Photo: Caelan Carlough
A deeply moving, tenderly insightful play about friendship, memory, and the small moments that can change the course of our lives forever. Over one fateful summer, an unlikely friendship develops between Diana, a fiercely iconoclastic artist and single mom, and Alice, a free-spirited yet naive young housewife. As the Bicentennial is celebrated across the country, these two young women in Ohio navigate motherhood, ambition and intimacy, and help each other discover their own independence.
SUMMER, 1976 premiered on Broadway April 25, 2023. Directed by Daniel Sullivan, the production starred Jessica Hecht and Laura Linney. Here, Isadora Wolfe directs, Kate Baldwin plays Alice, and Jennifer Van Dyck plays Diana. Each of the highly skilled performers deliver flawless presentations of their characters. Together, Baldwin and Van Dyck bring warmth, intelligence and emotional depth to Auburn’s finely drawn portrait of two very different women and the friendship that changes them both.
The Artistic Team includes Scenic Director Jason Simms, Costume Designer Lindsey Eifert, Lighting Designer Matthew E. Adelson, Composer & Sound Designer Scott Killian, and Stage Manager Caroline Ragland.
Playwright, David Auburn “hopes audiences will leave feeling immersed in Alice and Diana’s lives. He has found that the play often prompts people to talk about friendships of their own: the people who arrived at just the right moment, the ones whose lives briefly ran alongside theirs and the questions that remain after they parted.” Director, Isadora Wolfe said” the process of bringing David Auburn’s pages to life has brought so many memories to the surface, of friends and acquaintances who will forever be a part of me. I wish I could say that I’ve stayed in touch with all of them. I haven’t, and I mourn some of these friendships. This play Has allowed me to travel alongside the path of my younger self, seeing the choices I made, softening my critique of myself during some tumultuous years, and seeing with fresh clarity how these friends forever changed the course of my life.” While I have spent far less time with the play, I can attest to having a very similar experience myself a strong indicator that this play is both deeply thought provoking and works across a broad spectrum of audience members.
Photo: Caelan Carlough
SUMMER, 1976 offers a poignant meditation on friendship and the small, fleeting moments that quietly alter the course of a life. In researching this piece, I found a quote from Deadline’s review of the original production that I feel is still quite appropriate: “Quietly poignant... captures an experience that’s as universal as it is inexplicable: a friendship that shouldn’t work but does, and that should endure but doesn’t.” SUMMER, 1976 runs about 90 minutes (with no intermission) and continues on the Larry Vaber stage at Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre in beautiful Stockbridge Massachusetts where the fall colors are almost at their peak.
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