World Premiere of PAUL AND EMILE Opens at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater

Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater will present the World Premiere of Paul and Émile, by Kai Maristed. Performances run Thursdays through Saturdays at 7 p.m., and Sundays at 3:00 p.m., September 20 – October 12, 2025. Preview performances at 7:00 p.m. on September 18 & 19 are discounted and open to the public. Paul and Émile is directed by Sasha Brätt.

Paul Cézanne and Émile Zola were inseparable as schoolboys in Aix-en-Provence.  Once up in Paris they shivered sharing a bed and eating broiled sparrows, impatient for the world to recognize their genius, one as painter, the other as writer. Then, inexplicably, came a bitter falling out and a mystifying two decades of silence.  After a chance encounter reunites the pair, the bonds of friendship are tested as buried secrets are revealed. The decades of resentment fade as they recognize the genius in the other's creation in this remarkable new play by internationally acclaimed writer (and Wellfleet resident) Kai Maristed.

Performances on September 28 and October 2 will be Live Captioned.

BIOS:

Kai Maristed (Playwright) was born in Chicago, studied economics and political science in Munich and at MIT, and has worked as a broadcast journalist and playwright in Germany, as an international business consultant for BCG, and on the faculties of universities in Europe and the United States. She is the author of three novels: Broken Ground (2003), Fall (1996) and Out After Dark (1993) and a collection of stories, Belong to Me (1997).  Her shorter work has appeared in The American Scholar, The Kenyon Review, StoryQuarterly, Zoetrope, The American Voice, Ploughshares, AGNI, the Iowa Review and elsewhere. She is a frequent book reviewer for print and online, and occasional translator from German and French. Kai volunteered and served for three years as CFO with a rural hospital in Haiti, has taught at the MFA level at Harvard, Emerson College, and the Warren Wilson Program. She lives in Paris, France and on Cape Cod, when not on the move.

Sasha Brätt (Director) is an award-winning stage director based out of Hartford, CT. For almost two decades he has staged works from New York to DC, Connecticut to Cape Cod, the Berkshires to Boston. At WHAT, he has directed Raging Skillet and Straight White Men. Sasha has been a champion of new works for many years both as a director and as a reader for the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference, the Source Festival, and as well as other institutions. In addition, Sasha served as the Director of New Works for Playhouse on Park for eight years where he launched their “Playwrights on Park” New Play Reading Series.

Todd Scofield* (Paul Cézanne) DC Area: Folger Theatre: Romeo and Juliet, Tempest, Hamlet, Othello, Henry VIII, Merry Wives of Windsor, others; Arena Stage: Holiday, City of Conversation, Sovereignty; Shakespeare Theatre: King Lear, Our Town, Richard III, others; Round House Theatre: Ink, Oslo, The Book of Will, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, others; Signature Theatre: Ragtime; Kennedy Center: Mister Roberts; Theater J, Studio, Ford's, Olney, Adventure Theatre, Imagination Stage, and Everyman Theatre REGIONAL: Arden Theatre: Freud's Last Session; PlayMakers, Charlotte Rep, and North Carolina Shakespeare Festival. Television: recurring role in seasons 3 and 5 of The Wire.

Abe Goldfarb* (Émile Zola) is an actor, writer and director based in Brooklyn, NY. He studied at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He's been on Broadway (in Beetlejuice), voiced Pokémon (several) and emceed burlesque shows all over the world (seriously). His multiple award-winning film First Time Caller is now streaming.