Cast Set For World Premiere of WONDER! A WOMAN KEEPS A SECRET at Northern Stage

Northern Stage will conclude its 2025/26 Season with Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret, a bold and imaginative new comedy by rising playwright Talene Monahon, directed by Aileen Wen McGroddy, featuring Tony Award winner Will Brill and acclaimed stage and screen actor Martha Burns.

Running May 13 through May 31 in the Byrne Theater at the Barrette Center for the Arts, this production marks a significant moment in Talene Monahon's rapidly ascending career (2023 New York Times Rising Theater Star). A Dartmouth alumna, Monahon returns to the Upper Valley after garnering national attention for her critically acclaimed play Meet the Cartozians (New York Times Critic's Pick, Vulture's Top 10 Best Plays of 2025) and The Good John Proctor (The New Yorker's “Top 10 Best Plays of 2023”), with her newest work Eat Me premiering at South Coast Repertory this season.

A long-time collaborator and formerly the BOLD Resident Director of Northern Stage (Sisters by Matthew Libby, Sense and Sensibility by Kate Hamill), Aileen Wen McGroddy returns with her unique directing style, armed with her extensive experience in new works and world premieres. McGroddy currently serves as the Co-Artistic Director of the nationally-acclaimed TUTA Theater Chicago, whose mission is to present exciting new works and foreign theater works on the American stage. Her new work directing has been seen in major Off-Broadway and regional theaters, including Ars Nova, New York Theater Workshop, The Bushwick Starr, Trinity Repertory Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and more.

“Talene Monahon is one of the most exciting emerging voices in American theater right now,” said Carol Dunne, Producing Artistic Director at Northern Stage. “To have her newest work developed and produced here, in collaboration with artists of this caliber, speaks to Northern Stage's commitment to championing bold new voices and connecting our community to work that is shaping the future of the American stage.”

HILARIOUS HIJINKS ON THE HIGH SEAS! A family cruise vacation goes awry when a famous painting is discovered missing, and the culprit is suspected to be one of the passengers aboard the Aqua Royale: Paris to Portugal. Loosely adapted from Susanna Centlivre's 1714 farce of the same name, Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret follows a colorful cast, including a pair of jealous lovers, an iceberg-phobic captain, a frustrated musical revue performer, a scheming mother-in-law, and an enterprising toilet maid as they try to make it to Lisbon with a boat-load of secrets. Set sail for a side-splitting, laugh-'til-you-cry adventure!

Northern Stage's production features the following cast:

Tony Award winner Will Brill (Stereophonic and Oklahoma! on Broadway), known for his work on stage and screen, joins the production with Martha Burns, widely recognized for her performance in Slings and Arrows, and who recently appeared in The Children at Northern Stage with Gordon Clapp and Daphne Zuniga. Audiences will also see familiar faces on stage – Serena Brook (Come From Away) and Grayson DeJesus (The Play That Goes Wrong, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare) will return to Northern Stage's main stage. Alongside them in the cast are other industry favorites: Sam Bolen (Assassins Off-Broadway Revival at Classic Stage Company, Midnight at the Never Get, York Theater), Tay Bass (POTUS at Trinity Repertory Company), Annie Fang (Lobster at The Tank), Yonatan Gebeyehu (Bathhouse.PPTX at The Flea), and Kelly McAndrew (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway).

The creative team, led by McGroddy, includes Julia Egizio (Production Stage Manager), Eleanor Kahn (Scenic Designer), Camilla Dely (Costume Designer), Eric Watkins (Lighting Designer), Johnny Gasper (Sound Designer), Casey Kaleba (Fight Director), Elizabeth Sarsfield (Assistant Stage Manager), and Mandi Benjamin (Associate Director).