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Read about The Psych Drama Company’s Producing Artistic Director in the Boston Globe VIP Lounge:
01/16/25 -- By Juliet Pennington
Read The Story Here:
Brookline resident Wendy Lippe is a clinical psychologist with a private practice and a clinical assistant professorship at Boston University. She is also a theater professional who is a member of the Actors’ Equity Association. In 2010, she combined the two pursuits and founded The Psych Drama Company (www.thepsychdramacompany.com). “I wanted to reach people and connect with audiences in as meaningful a way as possible,” she said in a recent phone call. “We’ve experimented with many ways of doing that, having produced everything from Shakespeare to works from the American greats, like Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams.” The nonprofit theater company’s latest production, Sarah Ruhl’s “Stage Kiss” is, Lippe said, a “departure” from what the company has done in the past. “We were going to do Eugene O’Neill’s ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night,’ but the world right now is so heavy and dark, that we decided it was time for a comedy with dramatic elements that warm the heart,” she said, referring to “Stage Kiss” as Ruhl’s “love letter to actors that takes the psychology of the ‘showmance’ and elevates it tenfold.” The immersive production (“We break the fourth wall, so the audience has the option of getting involved in the show,” she said), directed by Second City alum and Boston University graduate Rani O’Brien, is at the Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Blackbox Theatre Feb. 13-23. It’s no coincidence that “Stage Kiss” is opening on the eve of Valentine’s Day, said Lippe, the company’s producing artistic director — who is also a cast member in the latest production. “It asks important questions about the nature of love and loving, and it helps us to be curious about the love relationships we choose and why we choose them; that we make different choices for love relationships at different stages in our lives,” she said. “As a clinical psychologist, I am very invested in our society becoming less judgmental and critical and more curious and compassionate. I think that this particular play holds the potential of helping us move away from defensive and simplistic categorization of love relationships, such as ‘this is a toxic relationship,’ ‘this is my soulmate’ … these are really empty, vague terms and they are quite binary, whereas human love relationships are so layered and complicated and filled with dialectical tensions.” We caught up the Great Neck, N.Y., native to talk about all things travel.
If you could travel anywhere right now, where would you go? Iceland. It’s January and the perfect time to see the Northern Lights. And now that I’ve discovered this amazing glass house surrounded by the Northern Lights on Airbnb, it’s definitely time to go.
Do you prefer booking trips through a travel agent or on your own? For faraway exotic destinations, I always use a travel agent. For European travel, that’s all me.
Thoughts on an “unplugged” vacation? Overwater bungalows anywhere in the world. You can quite literally unplug from your laptop or cellphone and roll from your desk or bed into the ocean in two seconds. My vacations always involve some amount of work, so this is ideal.
What has been your worst vacation experience? Flying home from Italy with my mother on 9/11. We were halfway home when we learned the airplane was headed back to Rome. We couldn’t get back into the US for another two weeks.
What is your favorite childhood travel memory? Summer trips to the Jersey Shore with my family to visit my grandparents. We always loved going to Brigantine’s Castle, the live haunted house.
Do you vacation to relax, to learn, or for the adventure of it all? All of the above. Different vacations meet different needs. The Devil’s Pool at the edge of the precipice of Victoria Falls, the DMZ in South Korea, and Ravello on the Amalfi Coast are all equally wonderful, but in very different ways.
What book do you plan on bringing with you to read on your next vacation? Two plays: Edward Albee’s “At Home at the Zoo” and Noel Coward’s “Private Lives.”
If you could travel with one famous person/celebrity, who would it be? Patrick Swayze … don’t ask.
What is the best gift to give a traveler? Frequent flyer miles.
What is your go-to snack for a flight or a road trip? Some chocolate and some protein.
What is the coolest souvenir you’ve picked up on a vacation? A 5-foot-tall art nouveau sculpture from Prague.
What is your favorite app/website for travel? Tripadvisor.com.
What has travel taught you? Perspective. You have to get out of the box in which you exist in order to actually see the box for what it is — and for what it isn’t. Similarly, travel paradoxically takes us out of ourselves and simultaneously connects us more deeply to ourselves.
What is your best travel tip? Just go. Don’t obsess about it. Life is too short and there is so much to experience in this big, beautiful world.
