B Street Theatre Presents LUNGS

An international success, Duncan Macmillan's Lungs is a thoughtful play about a couple deliberating whether to have a child during a time of global anxiety, political unrest, terrorism, and erratic weather.

Lungs by Duncan Macmillan

Lungs received its world premiere in 2011 at the Studio Theatre in Washington D.C. and was met with acclaimed reviews. It would later have successful productions at the Crucible Studio in London, the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, the New Repertory Theatre in Boston, the Melbourne Theatre Company in Australia and Sonorous Road Theatre in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Lungs and B Street Theatre

After the larger-scale production of The Christians in January 2017, the B3 Series is producing a more intimate play in Duncan Macmillan's Lungs. Lungs asks important questions about today's society and does so in a rather personal manner: when is the right time to have a child? With the uncertainty of global politics and every-day safety, is it wise to bring a new person into the world?

Playwright Duncan Macmillan was facing 30, considering parenthood, and deeply concerned with the state of the environment when he wrote Lungs. Those issues find their way into Lungs and align with the B3 Series' mission of exploring modern matters on stage. Previous B3 Seasons have featured pieces that wrestle with the invariables of mental health in The Realistic Joneses, the detachment of modern warfare in Grounded, and imprisonment on the grounds of prejudice in Bars & Measures. With Lungs, Macmillan allows the audience to eavesdrop on an educated, flawed, and deeply human couple weighing the uncertainty of a bringing a child into a world overrun with carbon footprints. Much like Macmillan's Every Brilliant Thing, Lungs is a more minimal piece that leaves the space open to the movements and actions of a couple simply named W and M. B Street is excited to feature Company Member Dana Brooke (recently seen on the B3 Stage in The Realistic Joneses and Constellations) and Jahi Kearse (seen in B Street Commission Bars and Measures and B3's Satchmo at the Waldorf) in these beautifully crafted roles.

In the fall of 2016, Duncan Macmillan's one man show, Every Brilliant Thing, received enormous success on B Street Theatre's Mainstage. Starring Company Member Dave Pierini, it was selected as Sacramento News and Review's Pick of the Week during August and was declared "a whole and uplifting monologue." The B Street Theatre is excited to bring back the storytelling of this powerful playwright and to give B Street actors the opportunity to create powerful performances through his words.

Although written in 2011, the universal themes of Lungs are just as prevalent, if not more prevalent, today. With the reign of stubborn partisan politics in both the United States and Europe, the growth of terrorism throughout the world and the continuous battle between fact and fiction over important matters, the decision to have a child is not an easy one to make. Duncan Macmillan's play is a perfect fit for both the B3 series at the B Street Theatre, and there could not be a more important time to produce this work.

More information at www.bstreettheatre.org.

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