Liberation Tickets

Bess Wohl, a Tony Award nominee for her Broadway play Grand Horizons, is known for plays of varying styles that all offer more than meets the eye. Camp Siegfried is based on the real New York campground that was seemingly idyllic but was where American children of German descent were taught Nazi ideology. Small Mouth Sounds followed participants unraveling at a silent retreat, and her musical Pretty Filthy dove into the private and professional lives of adult film stars.

Often highly imaginative but based in detailed research, Wohl’s plays have enjoyed critical acclaim, extensions, and many recognitions. She’s been nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award and Drama Desk Award and also won a Outer Critics Circle Award.

Now, her new play takes audience to 1970, where six women, all strangers, gather at a community center’s basement gym to discuss their aspirations. Half a century later, their daughters meet up and wonder: what the hell actually happened all those years ago?

What to watch for

• Like Bess Wohl, director Whitney White is equally lauded: she directed the many New York and regional productions of What to Send Up When It Goes Down and is an Obie Award winner.
• This is not the first time Wohl has played with different time periods in a play; previously, in Make Believe, young actors and adult professionals played a trio of siblings across the decades.
• Roundabout Theatre Company is known for splashy Broadway musical revivals, as with the upcoming The Pirates of Penzance, but it also produces and supports resign artists, as at its more intimate venue, the Laura Pels Theatre.
• Even before its premiere this play is generating buzz; Liberation is a recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award.