Press and praise for 'Frankie and Johnny'
Press Review: The Boston Globe, by Don Aucoin
"Psych Drama Company A ‘Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune’ that Terrence McNally would admire"
By Don Aucoin
The craft of acting obviously demands a willingness to tackle challenges. It’s the sine qua non of the job.But even by that standard, what Cliff Blake is doing in “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” is something special. Blake experienced a stroke a year ago, and his recovery, though steady, has not always been smooth. So just before the start of Thursday night’s performance in the Plaza Black Box Theatre, a Psych Drama Company staffer informed the audience that she would be functioning as a prompter, ready to supply him with lines if needed. Her help wasn’t needed. Not once. Instead, Blake and costar Wendy Lippe teamed up to deliver a pair of scalding, close-to-the-bone performances in Terrence McNally’s comic drama about a one-night stand between Frankie, a jaded diner waitress, and Johnny, a loquacious short-order cook, that turns into a lot more.
According to Lippe, who heads Psych Drama Company as producing artistic director, Blake has not required assistance with lines a single time since performances began on June 19, and his doctors have said he is expected to make a full recovery. Even when there are no medical complications involved, “Frankie and Johnny” is not easy to pull off. Yet under the direction of Julia Murney, this tiny fringe company actually does a better job in capturing the play’s essence than the 2019 Broadway production starring Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon did. This “Frankie and Johnny” deserves to be seen by a lot more people than the dozen spectators who were there Thursday night. It runs only through Sunday, and offers the chance not only to savor the memorable work of Murney, Blake, and Lippe, but also to acquaint — or reacquaint — yourself with McNally, one of the most consequential playwrights of his generation.
He died at 81 of complications from the coronavirus in March 2020, the same month when Broadway — where many of McNally’s plays had been presented over his six-decade career — closed its doors for what would become a year-and-a-half-long intermission. His death didn’t seem to get the attention it deserved, perhaps because the theater world, like the rest of the world, was reeling from the onset of the pandemic. But in 2023 Christopher Byrne published an aptly titled biography of McNally, “A Man of Much Importance,” and last month the musical adaptation of “Ragtime,” for which McNally wrote the book (i.e., script) won four Tony Awards.
McNally’s underlying argument in “Frankie and Johnny” — that love can heal and it’s never too late — may sound hackneyed. So might the setup of a passionate but friction-filled encounter between a seemingly mismatched but actually made-for-each-other duo. But they’re given an immediacy and even urgency by the Psych Drama Company production, which is set in the 1980s.
A major problem sits at the center of “Frankie and Johnny” that neither Murney nor any other director is able to fix. After Frankie and Johnny make love, he insists on sticking around even though she demands that he hit the road. “We gotta connect,” he tells her. “We just have to.” He keeps trying to convince her that they are soul mates. The fact that they ultimately prove to be just that doesn’t make the Act One scenes where he refuses to leave any less jarring.
The play takes place entirely in Frankie’s New York apartment. Designed by Allie Glavey, it exudes the weariness of its inhabitant, who’s in her late 40s. (Johnny is about to turn 60). A glamorous trysting spot it is not, with a small TV set propped on a box on the floor, a thinly populated bookcase, a drooping lampshade, copies of the New York Post stuffed in a metal rack, and a pullout couch.
Director Murney is a respected actress whose track record includes a stint on Broadway as Elphaba in “Wicked” and Drama Desk nominations for “The Wild Party” and “Falling.” Her direction of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” is both precise and free-flowing. She makes sure that at certain times we are intensely aware of how close Frankie and Johnny are, physically and otherwise; and at others, how distant.
By Act Two, the chemistry between Blake and Lippe has built to the point that we clearly sense that the stakes for Frankie and Johnny are equally high.
When I interviewed McNally in 2012, he said: “I like to surprise myself. I’ve always been attracted to projects where I don’t know how they’re going to turn out. If I ever evince bravery in my life, it tends to be at a keyboard.” I think he’d admire the bravery evinced by Blake and Lippe on the stage in “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.”
FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE
Play by Terrence McNally. Directed by Julia Murney. Presented by The Psych Drama Company. At Plaza Black Box Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts. Through June 28. Adults only (contains nudity). Tickets $55. BostonTheatreScene.com.
Read the full article 'Frankie & Johnny' at its best from Psych Drama Company
Press Feature: CBS Boston, In the Spotlight, by Courtney Cole
"Boston theater company using psychiatrists, social workers to make connection in plays feel real"
By Courtney Cole CBS Boston
Connection is a key part of the experience during productions from the Psych Drama Company. Wendy Lippe, an actor and clinical psychologist, founded the company in 2010.
Artistic teams work with mental health professionals on the plays and in some cases, the audience has a chance to share in the conversation.
Lippe explained that the current production of Terrance McNally's Tony-nominated "Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune" asks questions like, "What is connection? What is intimacy? How do we understand it?"
Co-star Cliff Blake added, "It's intriguing what does make a couple really connect, and how do you find your soulmate?"
Lippe created the company to combine her passions and create something unique in Boston.
"We have had psychologists and psychiatrists and social workers involved in all aspects of the production. They've worked on character arcs, script analysis," Lippe said.
This piece unfolds over the course of one night as co-workers at a diner become something more.
Continue watching Wheel of Fortune searching for contestants from New England after the ad" I think this play is mostly about the baggage we carry with us from things in the past and how we work through that or don't," said director Julia Murney.
