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Kilian Melloy: Psych Drama Company Delivers a Gripping 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'
'The Psych Drama Company's three-hour production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" may be presented as an audio drama, but it has all the grip and emotional range of any-fully staged presentation.'
The Psych Drama Company's three-hour production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" may be presented as an audio drama, but it has all the grip and emotional range of any-fully staged presentation.
An unrelenting drama about disillusion, heartbreak, and familial jockeying for power and money, the play takes place over the course of a single evening during which the Pollitt family come together to celebrate the 65th birthday of the patriarch, nicknamed Big Daddy (David Lee Vincent). Before the festivities commence, Margaret (Wendy Lippe) — the "cat" of the title, whose paws are burning from sexual frustration and insecurity about her future — lays out the situation during a mostly one-sided conversation with her husband Brick (Eric McGowan), a former pro football player and sports commentator who's in the grip of an alcohol-fueled crisis. Their marriage isn't working, and it's clear to everyone why that is: As Brick's mother (Linda Monchik) indelicately notes, marriage that's on the rocks is one in which rocks aren't being gotten off. The side effect of this is that Brick and Margaret are childless, as compared with the five "no-neck monsters" that Brick's brother Gooper (Mark Prokes) and his wife Mae (Lindsay McAuliffe) have produced. Margaret fears that the lack of offspring, plus Brick's drinking, will cause them to be cut out of Big Daddy's will, and to her it's clear that Gooper and Mae are doing everything they can to ensure this outcome.
Juicy questions arise from the outset, which Williams' script answers only slowly and by tantalizing degrees. Why has Brick turned away from Margaret, and to the bottle? How does Brick's best friend since childhood, Skipper, fit into the situation? Even as the answers slowly emerge, more complications become evident. Big Daddy has recently had a cancer scare, and his refusal to draw up a will is sure to cause friction among the brothers and their wives. Gooper has a law practice and might not really need the money, but he does have a score to settle with his younger brother; Mae is depicted as merely grasping and greedy, while Margaret lives in terror if being plunged back into the poverty in which she grew up.
Brick, for his part, seems to care as little about an inheritance as he desires his wife, which presents Big Daddy with a puzzle the old man is keen to crack. The play's middle act is a tour de force between Brick and Big Daddy, in which father and son hash out their tensions during a discussion... more like an argument... that touches on Williams themes like same-sex love, homophobia, and erotic yearnings in later life, as well as filial connection and the personal costs of hard-driven success.
Williams' sensibilities infuse the script on every page, and the cast evoke a sense of time, place, and culture that relies partially on their Southern accents (which can be somewhat variable), but also on their interpretations. Linda Monchik inhabits the clan's mother, Big Mama, as someone for whom the role as wife and mother is the beginning and end of her identity; she's always sweet and often anguished, but just let her see a threat to her beloved son and she's ready to take on any and all comers. David Lee Vincent plays Big Daddy with a gruff combination of vulgarity and wit that sometimes calls Stacy Keach to mind. Erik McGowan sounds like he's delivering Brick's lines through his teeth — an apt choice for a character who's so strong, taciturn, and hurting. In the entire play, but especially in Acts I and II, his character emerges from the way he responds to the provocations of Margaret and Big Daddy. He's a surprisingly well-defined persona, given his essential passivity and unwillingness to engage; eventually, we see him as a man who's wrapped around a multi-faceted grief he's ill-equipped to process.
Mark Prokes' Gooper hasn't got as much to work with, or as many sterling lines, as most of the other characters, but Prokes finds and calibrates Gooper's rage and tendency toward connivance. McAuliffe, meantime, squares up nicely against Lippe; the former is venomous under her too-sweet decorum, while the latter is driven by desperation... and maybe (just maybe!) genuine love for her husband.
Williams enthusiasts might note that the text used here departs in small but significant ways from William's script (substituting the more appropriately hard-edged "fucking" for Williams' more euphemistic "ruttin") and using a well-integrated blend of both the original version of Act III and the revised Act III that Williams later wrote at the urging of Elia Kazan, who directed the play on Broadway. Kudos: The adaptation works better than either version on its own.
Larry Segel ably directs and provides narration (essentially, reading out edited versions of the play's stage directions). Almost as crucial is the sound design by Adam Elliott Rush (who also plays two small roles, Rev. Tooker and Doctor Baugh). Rush also provides the production's original score, which is always effective and sometimes surprisingly sprightly. It's fitting: Under the jockeying, fear, heartache, and rivalry, the play has much to say about life and how to live it. Three hours of audio drama could easily have been a slog and a bore; instead, this production is an affirming, affecting experience that invigorates.
Review: Psych Drama Company Delivers a Gripping 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' | EDGE Media Network
Kilian Melloy, EDGE Media Network
The Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor, National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, and The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association.
'The Psych Drama Company's three-hour production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" may be presented as an audio drama, but it has all the grip and emotional range of any-fully staged presentation.'
The Psych Drama Company's three-hour production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" may be presented as an audio drama, but it has all the grip and emotional range of any-fully staged presentation.
An unrelenting drama about disillusion, heartbreak, and familial jockeying for power and money, the play takes place over the course of a single evening during which the Pollitt family come together to celebrate the 65th birthday of the patriarch, nicknamed Big Daddy (David Lee Vincent). Before the festivities commence, Margaret (Wendy Lippe) — the "cat" of the title, whose paws are burning from sexual frustration and insecurity about her future — lays out the situation during a mostly one-sided conversation with her husband Brick (Eric McGowan), a former pro football player and sports commentator who's in the grip of an alcohol-fueled crisis. Their marriage isn't working, and it's clear to everyone why that is: As Brick's mother (Linda Monchik) indelicately notes, marriage that's on the rocks is one in which rocks aren't being gotten off. The side effect of this is that Brick and Margaret are childless, as compared with the five "no-neck monsters" that Brick's brother Gooper (Mark Prokes) and his wife Mae (Lindsay McAuliffe) have produced. Margaret fears that the lack of offspring, plus Brick's drinking, will cause them to be cut out of Big Daddy's will, and to her it's clear that Gooper and Mae are doing everything they can to ensure this outcome.
Juicy questions arise from the outset, which Williams' script answers only slowly and by tantalizing degrees. Why has Brick turned away from Margaret, and to the bottle? How does Brick's best friend since childhood, Skipper, fit into the situation? Even as the answers slowly emerge, more complications become evident. Big Daddy has recently had a cancer scare, and his refusal to draw up a will is sure to cause friction among the brothers and their wives. Gooper has a law practice and might not really need the money, but he does have a score to settle with his younger brother; Mae is depicted as merely grasping and greedy, while Margaret lives in terror if being plunged back into the poverty in which she grew up.
