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The Roommate

The Roommate by Jen Silverman

Bay Area Premiere

MAY 23 -JUL 1, 2017

THE ROOMMATE Tickets: from $35

Run time: 1 hour, 50 minutes

ENDED JULY 2017

TICKETS NO LONGER AVAILABLE

THE ROOMMATE

Written by Jen Silverman

Directed by Becca Wolff

“This humanist and feminist work shows that humanism and feminism are the same thing.” – Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle

“Heartily entertaining! Full of surprises.” – Chad Jones, Theaterdogs

“Superb and engaging!” – Richard Connema, Talkin’ Broadway

Read More Reviews

PLAY DETAILS

Sharon is practical, in her mid-50s, and needs a roommate to share her Iowa home. Robyn, a Bronx-born vegan, would appear to fit the bill perfectly. But as the new housemates get to know each other, Robyn’s secret life starts to emerge, encouraging Sharon’s own desire for change. The Roommate is a dark comedy about what it takes to re-route your life—and what happens when the wheels come off.

THE CAST

THE CREATIVE TEAM

PHOTOS

San Francisco Playhouse’s production of The Roommate is made possible by: Producers William J. Gregory, Betty Hoener, John Trout; and Associate Producers Betty & Clifford Nakamoto, Deborah Dashow Ruth, and Nancy Thompson & Andy Kerr.

 “As directed by Becca Wolff, this humanist and feminist work shows that humanism and feminism are the same thing.” – San Francisco Chronicle
“Heartily entertaining, contains some satisfying laughs and creates a showcase for two dynamic actors to create complex characters that are full of surprises.” – Theaterdogs
“Under the brilliant direction of Becca Wolff, Susi Damilano and Julia Brothers deliver superb and engaging performances emphasizing the acute intelligence the author uses to chart this passage of self-transformation.” – Talkin’ Broadway
“Susi Damilano (Sharon) and Julia Brothers (Robyn) are, quite simply, brilliant under Becca Wolff’s highly efficient direction of this dark, yet engaging, comedy.” – Arts Preview
“Very funny and is a showcase for two actresses of a high calibre to do what they do best: act up a storm.” – Theatre Arts Daily
“Taking Jen Silverman’s efficiently brilliant script, Becca Wolff has sculpted it into an ebb and flow that keeps pushing further into new territories of discovery and surprise of facts, actions, and personalities without ever flooding us with too much, too soon.” – Theatre Eddys
“You will find their exploration, their comedy, and their sensitivities brilliant and familiar—they could be us.” – Theatrius
“Both Damilano and Brothers are perfect. They make us wish this were a pilot of a new cable show, so we could look forward to the next thirteen weeks.” – SF Theater Blog
“There are spikes, both comedic and dramatic.” – The Bay Area Reporter
“Susi Damilano demonstrates why she has earned so many acting awards as she embodies Sharon with nuanced charm, revealing her conventional attitudes, naïveté, and diffidence.” – For All Events
“It’s a credit to both actresses that they do such a beautiful job of revealing the complex emotional layers and scarred relationships usually kept hidden behind their functional exteriors.” – My Cultural Landscape
” It’s a piece that kind of stays with you, and the more you analyze what was just witnessed, the more stunning the story becomes.” – Bay Area Theatre Talk From A Drama Guy
“Silverman’s dialogue is wonderfully sharp, and there are a few eloquent philosophical gems strewn through the dark comedy.” – The Mercury News
“The best thing about this production is Damilano’s and Brothers’ electric approach-avoidance dance between the doubt and trust, distance and intimacy, of Sharon and Robyn, unsettling the audience with suspense.” – Theater & Such
“Watching them, I can’t imagine a more effective casting; their brilliant response to the challenges that Silverman’s script poses almost (and I emphasize that word) makes one forget that there are problems waiting to be solved.” – PacificSun
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Julia Brothers

Julia Brothers* (Robyn) was last seen at SF Playhouse in Abigail’s Party and is crazy happy to be back in San Francisco and on the boards with Susi. In the Bay Area, Julia has worked at Magic Theatre, Aurora, Marin Theatre Company, TheatreWorks, Brava! Theatre, San Jose Stage, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Sierra Rep, Sacramento Theatre Company, Pacific Repertory Theatre and is a company member at B Street Theatre and SF Playground. Regionally, Julia has worked at Arizona Rep, Gulfshore Playhouse, GEVA Theatre, The Cape Playhouse, Merrimack Rep, George Street Playhouse and on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Julia was named Bay Area Theatre MVP by the SF Chronicle in 2006 and received a few Dean Goodman Awards (remember those?) and Critics Circle Awards. Thanks, Bill and Susi! It’s so good to be home!