You can access the link to the article here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/01/16/lifestyle/vip-lounge-wendy-lippe-iceland-patrick-swayze/
01/16/25 -- By Juliet Pennington
Read The Story Here:
Brookline resident Wendy Lippe is a clinical psychologist with a private practice and a clinical assistant professorship at Boston University. She is also a theater professional who is a member of the Actors’ Equity Association. In 2010, she combined the two pursuits and founded The Psych Drama Company (www.thepsychdramacompany.com). “I wanted to reach people and connect with audiences in as meaningful a way as possible,” she said in a recent phone call. “We’ve experimented with many ways of doing that, having produced everything from Shakespeare to works from the American greats, like Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams.” The nonprofit theater company’s latest production, Sarah Ruhl’s “Stage Kiss” is, Lippe said, a “departure” from what the company has done in the past. “We were going to do Eugene O’Neill’s ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night,’ but the world right now is so heavy and dark, that we decided it was time for a comedy with dramatic elements that warm the heart,” she said, referring to “Stage Kiss” as Ruhl’s “love letter to actors that takes the psychology of the ‘showmance’ and elevates it tenfold.” The immersive production (“We break the fourth wall, so the audience has the option of getting involved in the show,” she said), directed by Second City alum and Boston University graduate Rani O’Brien, is at the Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Blackbox Theatre Feb. 13-23. It’s no coincidence that “Stage Kiss” is opening on the eve of Valentine’s Day, said Lippe, the company’s producing artistic director — who is also a cast member in the latest production. “It asks important questions about the nature of love and loving, and it helps us to be curious about the love relationships we choose and why we choose them; that we make different choices for love relationships at different stages in our lives,” she said. “As a clinical psychologist, I am very invested in our society becoming less judgmental and critical and more curious and compassionate. I think that this particular play holds the potential of helping us move away from defensive and simplistic categorization of love relationships, such as ‘this is a toxic relationship,’ ‘this is my soulmate’ … these are really empty, vague terms and they are quite binary, whereas human love relationships are so layered and complicated and filled with dialectical tensions.” We caught up the Great Neck, N.Y., native to talk about all things travel.
If you could travel anywhere right now, where would you go? Iceland. It’s January and the perfect time to see the Northern Lights. And now that I’ve discovered this amazing glass house surrounded by the Northern Lights on Airbnb, it’s definitely time to go.
Do you prefer booking trips through a travel agent or on your own? For faraway exotic destinations, I always use a travel agent. For European travel, that’s all me.
Thoughts on an “unplugged” vacation? Overwater bungalows anywhere in the world. You can quite literally unplug from your laptop or cellphone and roll from your desk or bed into the ocean in two seconds. My vacations always involve some amount of work, so this is ideal.
What has been your worst vacation experience? Flying home from Italy with my mother on 9/11. We were halfway home when we learned the airplane was headed back to Rome. We couldn’t get back into the US for another two weeks.
What is your favorite childhood travel memory? Summer trips to the Jersey Shore with my family to visit my grandparents. We always loved going to Brigantine’s Castle, the live haunted house.
Do you vacation to relax, to learn, or for the adventure of it all? All of the above. Different vacations meet different needs. The Devil’s Pool at the edge of the precipice of Victoria Falls, the DMZ in South Korea, and Ravello on the Amalfi Coast are all equally wonderful, but in very different ways.
What book do you plan on bringing with you to read on your next vacation? Two plays: Edward Albee’s “At Home at the Zoo” and Noel Coward’s “Private Lives.”
If you could travel with one famous person/celebrity, who would it be? Patrick Swayze … don’t ask.
What is the best gift to give a traveler? Frequent flyer miles.
What is your go-to snack for a flight or a road trip? Some chocolate and some protein.
What is the coolest souvenir you’ve picked up on a vacation? A 5-foot-tall art nouveau sculpture from Prague.
What is your favorite app/website for travel? Tripadvisor.com.
What has travel taught you? Perspective. You have to get out of the box in which you exist in order to actually see the box for what it is — and for what it isn’t. Similarly, travel paradoxically takes us out of ourselves and simultaneously connects us more deeply to ourselves.
What is your best travel tip? Just go. Don’t obsess about it. Life is too short and there is so much to experience in this big, beautiful world.
You can access the link to the article here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/01/16/lifestyle/vip-lounge-wendy-lippe-iceland-patrick-swayze/
Our director, Broadway's Julia Murney, has been featured in the Boston Globe VIP Lounge!