Brick, for his part, seems to care as little about an inheritance as he desires his wife, which presents Big Daddy with a puzzle the old man is keen to crack. The play's middle act is a tour de force between Brick and Big Daddy, in which father and son hash out their tensions during a discussion... more like an argument... that touches on Williams themes like same-sex love, homophobia, and erotic yearnings in later life, as well as filial connection and the personal costs of hard-driven success.
Williams' sensibilities infuse the script on every page, and the cast evoke a sense of time, place, and culture that relies partially on their Southern accents (which can be somewhat variable), but also on their interpretations. Linda Monchik inhabits the clan's mother, Big Mama, as someone for whom the role as wife and mother is the beginning and end of her identity; she's always sweet and often anguished, but just let her see a threat to her beloved son and she's ready to take on any and all comers. David Lee Vincent plays Big Daddy with a gruff combination of vulgarity and wit that sometimes calls Stacy Keach to mind. Erik McGowan sounds like he's delivering Brick's lines through his teeth — an apt choice for a character who's so strong, taciturn, and hurting. In the entire play, but especially in Acts I and II, his character emerges from the way he responds to the provocations of Margaret and Big Daddy. He's a surprisingly well-defined persona, given his essential passivity and unwillingness to engage; eventually, we see him as a man who's wrapped around a multi-faceted grief he's ill-equipped to process.
Mark Prokes' Gooper hasn't got as much to work with, or as many sterling lines, as most of the other characters, but Prokes finds and calibrates Gooper's rage and tendency toward connivance. McAuliffe, meantime, squares up nicely against Lippe; the former is venomous under her too-sweet decorum, while the latter is driven by desperation... and maybe (just maybe!) genuine love for her husband.
Williams enthusiasts might note that the text used here departs in small but significant ways from William's script (substituting the more appropriately hard-edged "fucking" for Williams' more euphemistic "ruttin") and using a well-integrated blend of both the original version of Act III and the revised Act III that Williams later wrote at the urging of Elia Kazan, who directed the play on Broadway. Kudos: The adaptation works better than either version on its own.
Larry Segel ably directs and provides narration (essentially, reading out edited versions of the play's stage directions). Almost as crucial is the sound design by Adam Elliott Rush (who also plays two small roles, Rev. Tooker and Doctor Baugh). Rush also provides the production's original score, which is always effective and sometimes surprisingly sprightly. It's fitting: Under the jockeying, fear, heartache, and rivalry, the play has much to say about life and how to live it. Three hours of audio drama could easily have been a slog and a bore; instead, this production is an affirming, affecting experience that invigorates.
Review: Psych Drama Company Delivers a Gripping 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' | EDGE Media Network
Kilian Melloy, EDGE Media Network
The Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor, National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, and The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association.
"Big Mama (Linda Monchik) stops by, praising her little baby boy, Brick, and blatantly alludes that Maggie is childless due to her not being attentive to Brick’s needs in the bedroom. The Oedipal tension and this the tension between the two women is fierce and well played by Lippe and Monchik."
"Other standout performances include Lindsay McAuliffe and Mark Prokes as the scheming and avaricious couple, Mae and Gooper."
"While a bit protracted, the production is quite impressive and well worth checking out. The convenience of the audio drama also allows for either listening act by act or spending the entire time lost in the world of one of the most corrupt and dysfunctional southern families ever scrutinized."
"Like Psych’s sister show Macbeth, the audio drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is impeccably designed (by Adam Elliott Rush) and ideal for any classroom use where Tennessee Williams is being explored or for one’s own simple enjoyment and personal use."
— Kevin T. Baldwin
METRMAG
"Other standout performances include Lindsay McAuliffe and Mark Prokes as the scheming and avaricious couple, Mae and Gooper."
"While a bit protracted, the production is quite impressive and well worth checking out. The convenience of the audio drama also allows for either listening act by act or spending the entire time lost in the world of one of the most corrupt and dysfunctional southern families ever scrutinized."
"Like Psych’s sister show Macbeth, the audio drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is impeccably designed (by Adam Elliott Rush) and ideal for any classroom use where Tennessee Williams is being explored or for one’s own simple enjoyment and personal use."
— Kevin T. Baldwin
METRMAG
Upper Cape Performer Will Take Part In Audio Drama Production Of 'MacBeth'
By JOANNE BRIANA-GARTNER
Aug 31, 2021
Arts & Entertainment
Dr. Wendy Lippe and Linda Monchik, two of the performers in the Psych Drama Company’s upcoming audio drama production of “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.”
When the pandemic first shut down live theater last year theaters turned to Zoom to reach audiences with performances both adapted for Zoom and written specifically for the new medium.
The Psych Drama Company of Brookline chose a different approach. “I had a look at different Zoom performances and it just felt like a deadening experience,” said Wendy Lippe, founding director of the company now in its 10th season. “It had nothing to do with the actors or directors, many of whom were fantastic, it was just so two-dimensional.”
Rather than work with Zoom, Dr. Lippe suggested that the company, which had been rehearing for an upcoming performance of James Goldman’s “The Lion In Winter,” perform the equivalent of a radio drama. Recalling the childhood experience of listening to records with her grandmother, Dr. Lippe said, “I wanted people to be able to lay back and just listen, to let their minds get flooded with imagery and hear the sounds and the voices and create their own internal landscapes. I feel like we don’t have enough of that in our world.”
The Psych Drama Company performed “A Lion In Winter” last December as an audio drama, receiving positive feedback. Next up the company, in conjunction with the Audiovisual Center Dubrovnik, will present audio drama adaptations of both Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and Tennessee Williams’s “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.”
The dramas will be available for streaming September 10 through the September 24 (MacBeth) and September 11 through September 25 (Cat On A Hot Tin Roof).
A clinical psychologist, Dr. Lippe said she hopes people will be able to decompress while listening to the audio and see the scenes play out in their imaginations. “In therapy I try to help people develop more of their internal landscape,” she said. “I see the benefits of technology but as a psychologist I’m concerned about the way our imaginations are suffering by getting bombarded by so much stimuli all the time and what happens to our imagination in terms of the human condition over time.”
The cast of eight for “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” will feature Cape performer Linda Monchik in the role of Big Mama. Ms. Monchik is well-known among Cape audiences, having performed on Upper Cape stages, including the Cotuit Center for the Arts and the Woods Hole Theater Company. She may be best remembered locally for her performance of Rose Kennedy in the one-woman show “Rose.”
Ten years ago Ms. Monchik performed as Gertrude in the Psych Drama Company’s inaugural production of “Hamlet.”