She is best known for her work on stage, playing Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway. But when Lippe, a college classmate, reached out, Murney jumped at the opportunity to direct her first show in Boston.
Murney said, "I love actors. I like being in a sandbox with them and playing. I also do like getting to stand back and watch."
The audience will have the chance to do more than just watch. This play takes place in the 1980s, so after evening performances, there will be an 80s dance party. And after the matinees, post-show discussions with the actors.
Lippe said, "These are difficult times out in the world right now. And we want to celebrate and talk about how we overcome obstacles at a micro and macro level."
"I hope people come to see the show with a wide-open heart," said Murney. "And I hope that it allows them to take two hours to either leave whatever they're dealing with out there or bring it in and work through some of it."
"If every audience member repaired a relationship or found a new relationship or got hope, if they don't have hope, that would be nirvana," Blake said.
Read the article Boston theater company using psychiatrists, social workers to make connection in plays feel real - CBS Boston
"Boston theater company using psychiatrists, social workers to make connection in plays feel real"
By Courtney Cole CBS Boston
Connection is a key part of the experience during productions from the Psych Drama Company. Wendy Lippe, an actor and clinical psychologist, founded the company in 2010.
Artistic teams work with mental health professionals on the plays and in some cases, the audience has a chance to share in the conversation.
Lippe explained that the current production of Terrance McNally's Tony-nominated "Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune" asks questions like, "What is connection? What is intimacy? How do we understand it?"
Co-star Cliff Blake added, "It's intriguing what does make a couple really connect, and how do you find your soulmate?"
Lippe created the company to combine her passions and create something unique in Boston.
"We have had psychologists and psychiatrists and social workers involved in all aspects of the production. They've worked on character arcs, script analysis," Lippe said.
This piece unfolds over the course of one night as co-workers at a diner become something more.
Continue watching Wheel of Fortune searching for contestants from New England after the ad" I think this play is mostly about the baggage we carry with us from things in the past and how we work through that or don't," said director Julia Murney.
She is best known for her work on stage, playing Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway. But when Lippe, a college classmate, reached out, Murney jumped at the opportunity to direct her first show in Boston.
Murney said, "I love actors. I like being in a sandbox with them and playing. I also do like getting to stand back and watch."
The audience will have the chance to do more than just watch. This play takes place in the 1980s, so after evening performances, there will be an 80s dance party. And after the matinees, post-show discussions with the actors.
Lippe said, "These are difficult times out in the world right now. And we want to celebrate and talk about how we overcome obstacles at a micro and macro level."
"I hope people come to see the show with a wide-open heart," said Murney. "And I hope that it allows them to take two hours to either leave whatever they're dealing with out there or bring it in and work through some of it."
"If every audience member repaired a relationship or found a new relationship or got hope, if they don't have hope, that would be nirvana," Blake said.
Read the article Boston theater company using psychiatrists, social workers to make connection in plays feel real - CBS Boston
Listen to the Podcast The Frankie and Johnny episode is now available to listen to and watch online.
Spotify: Listen on Spotify
YouTube: Watch on YouTube
You can also explore the PodPro Entertainment podcast network on YouTube.
Spotify: Listen on Spotify
YouTube: Watch on YouTube
You can also explore the PodPro Entertainment podcast network on YouTube.
PRESS FEATURE: Playbill By Andrew Gans
“Julia Murney Will Direct Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune in Boston”
Playbill features the upcoming Boston production of Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, directed by Julia Murney. The article highlights the production, its creative team, and the Boston engagement.
May 15, 2026 · By Andrew Gans
Julia Murney, who has wowed audiences off and on Broadway in such musicals as The Wild Party and Wicked, will direct Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune for the Boston-based The Psych Drama Company this summer.
The limited engagement will play the BCA Plaza Black Box Theatre on Tremont Street June 18–28. The two-person cast will feature Wendy Lippe as Frankie and Cliff Blake as Johnny.
In the intimate play, first seen Off-Broadway in 1987, a waitress and a short-order cook spend the course of an evening together. Later staged on Broadway in 2002 and 2019, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune is a story of loneliness, companionship, and hope.
"As the director," Murney says in a statement, "may I humbly submit that you will have a sweet, heartach-y evening watching Boston's own Wendy Lippe and Cliff Blake playing a couple seeing if they can get past their histories and walk towards their future together. I'd be so glad for everyone (18 and over, please) to come down to the Boston Center for the Arts and join us for Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, presented by the always innovative Psych Drama Company...enjoy!"
The upcoming production will also have lighting design by Matt Breton, sound design by Olivia Comolli, technical direction and set design by Allie Glavey, stage management by Alex Zieselman, and intimacy coordination by Katie Thorn. Maithili Rajput is the assistant producer.
Read the original article on Playbill:
https://playbill.com/article/julia-murney-will-direct-frankie-and-johnny-in-the-clair-de-lune-in-boston
PRESS FEATURE: Interview by Kilian Melloy
"Director Julia Murney & Actor Wendy Lippe on the Complex Relationships in ‘Frankie & Johnny in the Claire de Lune’"
Interview by Kilian Melloy
Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, presented by The Psych Drama Company, runs June 18 – 28, 2026 at the BCA Plaza Black Box Theatre in Boston.
