As the DE PROFUNDIS creative team begins its short residency here at PlayMakers, we’ll be using this post as a DE PROFUNDIS diary, tracking the show’s development from first rehearsal to opening night. Creators Brian Mertes & Jim Findlay will work with actress Nicole Villamil to take the piece from concept to embodied performance. We hope you’ll find the process as exciting as we do.

Recently, dramaturg Jacqueline Lawton had the opportunity to speak with director Raelle Myrick-Hodges about INTIMATE APPAREL. They spoke about her directing process and what excited her about directing this play now.

This performance of DE PROFUNDIS is being developed here at PlayMakers over the course of sixteen days as a collaboration primarily among three guest artists: director Brian Mertes, performer Nicole Villamil, and designer Jim Findlay. It is not a dramatization of Wilde’s imprisonment, nor even a play with a character in recognizable given circumstances. And yet, out of the depths of this text, a performance is emerging.

By Jerry Ruiz. Since I arrived here at PlayMakers in August, one of my major projects has been launching our Mobile Shakespeare initiative. This pilot program follows in the tradition of the original Carolina Playmakers and takes inspiration from the incredibly impactful work of Michelle Hensley and her Minneapolis-based theater company, Ten Thousand Things.

Actor Rishan Dhamija, hailing from New Delhi, India, is used to the stage, but he isn’t so used to the audience. “That’s what was surprising when I came here,” he says. He took one look at the audience and thought to himself, “Man! Young people don’t go?!”

It’s the dreariest time of year and we find ourselves in Kingston, NY at a boutique insurance company called The Vallor Group. By boutique we really mean small, recessed, tragically out-of-date, and failing to thrive. Meet the colorful employees of the most recessed corner of them all.

With the upcoming premiere of Molly Smith Metzler’s The May Queen here at PlayMakers, many people are wondering—what exactly IS a “May Queen”?

The following is the transcript of an interview with playwright Molly Smith Metzler about writing The May Queen.

“When you get to be our age,” the late novelist Kurt Vonnegut once noted, “you all of a sudden realize that you are being ruled by people you went to high school with. You all of a sudden catch on that life is nothing but high school – class officers, cheerleaders, and all.” Is it true? Are we doomed to live the lives we created for ourselves in high school?