Performing two audio dramas at once was unintentional and happened through serendipity.
Having put in for the rights to perform “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” but doubtful they would secure the rights to stream it, the company was off and running on its adaptation of “MacBeth,” when they got the news that they’d been approved to perform the Tennessee William’s classic.
“Two plays at once is a lot but we were so hungry to create art and we didn’t want to turn down the opportunity,” Dr. Lippe said.
In addition to the spoken word of the performers, the audio performances will include sound effects and original music. “Macbeth” will feature music specially composed for the performance by Croatian composer Zarko Dragojevic, founder of Audiovisual Center Dubrovnik. “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” will feature an original music score by Adam Elliott Rush, who also performs in the show.
During the intermission portion of each show there will be an online art show featuring work by members of ArtLifting, a Boston-area benefit corporation that serves as a platform for artists who have traditionally been underrepresented in the contemporary art market.
During “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Dr. Lippe and Addison Spearman of ArtLifting selected evocative images that resonate with the play’s motifs of sexuality and mortality. Work by Watertown artist Nick Morse, who is also represented by ArtLifting, will be shown at intermission during “MacBeth.” A painting by Mr. Morse also serves as the poster artwork for the play.
While the casts of both shows rehearsed online, they traveled to Boston to do a week of in-person tech rehearsals with two days of full recording for each show. “Being in person helped with getting the essential timing correct,” said Dr. Lippe.
In adapting “MacBeth” for an audio drama Dr. Lippe said she altered the script but stayed with Shakespeare’s text by “cutting it and moving it and having different characters say different lines,” although she did add a narrator to the play in order to explain stage direction when necessary. She hopes the adaptation will heighten feelings of inner conflict among the main characters of MacBeth and Lady MacBeth.
Using compositions created by Zarko Dragojevic, the music itself might help to shape the characters. Dr. Lippe connected with Mr. Dragojevic while visiting Croatia, sending him updated scripts for the composer to use for inspiration in creating the music. “He would attend our Zoom rehearsals, waking up in the middle of the night sometimes because of the time difference,” said Dr. Lippe.
Zachary McConnell, audio designer for the performances, also appears as a character in “MacBeth.” Dr. Lippe described Mr. McConnell as a brilliant magician. “He’s in the play and he’s doing the full audio design, bringing all the pieces together.”
In her work as a psychologist, Dr. Lippe said she often helps her patients “find creative pursuits in their lives as a source of healing.”
“People who have that creative bug, they cannot be stopped. Nothing will hold you back. You will find a way. There have been all these different ways people have worked and come together in new ways to work and support each other with this craft. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Cost is $30 per performance for individual viewings of “MacBeth” and “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” and $40 for families to tune in on more than one device. Once a ticket is purchased, there is a 24-hour window for tuning in to the performance. Proceeds from the sale of tickets will help support local performers, directors, composers and others involved in the arts and in these two productions who lost opportunities to work during the pandemic.
To best experience the three-dimensional quality of the audio and musical accompaniment, Dr. Lippe recommends listening to the performances on headphones.
Tickets to both “MacBeth” and “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” can be purchased through the Psych Drama Company’s website.
While the Psych Drama Company plans to return to live theater later this year, Dr. Lippe hopes to integrate audio performances into the company’s seasonal offerings. “Going forward, I think we’re going to integrate either audio dramas or audio books done with professional sound equipment with sound effects and music.”
The two audio dramas created by Psych Drama Company are immersive, rich and full. For “MacBeth” the haunting quality of the play is intensified with music and snippets of inner dialogue interspersed with the characters’ emotional words. Because imagination takes over, the audio may lead to a more intense experience than a live performance might be able to evoke.
“I hope people fall in love with this art form again and that it comes back stronger,” said Dr. Lippe. “There’s just something different about it. Something about imagination and internal landscape.”
Read More >
By JOANNE BRIANA-GARTNER
Aug 31, 2021
Arts & Entertainment
Dr. Wendy Lippe and Linda Monchik, two of the performers in the Psych Drama Company’s upcoming audio drama production of “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.”
When the pandemic first shut down live theater last year theaters turned to Zoom to reach audiences with performances both adapted for Zoom and written specifically for the new medium.
The Psych Drama Company of Brookline chose a different approach. “I had a look at different Zoom performances and it just felt like a deadening experience,” said Wendy Lippe, founding director of the company now in its 10th season. “It had nothing to do with the actors or directors, many of whom were fantastic, it was just so two-dimensional.”
Rather than work with Zoom, Dr. Lippe suggested that the company, which had been rehearing for an upcoming performance of James Goldman’s “The Lion In Winter,” perform the equivalent of a radio drama. Recalling the childhood experience of listening to records with her grandmother, Dr. Lippe said, “I wanted people to be able to lay back and just listen, to let their minds get flooded with imagery and hear the sounds and the voices and create their own internal landscapes. I feel like we don’t have enough of that in our world.”
The Psych Drama Company performed “A Lion In Winter” last December as an audio drama, receiving positive feedback. Next up the company, in conjunction with the Audiovisual Center Dubrovnik, will present audio drama adaptations of both Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and Tennessee Williams’s “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.”
The dramas will be available for streaming September 10 through the September 24 (MacBeth) and September 11 through September 25 (Cat On A Hot Tin Roof).
A clinical psychologist, Dr. Lippe said she hopes people will be able to decompress while listening to the audio and see the scenes play out in their imaginations. “In therapy I try to help people develop more of their internal landscape,” she said. “I see the benefits of technology but as a psychologist I’m concerned about the way our imaginations are suffering by getting bombarded by so much stimuli all the time and what happens to our imagination in terms of the human condition over time.”
The cast of eight for “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” will feature Cape performer Linda Monchik in the role of Big Mama. Ms. Monchik is well-known among Cape audiences, having performed on Upper Cape stages, including the Cotuit Center for the Arts and the Woods Hole Theater Company. She may be best remembered locally for her performance of Rose Kennedy in the one-woman show “Rose.”
Ten years ago Ms. Monchik performed as Gertrude in the Psych Drama Company’s inaugural production of “Hamlet.”
Performing two audio dramas at once was unintentional and happened through serendipity.
Having put in for the rights to perform “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” but doubtful they would secure the rights to stream it, the company was off and running on its adaptation of “MacBeth,” when they got the news that they’d been approved to perform the Tennessee William’s classic.
“Two plays at once is a lot but we were so hungry to create art and we didn’t want to turn down the opportunity,” Dr. Lippe said.
In addition to the spoken word of the performers, the audio performances will include sound effects and original music. “Macbeth” will feature music specially composed for the performance by Croatian composer Zarko Dragojevic, founder of Audiovisual Center Dubrovnik. “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” will feature an original music score by Adam Elliott Rush, who also performs in the show.