Two lonely souls connect in Terrence McNally’s play Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune; the play begins with their cries of passion. But will a memorable night be all that passes between them? Or will this be the start of something more? For Frankie, played by Wendy Lippe in The Psyche Drama Company’s production of the 1986 two-hander, a one-off might be ideal; she’s been hurt… all too literally… in love before, and she doesn’t want a repeat. But for Johnny, played by Cliff Blake, the stars of romantic fate have aligned, and he’s willing to spend until dawn, if need be, pleading his case. It’s moonlight, the madness of infatuation, and the terror of intimacy in the New York City-set drama, which Broadway star and theatrical director Julia Murney helms in her Boston directorial debut.
Lippe and Murney have known each other for decades, having been at the BFA program at Syracuse University together, as well as the Carnegie Mellon Summer Institute in Musical Theater, and, even before that, at the Stagedoor Manor [ https://stagedoormanor.com/ ] summer camp. The two even survived what might have been a fatal car crash on a wintery night.
“We were driving back to the Syracuse University program,” Lippe recalls during our Zoom call. “I had fallen asleep. Julia was at the wheel. She slammed on the brakes on the ice, and when I woke up to her screaming, we were literally doing 360s down the highway. To the left would have been death, and to the right was a snowbank.”
“We have different memories,” Murney demurs. “I remember us going into the snowbank, but the car did not turn on its side. We were stuck in the snowbank in the wrong direction, and had to get towed out, but Wendy’s very deep imagination brought us to the brink of death.”
What they both recall is how an innocent twist of fate spared Murney from death aboard flight Pan Am 103, which was brought down by a terrorist bomb on December 21, 1988, over Lockerbee, Scotland.
“I studied in London, and it was at the end of the semester, and I was at the top of the wait list for that flight,” Murney recounts. “I just didn’t make the call because I already had somebody to go to the airport with. It was just kind of haphazard. There was nobody else from our program on the flight that I was taking.”
But a number of their fellow students were not so lucky. Lippe, who is the founding Artistic Director of The Psych Drama Company, has memorialized them with this production; text in the show’s program notes that Lippe is dedicating her performance in the production to those lost classmates.
Wendy Lippe and Julia Murney chatted with Theater Mirror’s Kilian Melloy about how their lives had crisscrossed over the decades, how they reconnected, and why Lippe brought her old acquaintance to Boston for this production.
Actors Wendy Lippe (left) & Cliff Blake (middle) with Director Julia Murney (right).
Theater Mirror: Julia, you famously played Elphaba in a national tour and on Broadway in Wicked. Are you surprised to see how well Wicked the movie has done — how popular it is, so to speak.
Julia Murney: I’m not surprised, simply because it’s Wicked. The extraordinary lightning in the bottle that they caught was the [result of] the recognition factor of The Wizard of Oz. People thinking, “Oh, those are characters that I know” is what drew them in initially. It did feel like the audience was predisposed to loving it in a way that was fascinating. I’ve also been in shows that were definitely not that, so it’s interesting to be in that kind of a hit, especially since I was in it very early, when it was very new. Now there are people who saw it as teenagers who have children they are forcing to go see Wicked, they love it so much.
Theater Mirror: You’ve also appeared on countless TV shows — Sex and the City, Law and Order, Thirty Rock, Brothers and Sisters. Is directing a very different experience to acting, would you say, or are they extensions of each other in some way?
Julia Murney: Oh, they’re definitely extensions of each other. I love acting, but I also really like directing, and it’s nice to think about not having to pick one. You can’t give notes to people that are just the way you would do the play; you have to give notes based on how you’re viewing the play and what the characters are saying. [Frankie and Johnny] is the first play I’ve directed that is only two people and only one location, which doesn’t sound like it should make a difference, but it does. [When] shows change location, that’s part of the character of the show. Figuring out ways to make that interesting and flowing, those challenges are fun.
Theater Mirror: How do you approach those challenges, as well as the way the play pretty much unfolds in real time?
Julia Murney: Initially, it was just reading it and absorbing it and knowing the general gist of what you want for this play to be in the apartment and working with our set designer in terms of where those things get set up. In any kind of a regional theater setting, you’re dealing with specific spaces, and specific things that a space can do or not do. When you’re doing an L shape or in the round, you have to stage things differently. Someone’s always going to be behind you in the round. I did Evita in the round in California, and that was the first time I had ever done it; I remember at one point I went to turn around to, like, [makes a throat-clearing gesture] before I sang something big, and realized, “Oh, there’s a person sitting right there, I can’t clear my throat!” You have to figure that that sort of thing out.
Theater Mirror: Another thing that might be a challenge is this play was written in the ’80s, and there are certain elements of it that might be dated or even problematic. For example, the way Johnny is pressing so hard in his courtship; Frankie’s telling him, “Back off, go away, you’re a creep,” and he’s saying, “No, no, I want you, and I’m going for what I want.” His ardor could slip into something you may not want him to be doing. How are you walking that tightrope?
Julia Murney: I completely agree with you. This is the kind of a play that says, “The time is the present” at the beginning. Frankly, it could not take place at the present. I have firmly placed it in 1986, which is when the play was written. I mean, you can’t place it by saying it’s 1986, but you can hint at it in set dressing, in there’s a radio and there’s a DJ, and there’s pre-show music, and all those sorts of things leading people into that world.
The thing that stuck out to me is that she asks him to leave numerous times, and he doesn’t — which, to me, I’m like, “Stranger danger! What are we doing?” But that’s the play, and, unfortunately, Terrence isn’t here for me to ask. So, we have to figure out a way to say the lines he’s written and not make them sound like this creepy man who won’t leave her home. You want to root for them, you don’t want to be like, “Girl, get him out of your house!” — which is how you could potentially feel. So, we’ve tried to gently lean it into other directions.
