Modern Rock: Two Companion Plays

An Irons in the Fire Project

April 26, 2024 @ 3:00pm
Theatre Row, Studio Theatre - 410 W 42nd St, New York, NY 10036

Two Companion Plays by Ken Urban
Directed by Knud Adams
CW: pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage

Synopsis

In CATH CARROLL, Bennett and Cath are two college freshmen in 1990s rural Pennsylvania who become fast friends. Bennett turns Cath onto cool music, while Cath helps Bennett come out of the closet. But everything threatens to fall apart during a road trip to Planned Parenthood.

In VAPOR TRAIL, Bennett, now a 40-year old man, meets Leslie at the farmers markets, and the two strangers develop a connection rooted in their own unspeakable tragedies. The evening they spend together becomes an encounter they can’t forget.

Set over twenty years apart, these two plays explore the power of friendship and the cost of grief.

Performed by

Marjan Neshat
Nicole Rodenburg
Ryan Spahn
Taylor Trensch

Dramaturg: Kristin Leahey
Stage Manager: Hannah Sgambellone

Playwright

KEN URBAN [he/him] is a playwright, screenwriter and musician. His audio play Vapor Trail was selected for the 2022 Tribeca Festival’s Audio Storytelling series and released as part of Playwrights Horizons’ Sound Stage. His stage plays include A Guide For The Homesick (Huntington Theatre Company, Trafalgar Studios in the West End), The Remains (Studio Theatre), Sense of an Ending (59E59 Theatres, London’s Theatre503), Nibbler (The Amoralists and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), The Correspondent (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), The Awake (59E59 Theatres, Chicago’s First Floor Theater), and The Happy Sad (The Public Theatre/Summer Play Festival). Awards include EST/Alfred P. Sloan Science & Technology Project Commission, Weissberger Playwriting Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Independent Reviewers of New England’s Award for Best New Script, Headlands Artist Residency, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship, and a four-time recipient of the MacDowell Fellowship. He is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and affiliated writer at The Playwrights’ Center. Ken wrote the screenplay for the feature-film adaptation of The Happy Sad, directed by Rodney Evans. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service. He leads the band Occurrence and their new album SLOW VIOLENCE was released in April 2023. His first TV pilot The Art of Listening was optioned by ITV and Madison Wells Media. Ken is the Senior Lecturer of Theater Arts and Director of Dramatic Writing at MIT. He has taught writing at Harvard University, Princeton University, Tufts University and Davidson College.

Website: www.kenurban.org
IG: @kenurbanplaywright

Director

KNUD ADAMS [he/they] is an Obie-winning director of artful new plays, based in New York. Next season, he is directing English on Broadway. His work has been featured on "Best of the Year" lists by The New York Times, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post. His world premiere productions include: Primary Trust (Roundabout), English (Atlantic/Roundabout), Bodies They Ritual
(Clubbed Thumb), Private (Mosaic), The Headlands (LCT3), Paris (Atlantic), and The Workshop (Soft Focus). Knud also directed the radio play version of Vapor Trail, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Poster Sketch by Sean Devare