During the intermission portion of each show there will be an online art show featuring work by members of ArtLifting, a Boston-area benefit corporation that serves as a platform for artists who have traditionally been underrepresented in the contemporary art market.
During “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Dr. Lippe and Addison Spearman of ArtLifting selected evocative images that resonate with the play’s motifs of sexuality and mortality. Work by Watertown artist Nick Morse, who is also represented by ArtLifting, will be shown at intermission during “MacBeth.” A painting by Mr. Morse also serves as the poster artwork for the play.
While the casts of both shows rehearsed online, they traveled to Boston to do a week of in-person tech rehearsals with two days of full recording for each show. “Being in person helped with getting the essential timing correct,” said Dr. Lippe.
In adapting “MacBeth” for an audio drama Dr. Lippe said she altered the script but stayed with Shakespeare’s text by “cutting it and moving it and having different characters say different lines,” although she did add a narrator to the play in order to explain stage direction when necessary. She hopes the adaptation will heighten feelings of inner conflict among the main characters of MacBeth and Lady MacBeth.
Using compositions created by Zarko Dragojevic, the music itself might help to shape the characters. Dr. Lippe connected with Mr. Dragojevic while visiting Croatia, sending him updated scripts for the composer to use for inspiration in creating the music. “He would attend our Zoom rehearsals, waking up in the middle of the night sometimes because of the time difference,” said Dr. Lippe.
Zachary McConnell, audio designer for the performances, also appears as a character in “MacBeth.” Dr. Lippe described Mr. McConnell as a brilliant magician. “He’s in the play and he’s doing the full audio design, bringing all the pieces together.”
In her work as a psychologist, Dr. Lippe said she often helps her patients “find creative pursuits in their lives as a source of healing.”
“People who have that creative bug, they cannot be stopped. Nothing will hold you back. You will find a way. There have been all these different ways people have worked and come together in new ways to work and support each other with this craft. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Cost is $30 per performance for individual viewings of “MacBeth” and “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” and $40 for families to tune in on more than one device. Once a ticket is purchased, there is a 24-hour window for tuning in to the performance. Proceeds from the sale of tickets will help support local performers, directors, composers and others involved in the arts and in these two productions who lost opportunities to work during the pandemic.
To best experience the three-dimensional quality of the audio and musical accompaniment, Dr. Lippe recommends listening to the performances on headphones.
Tickets to both “MacBeth” and “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” can be purchased through the Psych Drama Company’s website.
While the Psych Drama Company plans to return to live theater later this year, Dr. Lippe hopes to integrate audio performances into the company’s seasonal offerings. “Going forward, I think we’re going to integrate either audio dramas or audio books done with professional sound equipment with sound effects and music.”
The two audio dramas created by Psych Drama Company are immersive, rich and full. For “MacBeth” the haunting quality of the play is intensified with music and snippets of inner dialogue interspersed with the characters’ emotional words. Because imagination takes over, the audio may lead to a more intense experience than a live performance might be able to evoke.
“I hope people fall in love with this art form again and that it comes back stronger,” said Dr. Lippe. “There’s just something different about it. Something about imagination and internal landscape.”
Read More >
“NO, WE’RE NOT DOING ZOOM.”
PSYCH DRAMA COMPANY BRINGS THE STAGE TO YOUR EARS
WRITTEN BY CHRIS FARAONE
POSTED SEPTEMBER 12, 2021
FILED UNDER: A+E, INTERVIEWS
Psych Drama Company Founder Wendy Lippe on her company’s two ambitious new audio productions
Wendy Lippe climbs over hurdles with the same grace and enthusiasm that she has stepping onto theatrical stages.
When the founder and producing artistic director of the Brookline-based Psych Drama Company saw a missed opportunity in how much lovers of theater could learn about not only shows but themselves after the curtain drops, she flipped the format and started a philanthropic-minded troupe that’s celebrating its decade anniversary this year. So it’s fitting that while some stage companies went dark in 2020, Lippe, a practicing clinical psychologist, found a way to keep the box office open through the pandemic, virtually and with significant vision.
“We wanted to do something really big and it was in the middle of COVID,” Lippe said in a recent interview. “We were aware of a lot of artists and painters being underemployed and unemployed, and we wanted to do an interdisciplinary program and have collaborators come together across platforms.”
In seeking a silver lining for her company, for their 2021 outings Lippe recruited partners including ArtLifting, a “social enterprise that champions artists impacted by homelessness or disabilities through the sale and celebration of their artwork,” and Zarko Dragojevic, an accomplished composer from the Marin Držić Theater in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The Psych Drama Company’s core mission is to “unite creative artists across the world in profit-sharing collaborations,” and their current (virtual) marquee speaks to that end and then some.
We chatted with the former Harvard Medical School faculty member about their online audio dramas, Macbeth and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, both of which have streaming dates via onthestage.com through late September and “will allow actors, directors, composers, sound designers and fine artists, specifically painters—all of whom have been unemployed or underemployed during the pandemic—to share in the profits generated.”
What came before this? How did you build up this company and program?
I have been a theater person since I was little and went to a high school for performing arts and went to a BFA program at Syracuse University. I thought that was going to be my life and then I changed course and became a clinical psychologist. But I never stopped performing. When it’s in your blood, you can’t stop. Stage was my thing, always. Even through graduate school and everything, I kept performing. And then when I was established with my postdoc, I still never stopped performing.
In 2010, I was at a conference in Sicily on Greek tragedy and psychoanalysis … held in this huge amphitheater. … We had these conversations that were fantastic—about artistic direction, and psychoanalysis. But none of the creative people [from a performance they watched together] were there. We were talking about the productions without the creative team. And as someone who deeply identified with both groups, I felt we should all be sitting on that stone stage and engaging with each other. And so it clicked. I said, I am going to form a drama company and I am going to integrate creative artists with academics and clinical psychologists and we are going to delve deeper into the psyche of the characters. It’s going to be integrated, it’s going to be interdisciplinary.
LippeHow do most theater companies address these issues, if at all?
They’ll have a psychoanalyst come and discuss the production after [the show’s run is over]. With ours, every single performance has a clinical psychologist to lead a discussion afterward, and some have also worked with our actors and creative team during the rehearsal process. At our last production, we had people from Harvard Medical School and social workers leading a discussion after every performance. The mission was to help people think more deeply about relationships and their lives.
What kind of plays lend themselves well to this approach?
We love Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams—we do hardcore stuff, serious dramas. I think the greatest writers of all time speak to elements of human nature that we can all relate to forever. In Hamlet, in Macbeth, we can watch them again and again.