Theater Mirror: Wendy, how are you playing Frankie? Are you presenting her in a way in which people will say, “She can handle herself — he’s a nuisance, but he’s not a danger to her”?
Wendy Lippe: I think the text is quite a challenge, because she goes back and forth between being charmed by him and then, “Whoa, leave!” I think Terrence does this beautifully in his writing, and that’s also her own inner struggle at a deep level: Wanting intimacy and wanting connection but having been through so much trauma and physical battering, and her mother abandoned her when she was seven. There’s this tension between her yearning and her guards, and so you’re constantly playing with that.
At a certain point, I really need him to leave, and he’s not going. That’s the first time, and the only time, where she’s like, “You really need to go,” and he doesn’t — because he’s Johnny, not because he’s being creepy. Because he’s so hungry for connection and love. She gets very triggered, and she smacks him, and that activates a whole bunch of physiological reactions from her past trauma. I think Julia has done a brilliant job of making the earlier experiences of asking him to leave not threatening. That has been enormously helpful, and I would never have found that without her.
Theater Mirror: This is obviously a play about relationships — not just between Johnny and Frankie, but between their parents, whom they discuss; the neighbors, who have very different kinds of relationship dynamics; and, of course, they’re the namesakes of characters in a famous song in which a woman kills her lover. What is the play telling us about relationships?
Julia Murney: I met Terrence, I sang for him once in a thing that was honoring him, but I certainly never had a conversation with him about Frankie and Johnny and its deeper meanings. I think there is something, though, [connected to] the fact that it was written in the early to mid-’80s by a gay man in New York City in the middle of the AIDS crisis. This is not about gay people, but I think there is an undercurrent standing in for the push and pull of what gay men were dealing with at that time in terms of what is safe, and what is intimacy, and “Is this going to kill me?” It’s not just, “I might end up with some inconvenience or a broken heart.” I think that’s part of what lurks underneath, is a feeling of the fear of commitment and all of the things that that means for damaged people.
Wendy Lippe: I also wanted to say something about the neighbors. We have one set of neighbors that are an old couple who have been together forever, and they are just in different worlds with each other. They’re alive, but their relationship is dead.
Theater Mirror: And this is before cell phones!
Wendy Lippe: Exactly. And then we have the other couple that we see through our window, where the man is beating the shit out of the woman. What I think is so interesting is that Frankie has a moment where she’s interacting with Johnny, and he’s like, “I have so much love to give,” and she’s like, “Look, I’ve given you all I’ve got. There is no more. I’m empty.” That is a really important moment. There’s the question of violence, but there’s also the question of deadness and emptiness as life goes on. She brings him to the window, and she shows him [these couples]. It’s different kinds of fears about intimacy and the ways that it can hurt us. There’s a range of things we don’t want to feel and see in ourselves and others, and those two couples are diametrically opposed in terms of the things that are going on, but we don’t want [to become] either one of them.
Julia Murney: I think Frankie is a character who has generally got her feet stuck in some heavy wet sand of the past, and Johnny is the kind of person who is trying to remake what he thinks might be his future, and he sees it in her. They just need to [connect in the present moment]. That seems so simple, but that’s the difference between a baby step and jumping the Grand Canyon. It just depends on who you are, and with the other person in that moment, and that’s a big factor in the play of the two of them.
Theater Mirror: Wendy, why did you decide to bring Julia in to make her Boston directorial debut for this play?
Wendy Lippe: Julia is a star in all things performing — singing, dancing, everything in the world — but it was her performance in Falling that I went to see off Broadway, for which she received a Drama Desk nomination. I was sitting in the audience, and I said, “This woman! Her capacity for drama! I gotta work with her, we gotta hire her.” And I looked at my program, because she was incredible, and I said, “Oh my god, it’s Julia fucking Murney!” I went backstage, I met her agent, I was like, “Julia, you have blown my mind.” I mean, I knew that she was good at everything, and everybody knows about Elphaba, and her singing voice, and Carnegie Hall and everything, but to see what this woman was capable of dramatically — I mean, I cried, I had shivers, I laughed. I remember her agent telling me, “Wendy, in New York City on Broadway, people get put into buckets,” and I just remember thinking, “This woman cannot be put in a bucket, and if it kills me, she is going to direct for the Psych Drama Company.” We don’t do musicals, and we don’t do light stuff. We only do hardcore literature, and I wanted no one other than this one for it, and she’s a rock star.
Julia Murney: I paid her a lot of money to say that
Read the full article Director Julia Murney & Actor Wendy Lippe on the Complex Relationships in ‘Frankie & Johnny in the Claire de Lune’ – The Theater Mirror
PRESS FEATURE: The Psych Drama Company Featured in The Boston Globe!
We are thrilled to share that The Psych Drama Company was featured in The Boston Globe this week in an article by Terry Byrne titled "How Boston's fringe theater companies are making it work."
A heartfelt thank you to Terry Byrne for shining a spotlight on the vital role that small and fringe theater companies play in Boston's arts community — and for including The Psych Drama Company among them!
In the article, our Producing Artistic Director Wendy Lippe spoke about the unique mission of The Psych Drama Company:
"Theater offers a communal place to talk about complex emotions so we don't act on them."
"We choose plays that explore the dialectical tensions we live with every day — light and dark, love and hate. They are better tolerated when we hold them collectively."
The Psych Drama Company was also featured in the article's listing of where to see fringe theater around Boston, highlighting our upcoming production of Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune by Terrence McNally, June 18–28.
