by Eliana Cohen-Orth
Affecting Expression explores queer history and three artists’ multi-layered relationships with each other, art-making, legacy, and home. In 1852, renowned crossdressing Shakespearean actress Charlotte Cushman retires from the stage to move to Rome with her long-term partner, writer Matilda Hays. Joining their party is an eccentric young sculptor named Harriet Hosmer and an enigmatic figure representing Charlotte’s stage persona. As the women navigate their intersecting artistic paths and the complexities of their relationships, the walls of their home and boundaries between art and reality become increasingly unreliable. Imagining a queer household before modern language to describe that experience, this tragicomedy combines history with fantastical elements to explore the thin line between finding and losing oneself in art.
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Full playwriting and directing résumé HERE
Directed by Eliyana Abraham
Produced by Kate Semmens
Stage Manager: Giao Vu Dinh
Lighting Designer: BT Hayes
Fight/Intimacy Director: Olivia Kormos
Directed by Eliyana Abraham
Produced by Kitchen Sink Theatre
Photos by Ian McQueen / Kitchen Sink Theatre
Directed by Eliyana Abraham
Produced by The Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University
Stage Manager: Gabriela Bourla
Fight/Intimacy Director: Jacqueline Holloway
Scenic Designer: Emily Yang
Costume Consultant: Jules Peiperl
Costume Facilitator: Keating Debelak
Lighting Designer: Angelica Qin
Sound Designer: Elliot Lee
Photos by Hope VanCleaf / The Lewis Center for the Arts