Tell me a little bit more about the pivot to audio dramas during the pandemic.
I can’t tell you how much porn addiction I treat—fantasy and imagination have gone out the window. [For last year’s production], I said, No, we’re not doing Zoom. There’s something that is deadening about it. I said we’ll go back to something older.
We got rave reviews for a radio drama … that aired in December 2020. What I loved about it as a clinical psychologist was you could lay back and just listen and fantasize about the imagery and have this experience where you’re not bombarded by too much stimulation.
And now you’re doing two plays at once, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Macbeth. And you’re doing them as audio dramas, complete with original music and artwork. Is this the new direction that your company is moving in?
I’m always going to do live theater—I’m either going to die on stage, or talking to a patient. But I’ve fallen in love with this other medium.
With Macbeth, you are going to have a 3-D audio experience. It’s surround-sound. This is not your standard stuff—you have to listen with headphones. It’s like the story is brought to life. It’s immersive. So the visuals are your imagination, but the audio is so rich.
I adapted it, it’s a 90-minute adaptation I created only using Shakespeare’s language. It’s fully reimagined. I tried to capture just a little bit more about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s inner-turmoil. I wanted to flesh them out in a three-dimensional way. If you look at them separately, they’re not fully fleshed out humans in the way Hamlet is.
How did the musical collaboration with Zarko Dragojevic come about?
This was the best time to collaborate, and I had met him and we recognized that we shared some artistic sensibilities. I said that I wanted to do another adaptation of a Shakespearean drama and that I wanted it to have an original score. We stayed in contact for a while and during the pandemic. He’s created tons of original scores for shows in Europe.
It’s amazing, all of the characters have their own theme music. And he is in Croatia, so he’s coming to rehearsal at 3am.
How exactly does the format work for the audience?
You buy the ticket and you have a 24-hour period to listen to it.
These are not readings. We had Zoom rehearsals for three to four months, and then we had rehearsals in person, rented professional recording equipment, and we got together after a week of meeting in person and recorded it with everybody in the same room. So these are fully rehearsed productions and when you hear them you will hear the quality of the work.
And I take it you can reach people you never dreamed of reaching in your usual format?
We can stream in multiple zones across the world.
I found out about these shows as a fan of Nick Morse’s art. He’s not an actor, how did he get involved?
I was on his site scrolling through paintings and reading about how he doesn’t speak, but his paintings speak. And it said that Nick doesn’t mind the orientation that you hang his paintings on. And I saw one and it just grabbed me. It looked like an abstract figure of Macbeth grounded looking up into the sky, and then a figure of either one of the witches or the dead souls he killed floating to the sky, and he’s on the ground and the fires of hell are all around him.
Nick’s self-esteem was suffering during the pandemic, and his father and agent [Nick works with ArtLifting] said it was uplifting to him [to get involved]. [In addition to the poster art], we have a bunch of his paintings, and while people are listening to the audio drama, they will also be able to look at Nick’s art during the Macbeth intermission. For Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, we have paintings from three artists that capture the play’s motifs of sexuality and mortality.
What else should people know?
The money from the ticket sales go directly into the pockets of artists. The pandemic continues and they need it.
Read More >
PSYCH DRAMA COMPANY BRINGS THE STAGE TO YOUR EARS
WRITTEN BY CHRIS FARAONE
POSTED SEPTEMBER 12, 2021
FILED UNDER: A+E, INTERVIEWS
Psych Drama Company Founder Wendy Lippe on her company’s two ambitious new audio productions
Wendy Lippe climbs over hurdles with the same grace and enthusiasm that she has stepping onto theatrical stages.
When the founder and producing artistic director of the Brookline-based Psych Drama Company saw a missed opportunity in how much lovers of theater could learn about not only shows but themselves after the curtain drops, she flipped the format and started a philanthropic-minded troupe that’s celebrating its decade anniversary this year. So it’s fitting that while some stage companies went dark in 2020, Lippe, a practicing clinical psychologist, found a way to keep the box office open through the pandemic, virtually and with significant vision.
“We wanted to do something really big and it was in the middle of COVID,” Lippe said in a recent interview. “We were aware of a lot of artists and painters being underemployed and unemployed, and we wanted to do an interdisciplinary program and have collaborators come together across platforms.”
In seeking a silver lining for her company, for their 2021 outings Lippe recruited partners including ArtLifting, a “social enterprise that champions artists impacted by homelessness or disabilities through the sale and celebration of their artwork,” and Zarko Dragojevic, an accomplished composer from the Marin Držić Theater in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The Psych Drama Company’s core mission is to “unite creative artists across the world in profit-sharing collaborations,” and their current (virtual) marquee speaks to that end and then some.
We chatted with the former Harvard Medical School faculty member about their online audio dramas, Macbeth and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, both of which have streaming dates via onthestage.com through late September and “will allow actors, directors, composers, sound designers and fine artists, specifically painters—all of whom have been unemployed or underemployed during the pandemic—to share in the profits generated.”
What came before this? How did you build up this company and program?
I have been a theater person since I was little and went to a high school for performing arts and went to a BFA program at Syracuse University. I thought that was going to be my life and then I changed course and became a clinical psychologist. But I never stopped performing. When it’s in your blood, you can’t stop. Stage was my thing, always. Even through graduate school and everything, I kept performing. And then when I was established with my postdoc, I still never stopped performing.
In 2010, I was at a conference in Sicily on Greek tragedy and psychoanalysis … held in this huge amphitheater. … We had these conversations that were fantastic—about artistic direction, and psychoanalysis. But none of the creative people [from a performance they watched together] were there. We were talking about the productions without the creative team. And as someone who deeply identified with both groups, I felt we should all be sitting on that stone stage and engaging with each other. And so it clicked. I said, I am going to form a drama company and I am going to integrate creative artists with academics and clinical psychologists and we are going to delve deeper into the psyche of the characters. It’s going to be integrated, it’s going to be interdisciplinary.
LippeHow do most theater companies address these issues, if at all?
They’ll have a psychoanalyst come and discuss the production after [the show’s run is over]. With ours, every single performance has a clinical psychologist to lead a discussion afterward, and some have also worked with our actors and creative team during the rehearsal process. At our last production, we had people from Harvard Medical School and social workers leading a discussion after every performance. The mission was to help people think more deeply about relationships and their lives.
What kind of plays lend themselves well to this approach?
We love Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams—we do hardcore stuff, serious dramas. I think the greatest writers of all time speak to elements of human nature that we can all relate to forever. In Hamlet, in Macbeth, we can watch them again and again.
Tell me a little bit more about the pivot to audio dramas during the pandemic.