Read the full article in The Boston Globe: How Boston's fringe theater companies are making it work
Theater Mirror: Julia, you famously played Elphaba in a national tour and on Broadway in Wicked. Are you surprised to see how well Wicked the movie has done — how popular it is, so to speak.
Julia Murney: I’m not surprised, simply because it’s Wicked. The extraordinary lightning in the bottle that they caught was the [result of] the recognition factor of The Wizard of Oz. People thinking, “Oh, those are characters that I know” is what drew them in initially. It did feel like the audience was predisposed to loving it in a way that was fascinating. I’ve also been in shows that were definitely not that, so it’s interesting to be in that kind of a hit, especially since I was in it very early, when it was very new. Now there are people who saw it as teenagers who have children they are forcing to go see Wicked, they love it so much.
Theater Mirror: You’ve also appeared on countless TV shows — Sex and the City, Law and Order, Thirty Rock, Brothers and Sisters. Is directing a very different experience to acting, would you say, or are they extensions of each other in some way?
Julia Murney: Oh, they’re definitely extensions of each other. I love acting, but I also really like directing, and it’s nice to think about not having to pick one. You can’t give notes to people that are just the way you would do the play; you have to give notes based on how you’re viewing the play and what the characters are saying. [Frankie and Johnny] is the first play I’ve directed that is only two people and only one location, which doesn’t sound like it should make a difference, but it does. [When] shows change location, that’s part of the character of the show. Figuring out ways to make that interesting and flowing, those challenges are fun.
Theater Mirror: How do you approach those challenges, as well as the way the play pretty much unfolds in real time?
Julia Murney: Initially, it was just reading it and absorbing it and knowing the general gist of what you want for this play to be in the apartment and working with our set designer in terms of where those things get set up. In any kind of a regional theater setting, you’re dealing with specific spaces, and specific things that a space can do or not do. When you’re doing an L shape or in the round, you have to stage things differently. Someone’s always going to be behind you in the round. I did Evita in the round in California, and that was the first time I had ever done it; I remember at one point I went to turn around to, like, [makes a throat-clearing gesture] before I sang something big, and realized, “Oh, there’s a person sitting right there, I can’t clear my throat!” You have to figure that that sort of thing out.
Theater Mirror: Another thing that might be a challenge is this play was written in the ’80s, and there are certain elements of it that might be dated or even problematic. For example, the way Johnny is pressing so hard in his courtship; Frankie’s telling him, “Back off, go away, you’re a creep,” and he’s saying, “No, no, I want you, and I’m going for what I want.” His ardor could slip into something you may not want him to be doing. How are you walking that tightrope?
Julia Murney: I completely agree with you. This is the kind of a play that says, “The time is the present” at the beginning. Frankly, it could not take place at the present. I have firmly placed it in 1986, which is when the play was written. I mean, you can’t place it by saying it’s 1986, but you can hint at it in set dressing, in there’s a radio and there’s a DJ, and there’s pre-show music, and all those sorts of things leading people into that world.
The thing that stuck out to me is that she asks him to leave numerous times, and he doesn’t — which, to me, I’m like, “Stranger danger! What are we doing?” But that’s the play, and, unfortunately, Terrence isn’t here for me to ask. So, we have to figure out a way to say the lines he’s written and not make them sound like this creepy man who won’t leave her home. You want to root for them, you don’t want to be like, “Girl, get him out of your house!” — which is how you could potentially feel. So, we’ve tried to gently lean it into other directions.
Theater Mirror: Wendy, how are you playing Frankie? Are you presenting her in a way in which people will say, “She can handle herself — he’s a nuisance, but he’s not a danger to her”?
Wendy Lippe: I think the text is quite a challenge, because she goes back and forth between being charmed by him and then, “Whoa, leave!” I think Terrence does this beautifully in his writing, and that’s also her own inner struggle at a deep level: Wanting intimacy and wanting connection but having been through so much trauma and physical battering, and her mother abandoned her when she was seven. There’s this tension between her yearning and her guards, and so you’re constantly playing with that.
At a certain point, I really need him to leave, and he’s not going. That’s the first time, and the only time, where she’s like, “You really need to go,” and he doesn’t — because he’s Johnny, not because he’s being creepy. Because he’s so hungry for connection and love. She gets very triggered, and she smacks him, and that activates a whole bunch of physiological reactions from her past trauma. I think Julia has done a brilliant job of making the earlier experiences of asking him to leave not threatening. That has been enormously helpful, and I would never have found that without her.
Theater Mirror: This is obviously a play about relationships — not just between Johnny and Frankie, but between their parents, whom they discuss; the neighbors, who have very different kinds of relationship dynamics; and, of course, they’re the namesakes of characters in a famous song in which a woman kills her lover. What is the play telling us about relationships?
Julia Murney: I met Terrence, I sang for him once in a thing that was honoring him, but I certainly never had a conversation with him about Frankie and Johnny and its deeper meanings. I think there is something, though, [connected to] the fact that it was written in the early to mid-’80s by a gay man in New York City in the middle of the AIDS crisis. This is not about gay people, but I think there is an undercurrent standing in for the push and pull of what gay men were dealing with at that time in terms of what is safe, and what is intimacy, and “Is this going to kill me?” It’s not just, “I might end up with some inconvenience or a broken heart.” I think that’s part of what lurks underneath, is a feeling of the fear of commitment and all of the things that that means for damaged people.
