DARLIN' to Make World Premiere at Bridge Street Theatre

Bridge Street Theatre will present the world premiere of “Darlin',” a new play by two-time PEN USA Award in Drama recipient Michelle Carter, November 5–15, 2026. Directed by Katy Early, the production features Barbara Pitts, Amanda Duarte, and Phil Mansfield.

Carter developed the play in part at Bridge Street Theatre, which hosted a workshop and reading of an earlier draft in 2026.

Who was your mother before she was your mother?

Kate has just lost the teaching job that has defined her life for nearly three decades. Her mother, Liza, is nearing the end of hers. Between them lie years of arguments, obligations, and extravagant family stories that Kate knows aren't true. With time running out, an unconventional caregiver offers Kate a journey into her mother's past.

In San Francisco in 1958, sixteen-year-old Liza arrives to live with the mother who abandoned her. Each has imagined what the other will be like—and what being reunited might make possible. Moving between the present and the past, “Darlin'” brings biting humor to three generations of mother-daughter relationships as Kate discovers the life her mother has never shared with her.

Playwright Michelle Carter's honors include two PEN USA Awards in Drama, the Susan Glaspell Award, the Ebell Playwright Prize, and an NEA Literature Fellowship. Her plays have been produced and developed at the Moscow Art Theater, The Donmar Warehouse, Playwrights Horizons SuperLab, Center Theater Group, Asolo Repertory Theatre, and Bridge Street Theatre, among others.

Director Katy Early develops and directs new work in theatre, musical theatre, and opera, with credits at The Tank, the cell theatre, City Lyric Opera, and MassOpera. She serves as associate artistic director of Boston's Catalyst New Music and recently co-founded the Brooklyn artist collective Scoby NYC with playwright Annie Rasiel.

Barbara Pitts* co-created and performed in Tectonic Theater Project's “The Laramie Project,” including its stage productions and HBO film, and is a co-author of “Moment Work: Tectonic Theater Project's Process of Devising Theater.” Her recent credits include the national tour of Tectonic's “Here There Are Blueberries” and “The Price” at Shakespeare & Company. 

Amanda Duarte is a New York-based writer and performer whose credits include “Snatch Adams and Tainty McCracken Present It's That Time of the Month” at Soho Rep and performances at Joe's Pub. Her long-running reading series, “Dead Darlings,” is now also presented in Kingston. She reunites with longtime collaborator Carter after previously appearing in her play “How to Pray.”

Phil Mansfield began acting professionally as a child and has worked in television and regional theatre nationwide. His recent Hudson Valley credits include Duke Senior in “As You Like It” and Lord Montague in “Romeo and Juliet” with Catskill Mountain Shakespeare, as well as “The Skin of Our Teeth” and “Three Sisters” with Voice Theatre.