COST OF LIVING Makes Boston Premiere Next Month

SpeakEasy Stage Company presents the Boston premiere of playwright Martyna Majok’s play COST OF LIVING. The production runs March 8 through March 30, 2024 at the Roberts Studio Theatre in the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. Estimated run time is 1 hour, 40 minutes with no intermission. 

Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a 2023 Tony Award nominee for Best Play, COST OF LIVING interweaves the stories of four lonely souls to examine the forces that bring people together and the ways we all need each other. Eddie, an unemployed truck driver, and his estranged ex-wife Ani reunite unexpectedly after she experiences a devastating accident. And John, a brilliant PhD student with cerebral palsy, hires as his new aide Jess, a first-generation Princeton graduate who has fallen on desperate times. Together these powerful stories comment on the complexity of caring and being cared for, the realities of navigating the world for people with and without disabilities.

Actors Gina Fonseca, Stephanie Gould, and Sean Leviashvili make their SpeakEasy debuts alongside Boston veteran actor Lewis D. Wheeler in this production.  

Alex Lonati will direct. She previously helmed the company’s production of My Body, No Choice and a short film for The Boston Project: Project Resilience.  Lonati is a Boston-based director, producer, accessibility advocate, and arts administrator who currently serves as SpeakEasy’s Community and Artistic Program Manager.  Her other directing credits include plays for Brown Box Theatre Project, Fresh Ink’s Mad Dash, and the Boston Theatre Marathon.  

The SpeakEasy design team for this production is Janie E. Howland (scenic), Chelsea Kerl (costumes), Amanda E. Fallon (lighting), Anna Drummond (sound), and Sarabeth Spector (props). Ari Welch is Production Stage Manager and Ross Gray is Assistant Stage Manager.

Tickets start at $25, with discounts for students, seniors, veterans, and people under 35. Tickets and more information are available online, by phone at 617.933.8600, or in person at the Calderwood Pavilion Box Office at 527 Tremont Street in Boston.  

Estimated run time is 1 hour, 40 minutes with no intermission.

COST OF LIVING premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival on June 29, 2016. Jo Bonney directed original cast members Rebecca Naomi Jones, Gregg Mozgala, Wendell Pierce, and Katy Sullivan.  The show then moved to New York City Center for a production by Manhattan Theatre Club which opened on June 7, 2017.  The play made its Broadway debut in the fall of 2022 at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.  
 

To post a comment, you must register and login.