Gamm Launches 40th Anniversary Season With Lucy Prebble's THE EFFECT

The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) launches its 40th anniversary season with Lucy Prebble's scintillating play The Effect.

A writer for the Emmy Award-winning HBO series Succession, Prebble interrogates the biology of desire and love with rapid-fire dialogue and razor wit. The Effect opens in previews on September 26.

Steve Kidd, who directed last season's acclaimed production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, takes on The Gamm's season opener. Gabrielle McCauley (Honey in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and Anthony T. Goss (Lincoln in Topdog/Underdog) play Connie and Tristan, a young couple who fall in love during a drug trial of an antidepressant. Gamm veteran Jeanine Kane (Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) plays Dr. Lorna James, the study's administrator. Trinity Rep company member Stephen Thorne makes his Gamm debut as her supervisor, Dr. Toby Sealey.

Kidd said he feels privileged to open The Gamm's milestone season with a play that tackles the complexity of love, desire, and the human brain with such depth.

“I can't imagine a better or more electrifying play to start The Gamm's 40th season. The Effect is one part love story on dopamine, one part search for identity, and two parts belly-laughs, all mingled with the struggles of clinical depression. Four daring and talented actors play perfectly imperfect characters whose safety nets have been stripped away,” Kidd said. “This small story addresses some of the biggest bioethical questions of our time. Its themes are simple yet complex, intimate yet global. It's the kind of theater this company was built on 40 years ago, and it will prove to be the foundation of its legacy.”

The Effect runs from September 26-October 13 at The Gamm Theatre, 1245 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick, RI. Tickets: $60-$70; preview performances (September 26-29) are $50. Information about rush tickets, as well as discounts for seniors, students, groups and more at gammtheatre.org/discounts. Tickets: 401-723-4266 or gammtheatre.org/effect.

ABOUT THE EFFECT

Connie and Tristan, young volunteers in a clinical trial for a new antidepressant, meet and fall rapidly in love. How can they or their doctors know if their sudden and intoxicating chemistry is real, or merely a side effect of actual chemistry? Love and ethics, sex and science, free will and fate collide in this sharp-witted puzzle of a play by Emmy Award-winning writer Prebble (Enron and HBO's Succession). Following acclaimed runs at London's National Theatre and Off Broadway, The Effect is unmissable theater.

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