Stage Kiss cast members Wendy Lippe and Kenny Kelleher are featured in a new article by Edge Media Network! Check out the article below or find it here: https://www.edgemedianetwork.com/story/337885​

Grab Your Valentine: ‘Stage Kiss’ Opens this Week

02/11/25

Psych Drama Company's production of "Stage Kiss," Sarah Ruhl's comedy about two actors caught between past and present – and reality and romance – opens this week at the Plaza Black Box Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts. It's the perfect show for a Valentine's Day outing!
"Stage Kiss" is among the Pulitzer-nominated Ruhl's most provocative and emotional plays, delving into the "showmance" of two actors caught up in the passions of a vintage play about love and death – and caught up in their own unresolved, decades-ago romance.
The play "allows us to work with the psychologically powerful and meaningful themes of love, loss, memory, and fantasy, but it does so with levity, humor, quirkiness and joy," says star Wendy Lippe – who is also the Founding Artistic Director of Psych Drama Company.
The innovative immersive production brings the play's passions to the audience by bringing the audience into the midst of the action. All the world's a stage in this exploration of love and art, and it's on the stage that reality and performance start to merge.
"The deeper meaning at the heart of this particular immersive conceptualization is that Ruhl's 'love letter to actors' is really a 'love letter to all of us,'" Lippe adds. "Aren't we all actors in our lives and relationships whether we perform on stage or not? And in an age of utter chaos and confusion over what is real, we are all dealing with the tension between artifice and authenticity; and we are all searching for what feels real and true, just like the characters in the play."
Says Lippe's co-star, Kenny Kelleher, "'Stage Kiss' is doing a pretty damn good job of lifting our spirits in this mess of a time right now.
"It's always great to have another world to disappear into when your own is uncertain. And just like we experience this play and hope that the characters come out better for it by the end of their stories, I hope, from deep down, that we all do, too."
The Psych Drama Company Presents "Stage Kiss" by Sarah Ruhl

Directed by Acclaimed New York City Director Rani O’Brien

​Boston, MA – The Psych Drama Company is thrilled to announce its latest production, Stage Kiss by Sarah Ruhl. This delightfully surreal romantic comedy will play at the Boston Center for the Arts (539 Tremont St, Boston, MA 02116) with previews on February 13th and running February 14th through February 23rd, 2023. Press night to be held on February 14th - please contact Director of Marketing ([email protected]) for details. 

In Stage Kiss, art and life become dangerously intertwined as two actors with a shared past are cast as romantic leads in a rediscovered 1930s melodrama. What begins as a scripted love story soon unravels into chaos as the characters find themselves unsure of where the play ends and their real lives begin. Brimming with both humor and heart, Stage Kiss offers a clever exploration of romance, reality, and the complexities of human connection.

This production is helmed by renowned NYC-based director Rani O’Brien, whose extensive credits include work with celebrated institutions such as The Second City, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, The Lark, Pacific Symphony, and McCarter Theatre Center. O’Brien, who holds an MFA in Directing from Boston University, brings a fresh vision to Ruhl’s work, blending her skill in both comedy and drama to capture the nuanced layers of Stage Kiss. For more about Rani O’Brien and her work, visit www.raniobrien.com.

The talented cast includes Wendy Lippe as “She” and Kenny Kelleher as “He,” with Melissa Myers as Angela/Millie/Maid, Julia Trueblood as Millicent/Laurie​, Eric Cheung as Husband, and Zachary Ryan Murphy as the Director. Produced by Christopher Crossen-Sills and The Psych Drama Company, Stage Kiss promises an evening filled with laughter, love, and unexpected twists. 

Performance Dates:
February 13 - 23, 2023
Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont St, Boston, MA 02116

​Director: Served with a sprig of satire and a twist of tragedy, Rani excavates the truth of the human condition through irreverent play. Rani has worked with Fresh Ink, Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Boston University, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, The Second City, The Lark, Pacific Symphony, McCarter Theatre Center, The Vagrancy, Howl! Happening, Chicago College of Performing Arts, Theatre Aspen, and The Tank, among others. LORT: Twelfth Night (Associate Director, Kansas City Rep); Skylight (SDCF Observer, McCarter Theatre). Select Boston directing credits include: Robert O'Hara's Mankind, Isabelle Sanatdar Stevens' Mahsa's Last Song, Three Sisters (adaptation by Sarah Ruhl), Hamlet, Constellations by Nick Payne, and many workshops and readings by Boston-based playwrights. Select NYC directing credits include: Modern Chalk Circle, A Midsummer Night’s DreamMachine, Disconnected Touch, and more in development. Other directing includes: Candidate Confessions: A 2016 Cabaret at The Second City, Break In, Scifiology the Musical, Oh, The Magical Musical Places You'll Go!, The Big Funk, Les Misérables, and more. A director, writer, designer, and producer, Rani traverses boundaries between practitioner, teacher, and champion of emerging voices. They are currently appointed at Sussex County Community College. Rani is an SDC Associate, a graduate of The Second City Directing program, and a proud graduate of the directing MFA program at Boston University. 
The Cast of The Psych Drama Company's Production:
Wendy Lippe - She
Kenny Kelleher - He
David Kleinman - Kevin
Zack Ryan Murphy - Director
Eric Cheung - Husband
Melissa Myers - Angela/Maid/Millie
Julia Trueblood - Millicent/Laurie
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​Playwright: 
​Sarah Ruhl’s plays include In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, The Clean House, Passion Play, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Melancholy Play, For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday, The Oldest Boy, Stage Kiss, Dear Elizabeth, Eurydice, How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, Orlando, Late: a cowboy song, and a translation of Three Sisters. She has been a two-time Pulitzer prize finalist and a Tony award nominee. Her plays have been produced on and off Broadway, around the country, and internationally, where they have been translated into over fifteen languages.
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Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. She has received the Steinberg Award, the Samuel French Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, the Whiting Award, the Lily Award, a PEN Award for mid-career playwrights, and the MacArthur Award. You can read more about her work on www.SarahRuhlplaywright.com. Her new book 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write was a New York Times notable book of the year, and she most recently published Letters from Max with Max Ritvo. She teaches at the Yale School of Drama, and she lives in Brooklyn with her family.
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By arrangement with ORIGIN Theatrical
​On behalf of Samuel French, A Concord Theatricals Company
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