Julia Murney on Ireland, peanut butter M&M’s, and Reddit
By Juliet Pennington
Julia Murney is best known for playing Elphaba in “Wicked” on Broadway, as well as in the show’s first national tour (which was in Boston for a month in 2006). And while the veteran theatrical performer enjoys acting, she has another passion: directing. “I love working with actors … and I’ve always loved storytelling,” Murney said in a recent phone interview. She will make her Boston directorial debut this month in The Psych Drama Company’s production of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” at the Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Black Box Theatre June 18-28. The two-person production stars Wendy Lippe, who founded The Psych Drama Company, as Frankie, and Cliff Blake as Johnny. “I’ve never directed a show with two people in it. Having two people in one space for the entire play has some very interesting challenges … but it’s going to be very fun to get to explore all that entails,” Murney said. She described Terrence McNally’s play as “a complicated love story” and a “grown-up love story that is definitely not for children.” Murney said she has seen the show several times — most recently on Broadway (in 2019) starring Audra McDonald. “Audiences are in for quite a night,” she said. “We’re used to a meet-cute, love-at-first-sight [storyline] where the couple has a fight, gets married … that’s not this story.” Murney said she is looking forward to coming to Boston for rehearsals and to visiting “one of my favorite museums of all time,” the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. We caught up with the New York City native, who still calls NYC home, to talk about all things travel.
If you could travel anywhere right now, where would you go? I would pretty much travel anywhere at any time, but if we are talking this very moment, I’d say Ireland. I was there for the third time last year, and I’m so in love with the people, the traditional music, and the food. Or New Zealand. I do love New Zealand — shout out to Christchurch [a city in New Zealand’s Canterbury region]. I taught at a theater camp there with Jonathan Groff in 2018 and the people there are top-notch humans — and we were so well taken care of. Or Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Or Banff. Or ... or ... or...
Do you prefer booking trips through a travel agent or on your own? I pretty much do it on my own. It’s hard to describe how jazzed I feel when I book a trip.
Thoughts on an “unplugged” vacation? I’d try it as long as I was allowed to have a camera of some kind.
What has been your worst vacation experience? One of the most challenging was a time I went to Paris — in December 2019 — and when I landed they were having a transit strike. The buses were running, but the city trains were out, and the roads were packed. I had to get to the Gard du Nord to catch the last train out to meet friends in Bruges [Belgium], and I realized the only way I was going to get there was to walk/run three miles straight through the city, dragging my wheelie luggage behind me. Made it with moments to spare.
What is your favorite childhood travel memory? Driving up from New York City to my grandparents’ houses in Rhode Island and New Hampshire.
Do you vacation to relax, to learn, or for the adventure of it all? Yes. All of the above.
What book do you plan on bringing with you to read on your next vacation? My friend Marc Shaiman — who composed the musical “Hairspray” among many other things — has a new memoir called “Never Mind The Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner.” It’s sitting on the shelf waiting for me.
If you could travel with one famous person/celebrity, who would it be? For laughter, Tracee Ellis Ross; for entertainment, Dolly Parton; for all the backstory information, Rick Steves.
What is the best gift to give a traveler? Time or copious frequent-flier points.
What is your go-to snack for a flight or a road trip? Peanut Butter M&M’s. Always.
What is the coolest souvenir you’ve picked up on a vacation? I try to find ornaments when I go somewhere so I can revisit them every year when I decorate my tree. All of them cumulatively are my favorite souvenirs.
What is your favorite app/website for travel? Reddit. You can find opinions and tips on just about anywhere you’re curious about.
What has travel taught you? The world is so much bigger than our scope of vision and also so much smaller than it seems. There’s a relief in getting out of the habits we’re in and expanding our breathing space.
What is your best travel tip? If you possibly can, just go. Go anywhere, but go somewhere.
Read the full article here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/04/lifestyle/the-vip-lounge-julia-murney/
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The Psych Drama Company combines psychological insight with dramatic art
to explore the timeless complexities of the human soul.
The Psych Drama Company is a 501(c)3 certified non-profit organization.
© 2020 The Psych Drama Company/Pandora’s Box Productions, Inc.
to explore the timeless complexities of the human soul.
The Psych Drama Company is a 501(c)3 certified non-profit organization.
© 2020 The Psych Drama Company/Pandora’s Box Productions, Inc.