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Susi Damilano

Susi Damilano* (Sharon, Producing Director) is co-founder and Producing Director of the San Francisco Playhouse. She is a five-time recipient of the Bay Area Theatre Critic Circle (BATCC) award for Best Female Performance in Abigail’s Party, Harper Regan, Bug, Six Degrees of Separation, and Reckless. At the Playhouse she has performed leading roles in Red Velvet, Tree, Bauer, Abigail’s Party, Harper Regan, Coraline, Slasher, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Landscape of the Body, First Person Shooter, Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, The Crucible, Kimberly Akimbo, Our Town and The Smell of the Kill. Directing credits include Playhouse productions of Noises Off, She Loves Me, Stage Kiss, Company, Stupid Fucking Bird, Into the Woods, A Behanding in Spokane, Den of Thieves and Wirehead** ; the West Coast Premieres of Honey Brown Eyes**, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Coronado, The Mystery Plays and Roulette and the world premieres of Steven Dietz’s On Clover Road, Rhett Rossi’s From Red to Black and Daniel Heath’s Seven Days in the Sandbox Series. (**nominated for BATCC Directing award.)

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Mary Lou Torre

Mary Lou Torre (U/S Sharon) is overjoyed to work at SF Playhouse as the understudy for Sharon and to learn from the amazing artists bringing The Roommate to life. (Thank you, Lauren, for this opportunity!) Mary Lou has worked with City Lights Theater Company, Dragon Productions, Arabian Shakespeare Festival, The Pear, theatreQ, and others throughout the Bay Area. She most recently had the time of her life as Ruth in Calendar Girls at City Lights. Other favorite roles include Becky in Becky’s New Car and Bessie in Marvin’s Room at Dragon, Chloe in Lips Together, Teeth Apart for theatreQ, and Vera in Distracted at City Lights. Mary Lou sends much love to her friends, teachers, and wonderful hubby for their support.

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Donna Dahrouge

Donna Dahrouge (U/S Robyn) is delighted and excited to be working at the SF Playhouse again. She was last seen as Eve in the SF Playhouse Sandbox production of Seven Days. Favorite stage roles include Velma Sparrow in Birdbath and Elizabeth in Laundry and Bourbon. Film credits include Natalie Jones in The Devil and Alexa Jones and Dana Stevens in Nominated. Donna also had heaps of fun writing, editing and starring in the award-winning, outrageous comedy show, Girlfriends, which ran for a year on San Francisco local cable television. In the past, Donna has also loved stage managing, directing and producing black box theatre in the Bay Area. Donna has a Master’s Degree in Public Health and by day is a research nerd.

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Becca Wolff

Becca Wolff* (Director) is currently developing new work with Giovanni Adams (Love is a Dirty Word, Pacific Resident Theater, LA), The Kilbanes (Weightless, Encore Productions/Z Space & Eddie the Marvelous/Theatreworks), Annie Saunders of Wilderness (Antigone, San Francisco Playhouse/Getty Villa) & Ken Robinson (Flying Easy). She has directed world and regional premieres in the Bay Area at Z Space, ACT Conservatory, New Conservatory Theater and Center Rep. In LA and NYC, premiered include The Last Days of Mary Stuart (Son of Semele/Tilted Field, LA), Sixty Miles to SilverLake (IAMA Theatre Company, LA), No Static at All (Tilted Field Productions/NYC Fringe–world premiere, winner Outstanding Solo Performance) & Usher (NYC Fringe—world premiere, winner Outstanding Musical). She is proud co-founder of Tilted Field Productions (tiltedfield.com) and SCOTUS Theatre (scotustheater.com). MFA Yale School of Drama, Directing www.beccawolff.net

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Jen Silverman

Jen Silverman (Playwright)’s work has been produced in New York by Clubbed Thumb (Phoebe in Winter) and the Playwrights Realm (Crane Story), and regionally at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville (The Roommate, Humana 2015; Wondrous Strange, Humana 2016), Yale Rep (The Moors), InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia (The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane, Barrymore Award, Steinberg Award citation). She has productions upcoming at Woolly

Mammoth (World Premiere of Collective Rage: A Play in Five Boops), The Playwrights Realm @ The Duke (New York premiere of The Moors), South Coast Repertory Theatre, and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (World Premiere of All the Roads Home), among others. She is a member of New Dramatists, a Core Writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and has developed work with the O’Neill, Williamstown, New York Theatre Workshop, Playpenn, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Portland Center Stage, the Cherry Lane Mentor Project, SCR’s Pacific Playwrights Festival, The Ground Floor Residency at Berkeley Rep, and the Royal Court in London among other places. She’s a two-time MacDowell fellow, recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, the Helen Merrill Fund Award for emerging playwrights, and the Yale Drama Series Award for STILL. She is the 2016-2017 Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark. She currently has a two-book deal with Random House for a collection of stories and a novel. Education: Brown, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Juilliard.

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