant from the NEA, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship and an Alfred P. Sloan Grant. Her play Our Half of the Sky was chosen by the Great Plains Theatre Conference in 2020. This season she created the role of Ruth in EST's Sloan production of Smart by Mary Hamilton and returned to acting professionally.  

Scenic Design – Ant Ma

Costume Design – Amy Sutton

Lighting Design – Christina Watanabe

Sound Design – Ien DeNio

Production Stage Manager – Katie Scarlett Graves

Actors appear through an agreement between this theater and Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. The director is a member of the Stage Director and Choreographers Society, a national theatrical labor union.

This production is made possible in part by The Ensemble Studio Theatre / Arthur P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project. 

SMART was originally commissioned and developed by EST/Sloan Project.

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