I can’t tell you how much porn addiction I treat—fantasy and imagination have gone out the window. [For last year’s production], I said, No, we’re not doing Zoom. There’s something that is deadening about it. I said we’ll go back to something older.
We got rave reviews for a radio drama … that aired in December 2020. What I loved about it as a clinical psychologist was you could lay back and just listen and fantasize about the imagery and have this experience where you’re not bombarded by too much stimulation.
And now you’re doing two plays at once, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Macbeth. And you’re doing them as audio dramas, complete with original music and artwork. Is this the new direction that your company is moving in?
I’m always going to do live theater—I’m either going to die on stage, or talking to a patient. But I’ve fallen in love with this other medium.
With Macbeth, you are going to have a 3-D audio experience. It’s surround-sound. This is not your standard stuff—you have to listen with headphones. It’s like the story is brought to life. It’s immersive. So the visuals are your imagination, but the audio is so rich.
I adapted it, it’s a 90-minute adaptation I created only using Shakespeare’s language. It’s fully reimagined. I tried to capture just a little bit more about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s inner-turmoil. I wanted to flesh them out in a three-dimensional way. If you look at them separately, they’re not fully fleshed out humans in the way Hamlet is.
How did the musical collaboration with Zarko Dragojevic come about?
This was the best time to collaborate, and I had met him and we recognized that we shared some artistic sensibilities. I said that I wanted to do another adaptation of a Shakespearean drama and that I wanted it to have an original score. We stayed in contact for a while and during the pandemic. He’s created tons of original scores for shows in Europe.
It’s amazing, all of the characters have their own theme music. And he is in Croatia, so he’s coming to rehearsal at 3am.
How exactly does the format work for the audience?
You buy the ticket and you have a 24-hour period to listen to it.
These are not readings. We had Zoom rehearsals for three to four months, and then we had rehearsals in person, rented professional recording equipment, and we got together after a week of meeting in person and recorded it with everybody in the same room. So these are fully rehearsed productions and when you hear them you will hear the quality of the work.
And I take it you can reach people you never dreamed of reaching in your usual format?
We can stream in multiple zones across the world.
I found out about these shows as a fan of Nick Morse’s art. He’s not an actor, how did he get involved?
I was on his site scrolling through paintings and reading about how he doesn’t speak, but his paintings speak. And it said that Nick doesn’t mind the orientation that you hang his paintings on. And I saw one and it just grabbed me. It looked like an abstract figure of Macbeth grounded looking up into the sky, and then a figure of either one of the witches or the dead souls he killed floating to the sky, and he’s on the ground and the fires of hell are all around him.
Nick’s self-esteem was suffering during the pandemic, and his father and agent [Nick works with ArtLifting] said it was uplifting to him [to get involved]. [In addition to the poster art], we have a bunch of his paintings, and while people are listening to the audio drama, they will also be able to look at Nick’s art during the Macbeth intermission. For Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, we have paintings from three artists that capture the play’s motifs of sexuality and mortality.
What else should people know?
The money from the ticket sales go directly into the pockets of artists. The pandemic continues and they need it.
Read More >
Alumni Spotlight: Lindsay McAuliffe ’15
Walnut Hill Arts News
This month, we connected with Lindsay McAuliffe, a graduate of our Theater Department, to catch up on her life and career after her Walnut Hill graduation in 2015. We also heard about her recent work with the Psych Drama Company, where she recorded two audio dramas: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (as Mae) and Macbeth (as a Witch). Both shows are streaming now—tickets are available on the Psych website.
Tell us about the work you've been doing recently with the Psych Drama Company. How did you get involved, and what was your experience like working on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Macbeth?
Working with the Psych Drama Company on Macbeth and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has been one of the highlights of my 2021. It was such a joy to be making theater again! I discovered the company after coming across an audition listing on StageSource’s website. I auditioned for both shows over Zoom and soon thereafter was cast as a Witch in Macbeth and Mae in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Both shows started rehearsing in March 2021, and each rehearsed twice a week for three hours. As per tradition, we spent the first month and initial rehearsals doing table work, diving deep into character analysis and development, and discovering the world of the plays. We then transitioned to focusing our efforts on bringing the texts to life with the same energy, urgency, and magic as live theater. While most of our rehearsals were on Zoom, I constantly felt so grateful to be able to collaborate with other hungry artists and relish my first experience rehearsing for and performing an audio drama! I loved the challenge of working on these classic plays without the visual aspect traditionally associated with them.
Both Wendy Lippe and Larry Segal stressed the importance of clarifying the intentions, actions, and tactics of our characters during the early stages of the rehearsal process. To captivate the audience’s aural attention and achieve the same clarity, power, and gravitas as live theater, we had to make sure that textual and character choices we made were specific, clear, and matched the high-stakes nature of each piece. I often thought, how could I, and the cast, bring these monumental and widely known plays to life without relying on our most dominant sense: sight? It was a fun puzzle to wrestle with. Taking on these audio dramas was akin to Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire. If Fred was live theater and Ginger an audio drama, then our work creating these dramas was like doing everything Fred did but backwards and in heels.
Before recording both shows, each cast met for in-person rehearsals at Wendy’s Brookline apartment to polish and solidify the work we’d done on Zoom. Upon meeting one another, the joy in that rehearsal room was palpable; everyone was keen to be off Zoom. We recorded both shows in Psych Drama’s new performance space in Attleboro. It was such a blessing to work with talented performers and wonderful people, engage in a new theater-making process, and work on my first professional Boston show! I am excited for friends and family to listen to these audio dramas and experience classic shows in a completely new context!
Where do you see yourself going from here? Do you have any other projects coming up?
Great question! Currently, I am pursuing performance work as an actor and a director in theater, film, and TV in the Greater Boston area and around New England. I am also very interested in pursuing arts administrative opportunities at nonprofit theater companies and organizations and exploring teaching theater and theater education. Truthfully, I am trying to keep myself open to anything and stay curious regarding almost any artistic opportunity that would enable me to hone my craft, challenge my artistry, and meet like-minded, passionate artists. I am just thrilled to bits that the theater world and performing arts, in general, are safely opening back up again (fingers crossed). Just thinking about the incredible work that will emerge from this past year and a half fills me with immense joy, gratitude, and pride!
If you had to give a few words of advice to our current seniors or recent graduates who are just entering their post-Walnut Hill life, what would they be?
