Later this spring, a new production from Pulitzer Prize finalist Madeleine George will be hitting the stage at People’s Light Theater, and it is set somewhat locally (well at an “unassuming cul-de-sac” in Monmouth, New Jersey).
“Hurricane Diane” is set to run at the theater from May 1 to the 19, and the Obie Award-winning show is described as a “comedic romp with a mythological twist and a hilarious parable of climate reckoning and liberation.”
Most may recognize George’s work from her 2014 play “The Watson Intelligence” (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in drama) and also for her work as a writer and executive producer of the Emmy- and Golden Globe Award-nominated Hulu comedy series “Only Murders in the Building.”
The play centers on Diane (Rami Margron), a permaculture gardener with swaggering charm, according to a news release. She also has supernatural powers thanks to her secret identity: the Greek god Dionysus. After settling in a modern-day New Jersey suburb, Diane sets out to recruit the mortals for an environmental revolution that would restore Earth to its natural state, and she eventually enlists a “clique” of housewives Pam (Suli Holum), Carol (Teri Lamm), Renee (Shauna Miles) and Beth (Julianna Zinkel.)
The show will be directed by People’s Light Associate Producing Director Molly Rosa Houlahan, with 21 performances set to be presented on the Leonard C. Haas Stage, a 340-seat performance venue housed in an 18th-century stone barn.
“When searching for my first play to direct back in my hometown, I was immediately drawn to Hurricane Diane,” Houlahan said in a statement. “I recognized the women in this play as ones I grew up with – fierce, funny, smart, and incredibly complicated women who stubbornly made their world in their own image for better or for worse. It felt like a delightful challenge to invite this community to turn a careful eye to our own worst habits and potentially indulge in the wild, wicked catharsis that awaits.”
Houlahan has been a directing fellow at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California; Oregon Shakespeare Festival; and New York City’s Manhattan Theatre Club and Playwright Horizons. The director also had extensive experience at theatre companies across the U.S. before returning to Malvern in 2023 to begin her current role at People’s Light, the release notes.
“Having grown up within 15 minutes of People’s Light, I was lucky enough as a young person to learn what world-class professional theater was in my own backyard,” Houlahan added. “Through classes and student matinees, I grew as a young artist who was hungry for more. Now, having moved back nearly 15 years later, it is the most strange and delightful full circle to be back at People’s Light working in the very halls that formed me. I am thrilled for my regional theater directorial debut to be at home, in the place that started it all.”
The show originally premiered in 2017 at the Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, then went on to run off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop in 2019. This run at People’s Light will mark the regional premiere for the production.
“We are thrilled our audiences have the pleasure of experiencing Molly’s directing debut with Hurricane Diane,” said Zak Berkman, producing artistic director at People’s Light, in a statement. “She doesn’t shy from works that delightfully collide worlds, ideas, energy, and tone. Madeleine George’s play is just that. It’s the best kind of adventure, embracing larger-than-life theatricality while telling stories about our intimate and complex lives today.”