Wendy Lippe: I also wanted to say something about the neighbors. We have one set of neighbors that are an old couple who have been together forever, and they are just in different worlds with each other. They’re alive, but their relationship is dead.
Theater Mirror: And this is before cell phones!
Wendy Lippe: Exactly. And then we have the other couple that we see through our window, where the man is beating the shit out of the woman. What I think is so interesting is that Frankie has a moment where she’s interacting with Johnny, and he’s like, “I have so much love to give,” and she’s like, “Look, I’ve given you all I’ve got. There is no more. I’m empty.” That is a really important moment. There’s the question of violence, but there’s also the question of deadness and emptiness as life goes on. She brings him to the window, and she shows him [these couples]. It’s different kinds of fears about intimacy and the ways that it can hurt us. There’s a range of things we don’t want to feel and see in ourselves and others, and those two couples are diametrically opposed in terms of the things that are going on, but we don’t want [to become] either one of them.
Julia Murney: I think Frankie is a character who has generally got her feet stuck in some heavy wet sand of the past, and Johnny is the kind of person who is trying to remake what he thinks might be his future, and he sees it in her. They just need to [connect in the present moment]. That seems so simple, but that’s the difference between a baby step and jumping the Grand Canyon. It just depends on who you are, and with the other person in that moment, and that’s a big factor in the play of the two of them.
Theater Mirror: Wendy, why did you decide to bring Julia in to make her Boston directorial debut for this play?
Wendy Lippe: Julia is a star in all things performing — singing, dancing, everything in the world — but it was her performance in Falling that I went to see off Broadway, for which she received a Drama Desk nomination. I was sitting in the audience, and I said, “This woman! Her capacity for drama! I gotta work with her, we gotta hire her.” And I looked at my program, because she was incredible, and I said, “Oh my god, it’s Julia fucking Murney!” I went backstage, I met her agent, I was like, “Julia, you have blown my mind.” I mean, I knew that she was good at everything, and everybody knows about Elphaba, and her singing voice, and Carnegie Hall and everything, but to see what this woman was capable of dramatically — I mean, I cried, I had shivers, I laughed. I remember her agent telling me, “Wendy, in New York City on Broadway, people get put into buckets,” and I just remember thinking, “This woman cannot be put in a bucket, and if it kills me, she is going to direct for the Psych Drama Company.” We don’t do musicals, and we don’t do light stuff. We only do hardcore literature, and I wanted no one other than this one for it, and she’s a rock star.
Julia Murney: I paid her a lot of money to say that
Read the full article Director Julia Murney & Actor Wendy Lippe on the Complex Relationships in ‘Frankie & Johnny in the Claire de Lune’ – The Theater Mirror
PRESS FEATURE: The Psych Drama Company Featured in The Boston Globe!
We are thrilled to share that The Psych Drama Company was featured in The Boston Globe this week in an article by Terry Byrne titled "How Boston's fringe theater companies are making it work."
A heartfelt thank you to Terry Byrne for shining a spotlight on the vital role that small and fringe theater companies play in Boston's arts community — and for including The Psych Drama Company among them!
In the article, our Producing Artistic Director Wendy Lippe spoke about the unique mission of The Psych Drama Company:
"Theater offers a communal place to talk about complex emotions so we don't act on them."
"We choose plays that explore the dialectical tensions we live with every day — light and dark, love and hate. They are better tolerated when we hold them collectively."
The Psych Drama Company was also featured in the article's listing of where to see fringe theater around Boston, highlighting our upcoming production of Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune by Terrence McNally, June 18–28.
Read the full article in The Boston Globe: How Boston's fringe theater companies are making it work
Press Feature: BroadwayWorld.com, R. Scott Ready
"Interview: Julia Murney Talks FRANKIE & JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE at The Psych Drama Company"
By: R. Scott Reedy
Massachusetts will be like a home away from home for New York-based actor, singer, and director Julia Murney this year.
The popular stage performer – an original cast member in the 2005 Broadway production of “Lennon” and the fifth Elphaba in “Wicked” – is currently making her Boston directorial debut with the Psych Drama Company production of “Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” which will be at the Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Black Box Theatre, June 18–28. Later this year, Murney, whose father and mother are originally from Rhode Island and New Hampshire, respectively, and who has an aunt and uncle on Cape Cod, will appear in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, September 2–19.
Her current assignment involves staging Terrence McNally’s two-character play, first produced off-Broadway in 1987 with Academy Award winners Kathy Bates and F. Murray Abraham. The story of a waitress and a short-order cook who find love, the play had its first Broadway run in 2002 in a production starring Edie Falco and Stanley Tucci, and its second in a 2019 revival with Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon.
The Psych Drama Company production will feature actors Wendy Lippe, the company’s founder and producing artistic director and a performer known for her work in Shakespeare productions, and Cliff Blake, who has been seen locally in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” at Wellfleet Harbor Actors’ Theatre and “To Kill a Mockingbird” at Gloucester Stage.
A two-time Drama Desk nominee for the off-Broadway productions of “The Wild Party” and “Falling,” Murney, who played Elphaba on the 2006 national tour of “Wicked,” has also been seen off-Broadway in “The Vagina Monologues,” “A Class Act,” “Queen of the Mist,” and “Time and Again,” which earned her a Lucille Lortel Award nomination. In the summer of 2024, she appeared as Desiree Armfeldt in the Ogunquit Playhouse production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s “A Little Night Music,” starring Kathleen Turner.