Take a deep breath. Whether you are a senior or recent graduate, know that you are well-prepared and more than ready for what lies ahead. Walnut Hill has set you up for academic and artistic success. Do not doubt this. You will leave Walnut Hill equipped with a strong work ethic, resilient spirit, unwavering focus, and grateful heart. Trust that you have everything you need to succeed inside of you. Stay curious and be open to anything and everything that pushes you to take your artistry to the next level. Lastly, hold your friends close. The friendships you made at Walnut Hill are some of the most special and profound relationships you will forge. No one will truly understand your time and journey at Walnut Hill quite like the people you met here. My friends from Walnut Hill are still some of my closest and dearest friends in the world. Lean on these people, stay in touch with them, and support their personal and artistic growth and journeys. And always remember Non nobis solum--Not for ourselves alone.
Read the interview on the Walnut Hill Arts website >
Walnut Hill Arts News
This month, we connected with Lindsay McAuliffe, a graduate of our Theater Department, to catch up on her life and career after her Walnut Hill graduation in 2015. We also heard about her recent work with the Psych Drama Company, where she recorded two audio dramas: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (as Mae) and Macbeth (as a Witch). Both shows are streaming now—tickets are available on the Psych website.
Tell us about the work you've been doing recently with the Psych Drama Company. How did you get involved, and what was your experience like working on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Macbeth?
Working with the Psych Drama Company on Macbeth and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has been one of the highlights of my 2021. It was such a joy to be making theater again! I discovered the company after coming across an audition listing on StageSource’s website. I auditioned for both shows over Zoom and soon thereafter was cast as a Witch in Macbeth and Mae in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Both shows started rehearsing in March 2021, and each rehearsed twice a week for three hours. As per tradition, we spent the first month and initial rehearsals doing table work, diving deep into character analysis and development, and discovering the world of the plays. We then transitioned to focusing our efforts on bringing the texts to life with the same energy, urgency, and magic as live theater. While most of our rehearsals were on Zoom, I constantly felt so grateful to be able to collaborate with other hungry artists and relish my first experience rehearsing for and performing an audio drama! I loved the challenge of working on these classic plays without the visual aspect traditionally associated with them.
Both Wendy Lippe and Larry Segal stressed the importance of clarifying the intentions, actions, and tactics of our characters during the early stages of the rehearsal process. To captivate the audience’s aural attention and achieve the same clarity, power, and gravitas as live theater, we had to make sure that textual and character choices we made were specific, clear, and matched the high-stakes nature of each piece. I often thought, how could I, and the cast, bring these monumental and widely known plays to life without relying on our most dominant sense: sight? It was a fun puzzle to wrestle with. Taking on these audio dramas was akin to Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire. If Fred was live theater and Ginger an audio drama, then our work creating these dramas was like doing everything Fred did but backwards and in heels.
Before recording both shows, each cast met for in-person rehearsals at Wendy’s Brookline apartment to polish and solidify the work we’d done on Zoom. Upon meeting one another, the joy in that rehearsal room was palpable; everyone was keen to be off Zoom. We recorded both shows in Psych Drama’s new performance space in Attleboro. It was such a blessing to work with talented performers and wonderful people, engage in a new theater-making process, and work on my first professional Boston show! I am excited for friends and family to listen to these audio dramas and experience classic shows in a completely new context!
Where do you see yourself going from here? Do you have any other projects coming up?
Great question! Currently, I am pursuing performance work as an actor and a director in theater, film, and TV in the Greater Boston area and around New England. I am also very interested in pursuing arts administrative opportunities at nonprofit theater companies and organizations and exploring teaching theater and theater education. Truthfully, I am trying to keep myself open to anything and stay curious regarding almost any artistic opportunity that would enable me to hone my craft, challenge my artistry, and meet like-minded, passionate artists. I am just thrilled to bits that the theater world and performing arts, in general, are safely opening back up again (fingers crossed). Just thinking about the incredible work that will emerge from this past year and a half fills me with immense joy, gratitude, and pride!
If you had to give a few words of advice to our current seniors or recent graduates who are just entering their post-Walnut Hill life, what would they be?
Take a deep breath. Whether you are a senior or recent graduate, know that you are well-prepared and more than ready for what lies ahead. Walnut Hill has set you up for academic and artistic success. Do not doubt this. You will leave Walnut Hill equipped with a strong work ethic, resilient spirit, unwavering focus, and grateful heart. Trust that you have everything you need to succeed inside of you. Stay curious and be open to anything and everything that pushes you to take your artistry to the next level. Lastly, hold your friends close. The friendships you made at Walnut Hill are some of the most special and profound relationships you will forge. No one will truly understand your time and journey at Walnut Hill quite like the people you met here. My friends from Walnut Hill are still some of my closest and dearest friends in the world. Lean on these people, stay in touch with them, and support their personal and artistic growth and journeys. And always remember Non nobis solum--Not for ourselves alone.
Read the interview on the Walnut Hill Arts website >
Audio Versions of Plays by Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams on Offer from Alum’s Local Drama CompanyTickets on sale now for Psych Theatre Company’s Macbeth and Cat on a Hot Time Roof
September 9, 2021
Joel Brown
“I believe, as a psychologist, that technology and immediate gratification and all the stimulation that we get have taken away from our ability to fantasize, to use our imaginations,” Wendy Lippe says. “A radio drama encourages people to use their imagination while they listen.”
A clinical psychologist with offices in Brookline and Cambridge, Lippe (GRS’93,’96) says she’s been busier than ever during the pandemic. She is also producing artistic director of the decade-old nonprofit Psych Drama Company. Last year, the company had planned to stage James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter, but then COVID came along and they turned it into an audio-only “radio play” last December.
“It went fantastic, we got really good reviews, and we thought, this is kind of cool,” Lippe says. “We never thought we’d really enjoy doing audio dramas, but we did, and we don’t know how long COVID is going to be here, so let’s keep going.”
So this month Psych is debuting audio versions of two classic plays that have more than a little psychology: William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. “Both Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams—in their own different forms of poetry—write beautifully about the human condition, and that’s what the Psych Drama Company is about,” Lippe says.
Shakespeare’s tragedy, believed to have first been produced in 1606, tells of the bloody ambition of the Scottish general Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to ascend to the Scottish throne, what they do to achieve their goal, and the price they pay. The Psych version “is all Shakespeare’s language, but reimagined to delve even deeper into the psyches of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth,” says Lippe, who cut the play to run about 75 minutes, plus intermission.
Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for Cat, first produced in 1955, which traces one long evening in the life of a wealthy, deeply dysfunctional Mississippi cotton-growing family, chief among them the dying patriarch Big Daddy, his son Brick, and Brick’s wife, known as “Maggie the Cat.” Asked why Cat, Lippe laughs. All Williams plays are “just chock-full of psychological richness and themes, and the writing is deeply psychological and poetic at the same time,” she says.
