Play by Theatre Chair Completes Successful Run in Maine

Nina, a play by Department of Theatre Chair Lynne Conner, has completed a successful run at the Theatre Project in Brunswick, Maine, opening the company’s 45th anniversary season.

Nina focuses on the lives of two concentration camp survivors whose 50-year friendship is being challenged by the death of a daughter. Set in the mid-1980s, the action moves back and forth between the locker room of the Jewish Community Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the lawn of a summer retreat, as the two life-long friends struggle to understand their roles as mothers of “American” children who have not suffered—or so they believe. Ultimately, Nina is a journey into identity, loss, memory, and the power of female friendship.

Nina is the recipient of several awards, including the Gemini Theater New Play Festival competition, the Smith College New Play Festival competition, the Dorothy Silver Playwriting Award (finalist) and the Oglebay Institute Towngate Theatre Playwriting Contest (finalist). The Theatre Project production ran September 22-October 2.

Conner is an award-winning playwright whose plays and adaptations have been produced in theaters across the United States. Her play about Rachel Carson, In the Garden of Live Flowers (co-written with Attilio Favorini), won the 2002 Kennedy Center National Playwriting Award and an honorable mention prize in the 2002 Jane Chambers Playwriting Award contest and is published by Dramatic Publishing Company. In January 2013 Conner was awarded the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region I award for Excellence for her original adaptation of Lysistrata at Colby College in Maine, where she was a professor and chair of the Theatre and Dance Department. American Humbug received a Creative Heights award from the Heinz Endowments in 2007.

REVIEWS

“A tightly observed collision between three vivid, touching and unique persons . . . a major play.” Richard Sewell, founding Artistic Director, Theatre of Monmouth.

“Lynne Conner’s well-crafted characters and truly beautiful language rise up and compel you to become part of the story.” Bess Welden, Portland Stage Company Associate Artist

“A powerful reminder to me of the life-long pain so many of our nation’s citizens endure across generations to start anew in the face of such horrible loss.” Lauren Sterling, Distinguished Policy Fellow, Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center

“A fascinating story well told and presented.” Thomas Power, University of Southern Maine Department of Theatre