On television, Murney, who lives on New York’s Upper West Side, has guest starred on “Succession,” “Madam Secretary, “Sex and the City,” and all versions of “Law & Order.” She has recorded numerous audiobooks and cast albums including the Grammy nominated Actors’ Fund Benefit of “Hair” and her 2006 solo debut album, “I’m Not Waiting.”
By Zoom recently from Brookline, Massachusetts, Murney, whose mother was brought up in New Hampshire and who has relatives on Cape Cod, discussed “Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” the price she paid for being a Yankees fan in Fenway Park, and more.
What attracted you to your current assignment?
Well, in a general way, what makes me take directing work is what’s lovely about directing – that I love actors. So I get to work with actors, and… and there is something else, too.
Tell me about that?
There’s a different kind of stress being an actor than there is being a director, and so, at this juncture, I’m really enjoying the shift of that. I still love acting and I want to keep acting, but, with the shows I’ve directed, I’ve never had the feeling of, “Oh, dang, I wish I was in this.” I’ve just been so happy to watch the people who are doing it do their thing.
Have you ever directed yourself in a musical or a play?
No, not really. I mean, I’ve done solo shows, where I’ve not had a director, per se, but those are just me picking songs I like to sing, and then saying random things in between them, so no, I’ve never really directed myself.
Was that option ever under consideration with “Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune”?
With this specific job, it was not because I’m the hired hand. I did not pick the play or the cast. Psych just hired me as director.
Were you familiar with the company or with Wendy Lippe before now?
To be honest, I didn’t know anything about Psych. I did, however, know Wendy because we spent our freshman year of college together, at Syracuse University, and then she transferred to another school. We didn’t know each other super well, but I remembered her. She is a very talented individual and a good person, too.
When you reconnected, did Wendy share any memories of knowing you previously?
She told me she had seen me in “Falling,” a play I did off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre in 2012. It’s a beautiful play by Deanna Jent, based on her own life. It’s about a family in which there is a severely autistic son who is about 17 or 18 years old, and not very verbal. As he’s grown older, hormones have taken over and he’s gotten very big, and somewhat violent. So the family is trying to figure out how to manage their way through that. I played the mother.
Wendy told me she went to see the play because she has a doctorate in psychology and was interested in the subject matter. She went without knowing that I was in it. As she recalled, at some point she thought to herself, “Wait! Oh my God, that’s Julia from college.”
Did she cite your work in “Falling” when she reached out to you about “Frankie & Johnny”?
Wendy did say it made her think, “Julia can do musicals and straight plays, and she’s got great sensibilities,” so, for whatever reason, when the time came, she thought of me to direct this wonderful play.
As a performer, you’ve enjoyed success in musicals and plays. Do you prefer one over the other?
They each have their absolute draws. They don’t really have drawbacks, but it’s just that musicals are so hard, especially if we’re talking about new musicals. I have said and always will say that my hill to die on is that musicals are the hardest thing to get right. They require so much collaboration from so many departments, including the actors, the directors, the designers, the choreographers, the writer, and all of it.
They are worth it, though, when it all works, wouldn’t you agree?
Yes, when it all comes together on the same page, it’s magical. They can be magical sometimes when they’re not on all on the same page, too, but there is a very specific responsibility in musicals in terms of vocal health and all that kind of stuff, and that is a lot to handle.
You earned membership in the Green Girls Sisterhood, famously playing Elphaba in “Wicked” on Broadway and on the first national tour that ever came through Boston, at the Citizens Opera House in 2006. What are some of your memories of that experience?
I loved doing “Wicked” on Broadway and in Boston – doing it anywhere, really. But it was frustrating on tour because I like having adventures and going and seeing things wherever I am, and “Wicked” was so exhausting. But here’s the kicker. One night while I was here with “Wicked,” I did go to see the Red Sox play the Yankees at Fenway Park. I wanted to sing the national anthem before the game and I tried like the dickens to make that happen, but that spot is booked very far ahead so it didn’t happen. It was my day off, however, so I went to the game anyway.
I will tell you that I was being very responsible and taking care of my voice. I did not scream or even cheer and I made sure to root for the Red Sox that evening, too. The next morning, though, I woke up and I had caught viral laryngitis. I could not make a sound and to miss a week of “Wicked.” That whole time, I thought, the gods, the Red Sox gods, knew there was a Yankee in the house.
Read the article Interview: Julia Murney Talks FRANKIE & JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE at The Psych Drama Company
Press Feature: "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/
PRESS REVIEW by Sleepless Critic
"Trust and second chances in Psych Drama
Company’s uninhibited ‘Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune’"
by The Sleepless Critic
Frankie is more than guarded. She’s suspicious and she may have good reason for it.
Sensitively directed by Julia Murney, The Psych Drama Company presented Frankie and Johnny In the Clair de Lune live and in person at the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston, Massachusetts through Sunday, June 28. This uninhibited adult drama contained adult language and nudity and ran approximately two hours and 20 minutes with an intermission. Click here for more information.