“We didn’t think we were going to get the rights,” she adds. “Many of the major American playwrights and/or their estates were just not giving virtual rights. And it fell into our laps. So we decided, let’s do two! We were rehearsing both at the same time.”
And both feature women who want to stir their men to action in one way or another. Lippe plays both Lady Macbeth and Maggie the Cat. A psychological nexus? “That is so brilliantly insightful,” she says, laughing. “Even though consciously I’m aware of that, I had not put it together for myself. I’ll have to think about that.”
Most of the others involved in the project are local theater veterans. Macbeth, directed by Lippe, stars Mark Prokes as Macbeth and Michael Blunt as Banquo. Directed by Larry Segel, Cat’s stars are Eric McGowan as Brick and David Lee Vincent as Big Daddy, also experienced local actors.
In her private practice, Lippe uses both cognitive therapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy. From 2000 to 2019, she was an adjunct faculty member or a visiting researcher at the BU Center for Anxiety & Related Disorders, but basically functioned as a clinical supervisor for students in the clinical psychology doctoral program, she says. She stopped teaching in 2019, because the time demands were simply too much on top of her private practice and the theater company, but now she consults as needed and gives guest lectures in the psychological and brain sciences department.
The two new productions are not script readings, but fully rehearsed audio dramas that were each in rehearsal for over three months prior to being recorded in August.
“I couldn’t believe Macbeth was written after Hamlet, which is his masterpiece in the creation of the inner landscape of the human psyche, of the internality of the characters,” Lippe says. “I’ve been struck by the two-dimensionality of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in comparison. As a psychologist, I felt they were not as fleshed-out in terms of their internal landscape. What I wanted to do in my adaptation was experiment with ways of creating more internal conflict for them using just Shakespeare’s text.” She uses sound design and fragments of the text to give viewers what she hopes is an expanded insight into their internal struggles.
The two new shows also include some “really cool collaborations,” she says. Traveling in Croatia to attend a workshop a year before COVID, Lippe met theater-focused musician and composer Zarko Dragojevic, of Audiovisual Center Dubrovnik, who was a workshop copresenter. The two wanted to collaborate, and then pandemic life on Zoom made it seem more sensible to work together long distance. “I said we’re doing virtual theater, doing these audio dramas now; what are you doing?” she says. “And he said, ‘Not much of anything. We’re also in a bind. Maybe this is the time to collaborate.’”
He provided an original score and “soundscape” for Psych’s production of Macbeth, which also features sound design by Zachary McConnell, who plays Duncan and Malcolm and provides narration. Macbeth also includes a streaming art exhibition by Nick Morse, of Boston’s ArtLifting organization, during intermission. (That’s his art on the Macbeth poster.)
Lippe was so moved by the struggles all of these artists faced during the pandemic that this production will have profit-sharing, she says, after Psych covers its costs.
The Psych troupe is also planning live performances of The Lion in Winter in November, venue TBA. Arrangements are still under discussion, but the troupe is already rehearsing. Performing for a live audience again, Lippe says, she will feel “fully alive, exhilarated, like I’m home again. My eyes are filling up with tears thinking about it.”
Read More >
Audience Praise
“The Psych Drama Company’s production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is superb! I was riveted. The performances, especially Wendy Lippe who plays Maggie the Cat and David Lee Vincent who plays Big Daddy, they are both excellent. I also liked the use of music by Adam Elliott Rush and occasional sound effects. I had forgotten the power of the play and the controversial themes that Tennessee put forth in the mid-1950s. Mendacity and avarice have only gotten worse in our society. Congratulations to The Psych Drama Company on these two fine productions!”
– Larry Rosenberg
"I LOVED Wendy Lippe as 'Maggie the Cat' in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof!"
– Judith Stern
“This production of a Tennessee Williams classic exceeded my expectations, drawing me in deep into the agonies of the Pollitts. The acting is superb, revealing each character in their roles in this white Southern family of mid 20th century and how family relationships form a crucible for hurts, fears, longings, hostility and shame to fester.”
– Goldie Eder, LICSW, BCD
“With The Psych Drama Company’s production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, my favorite play just became more poignant.”
– Alan Sorow
“Bravo, super work, I only needed to listen to the excerpts to realize that this Cat on a Hot Tin Roof audio production is expertly directed and produced, and that the ‘omniscient narrator’ Larry Segel sounds uncannily like Tennessee Williams.”
– Aleksander Wierzbicki
“The show was incredible…Right away from the beginning I was caught up in the performance. Not only that, it was the first time I experienced theater on a computer and that was fun.
Not one comment – just thought it was really very good, and tell all your cast members, especially Wendy Lippe, that it was incredible.
Thank you for that experience.
It actually was one of the best shows I've ever heard. I'm very proud of The Psych Drama Company. The show was excellent and I don't have one bad comment. Seriously, the performances were rich, they had depth, the entire show had rhythm, it was very entertaining.”
– Nicholas Beach
“David Lee Vincent kills it as Big Daddy in Act II of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof!”
– Anonymous
“Adam Rush's music and character renditions are terrific. Loved listening to Cat. Now to tune into Macbeth.”
– L.M.
– Larry Rosenberg
"I LOVED Wendy Lippe as 'Maggie the Cat' in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof!"
– Judith Stern
“This production of a Tennessee Williams classic exceeded my expectations, drawing me in deep into the agonies of the Pollitts. The acting is superb, revealing each character in their roles in this white Southern family of mid 20th century and how family relationships form a crucible for hurts, fears, longings, hostility and shame to fester.”
– Goldie Eder, LICSW, BCD
“With The Psych Drama Company’s production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, my favorite play just became more poignant.”
– Alan Sorow
“Bravo, super work, I only needed to listen to the excerpts to realize that this Cat on a Hot Tin Roof audio production is expertly directed and produced, and that the ‘omniscient narrator’ Larry Segel sounds uncannily like Tennessee Williams.”
– Aleksander Wierzbicki
“The show was incredible…Right away from the beginning I was caught up in the performance. Not only that, it was the first time I experienced theater on a computer and that was fun.
Not one comment – just thought it was really very good, and tell all your cast members, especially Wendy Lippe, that it was incredible.
Thank you for that experience.
It actually was one of the best shows I've ever heard. I'm very proud of The Psych Drama Company. The show was excellent and I don't have one bad comment. Seriously, the performances were rich, they had depth, the entire show had rhythm, it was very entertaining.”
– Nicholas Beach
“David Lee Vincent kills it as Big Daddy in Act II of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof!”
– Anonymous
“Adam Rush's music and character renditions are terrific. Loved listening to Cat. Now to tune into Macbeth.”
– L.M.