OR, by Liz Duffy Adams
Santa Fe Playhouse 2024

Or, takes place (mostly) during one night in the life of Aphra Behn, poet, spy, and soon to be  first professional female playwright. Sprung from debtors’ prison after a disastrous overseas mission, Aphra is desperate to get out of the spy trade. She has a shot at a production at one of only two London companies, if she can only finish her play by morning despite interruptions from sudden new love, actress Nell Gwynne; complicated royal love, King Charles II; and very dodgy ex-love, double-agent William Scott—who may be in on a plot to murder the king in the morning. Can Aphra save Charles’ life, win William a pardon, resist Nell’s charms, and launch her career, all in one night? Against a background of a long drawn-out war and a counter-culture of free love, cross-dressing, and pastoral lyricism, the 1660s look a lot like the 1960s in this neo-Restoration comedy from the playwright the San Francisco Bay Guardian called “an artist of playful and highly literate imagination, radical instincts, and sardonic but generous humor.”

CAST
APHRA BEHN — Breshaun Birene-Joyner
NELL GWYNNE/MARIA/LADY DAVENANT — Chloe Carson
JAILER/CHARLES II/WILLIAM SCOT — Patrick Janssen

CREATIVE
PLAYWRIGHT — Liz Duffy Adams
DIRECTOR — Zoe Burke
SCENIC DESIGNER — James W. Johnson
COSTUME DESIGNER — Lisa Reneé Jordan
LIGHTING DESIGNER — Kolby Clarke
SOUND DESIGNER — Jorge Olivo
PROPS DESIGNER — Emily Rankin
INTIMACY DIRECTOR / DIALECT COACH — Adi Cabral
STAGE MANAGER — Allison Goetzman
PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHY — C. Stanley Photography