One of my favorite classical songs of all time is Debussy’s Clair de Lune. The way it builds until it strikes that heavenly crescendo and it has deservedly been featured in so many wonderful movies. Playwright Terrance McNally wrote Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune in 1987 before it was expanded and adapted into a feature romantic comedy film in 1991 starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino. Directed by Garry Marshall, it expanded on the basis of the play to include additional characters and diner scenes. Though I have never seen the film, having seen Psych Drama Company’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, I can see why Marshall might see the need to expand the movie into additional scenes and characters. Set in the 1980’s, the play takes place entirely in Frankie’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment. The production’s immersive set design brings the audience intimately close to the action inside Frankie’s lived in one room apartment with a kitchenette, what looks like a fold out couch, a functioning ice box and an antenna television. A broad range of pop culture references are dropped in the dialogue and spread around the room including a glimpse of Cabaret, Studio 54, a Beatles jacket and an open box of Scrabble. Enlivening the space is Adam Elliot Rush’s rich vocals as a radio announcer as a range of piano-infused classical music plays softly in the background back when DJs took live requests. Matthew Breton’s crucial lighting lends to the progression of the evening with romantic moonlight and a peering dawn.This is the setting of a first date which becomes an all nighter between Wendy Lippe as waitress Frankie and Cliff Blake as line cook Johnny after dinner and a movie. It also addresses the question whether this night will be a one night stand or something more than just two people loving the same song. However, this is no When Harry Met Sally. Much more of a drama than comedy, it is a vulnerable and raw piece of theatre and though Blake’s Johnny is open with his feelings and admits to having a crush on Frankie, they hardly know each other. Blake’s Johnny is poetically romantic and humorous yet impulsive while Frankie is tough, defensive, skeptical and still deciding if she ever wants to see Johnny again. Frankie observes thoughtfully while Johnny is a chatterbox. It’s a type of tug of war conversation in which both parties are adamant about how they envision the conclusion of this unorthodox first date to be as they fib, flirt, fight and discover some surprising and difficult revelations about one another that may bring them together or draw them apart.
Frankie and Johnny delight in Debussy’s Clair de Lune and it stands as one of the brighter moments of the production. Blake as Johnny is appreciative, charming and an interesting storyteller while Lippe demonstrates Frankie’s growing vulnerability with candor. Frankie and Johnny are confined to one space which seemed to force the characters to confront their fears, but did not seem to enhance the production’s occasionally stagnant pacing.
Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune is an unconventional love story about two wounded and world weary individuals longing for trust and understanding. Even in its cynicism, the production’s revelatory and quieter moments stand out in their shared hope for a brighter future.
Read full article REVIEW: Trust and second chances in Psych Drama Company’s uninhibited ‘Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune’ | The Sleepless Critic
PRESS REVIEW by Sleepless Critic
"Trust and second chances in Psych Drama
Company’s uninhibited ‘Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune’"
by The Sleepless Critic
Frankie is more than guarded. She’s suspicious and she may have good reason for it.
Sensitively directed by Julia Murney, The Psych Drama Company presented Frankie and Johnny In the Clair de Lune live and in person at the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston, Massachusetts through Sunday, June 28. This uninhibited adult drama contained adult language and nudity and ran approximately two hours and 20 minutes with an intermission. Click here for more information.
One of my favorite classical songs of all time is Debussy’s Clair de Lune. The way it builds until it strikes that heavenly crescendo and it has deservedly been featured in so many wonderful movies. Playwright Terrance McNally wrote Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune in 1987 before it was expanded and adapted into a feature romantic comedy film in 1991 starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino. Directed by Garry Marshall, it expanded on the basis of the play to include additional characters and diner scenes. Though I have never seen the film, having seen Psych Drama Company’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, I can see why Marshall might see the need to expand the movie into additional scenes and characters. Set in the 1980’s, the play takes place entirely in Frankie’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment. The production’s immersive set design brings the audience intimately close to the action inside Frankie’s lived in one room apartment with a kitchenette, what looks like a fold out couch, a functioning ice box and an antenna television. A broad range of pop culture references are dropped in the dialogue and spread around the room including a glimpse of Cabaret, Studio 54, a Beatles jacket and an open box of Scrabble. Enlivening the space is Adam Elliot Rush’s rich vocals as a radio announcer as a range of piano-infused classical music plays softly in the background back when DJs took live requests. Matthew Breton’s crucial lighting lends to the progression of the evening with romantic moonlight and a peering dawn.This is the setting of a first date which becomes an all nighter between Wendy Lippe as waitress Frankie and Cliff Blake as line cook Johnny after dinner and a movie. It also addresses the question whether this night will be a one night stand or something more than just two people loving the same song. However, this is no When Harry Met Sally. Much more of a drama than comedy, it is a vulnerable and raw piece of theatre and though Blake’s Johnny is open with his feelings and admits to having a crush on Frankie, they hardly know each other. Blake’s Johnny is poetically romantic and humorous yet impulsive while Frankie is tough, defensive, skeptical and still deciding if she ever wants to see Johnny again. Frankie observes thoughtfully while Johnny is a chatterbox. It’s a type of tug of war conversation in which both parties are adamant about how they envision the conclusion of this unorthodox first date to be as they fib, flirt, fight and discover some surprising and difficult revelations about one another that may bring them together or draw them apart.
Frankie and Johnny delight in Debussy’s Clair de Lune and it stands as one of the brighter moments of the production. Blake as Johnny is appreciative, charming and an interesting storyteller while Lippe demonstrates Frankie’s growing vulnerability with candor. Frankie and Johnny are confined to one space which seemed to force the characters to confront their fears, but did not seem to enhance the production’s occasionally stagnant pacing.
Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune is an unconventional love story about two wounded and world weary individuals longing for trust and understanding. Even in its cynicism, the production’s revelatory and quieter moments stand out in their shared hope for a brighter future.
Read full article REVIEW: Trust and second chances in Psych Drama Company’s uninhibited ‘Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune’ | The Sleepless Critic