Miss Witherspoon
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Miss Witherspoon is a play written by Christopher Durang. It was one of three finalists for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play, a black comedy, was named one of the Ten Best Plays of 2005 by Time Magazine and Newsday.[1]
The play takes place in the recent past (1998) and the foreseeable future (2005 and beyond), on Earth, and "not earth."
A woman named Veronica, who is a recent suicide, has to go back to the world of the living to cleanse her “brown tweedy aura” and learn the values of life. She finds herself in Bardo, a Tibetan Buddhist netherworld and the place where you wait to be reincarnated.[2] She is not enthusiastic. All she's interested in is dying again, and as soon as possible.[3]
But her perky Indian spirit guide Maryamma insists that she go back to earth, again and again, and it is all for her own good. She is persistently pessimistic and cranky and the other spirits dub her "Miss Witherspoon" — the kind of name you'd associate with a grumpy old English lady in an Agatha Christie novel.[4]
Production history
The play was commissioned by the McCarter Theatre, Princeton, New Jersey, and premiered there on September 9, 2005, running to October 16, 2005.[5]
Miss Witherspoon premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in association with McCarter Theatre on November 29, 2005,[6] and closed on January 1, 2006.[7] Directed by Emily Mann, the cast included Kristine Nielsen and Jeremy Shamos.[8][9]
The play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for 2006; there was no award given that year.[10][11][12]
Subsequent productions include:
- ACT Theatre in Seattle on April 28, 2006, starring Anne Allgood and Terry Edward Moore.[13]
- Integrity Productions in Portland on October 5, 2006, with Kim Bogus as Miss Witherspoon and Adrienne Vogel as Maryamma.
- Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri on December 4, 2009, with Jan Rogge as Miss Witherspoon and Amy Urbina as Maryamma.[2]
- New City Stage in Philadelphia on December 10, 2010, with Julie Czarnecki as Miss Witherspoon and Indika Senanayake as Maryamma.[3]
- Heller Theatre in Tulsa, Oklahoma on September 10, 2011, in a production starring Kathryn Hartney and Angela Adams.[4]
- Burgdorff Center for the Performing Arts in Maplewood, New Jersey on April 12, 2012.[14]
- Carolina Actors Studio Theatre in Charlotte, North Carolina on March 28, 2013, starring Shawnna Pledger and Ana Rodriguez.[15]