BOSTON MARRIAGE to Bring Sapphic Victorian Farce to Studio City Home
Nicole Pacent and Heather Renee Wake alternate the lead roles each performance at European House LA.
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Set in the late Victorian era, Anna and Claire are involved in a "Boston marriage"—a 19th-century term for a real social phenomenon where two educated women choose lifelong female companionship, living together independently of financial support from a man… often as lovers. Anna, prone to poetic fits of passion, has become the mistress of a wealthy man who supports her luxurious lifestyle, which she hopes can woo her longtime companion Claire to move in with her. However, the cool-yet-lascivious Claire has become infatuated with a much younger woman and wants to enlist a jealous Anna's help to arrange a rendezvous. Creative Coven LLC presents Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet's Boston Marriage, a wickedly sharp drawing room comedy. Performances run October 2–24 on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m.; and one Thursday evening performance on October 22 at 8 p.m. at European House LA in Studio City.
One of, if not THE most obscure of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet's plays was written, as theater legend tells it, to prove that he could, in fact, write for women and write heightened language. It remains one of the few plays written by a male playwright that exclusively includes lesbian characters. Mamet's play gives us his trademark blunt language and scheming characters, set rather unusually among the Victorian female intellectual set.
This new and exciting site-specific production promises to truly be a one-of-a-kind experience as it takes place in an actual house where every room is a curated masterpiece, blending Baroque opulence, Rococo artistry, and Old Hollywood sophistication. European House LA is a private sanctuary, an exquisitely decorated hidden gem tucked away in Studio City, where audience members can feel the thrill of actually being transported INTO the world of the play. With an intimate seating capacity of up to 30 seats per show, theatregoers are guaranteed a unique, intimate experience.
Both lead actors, Nicole Pacent (Criminal Minds, Marvel's Wolverine for Insomniac Games) and Heather Renee Wake (American Housewife, Nashville, Bethesda Games), will switch roles each night. On Saturdays, there will be a special “Coin Toss Night,” where a selected audience member—and fate—will literally toss a coin to decide who will play which role.
“What makes this play and our production so special is the profound JOY and RARITY of acting in and witnessing a period comedy that's ACTUALLY QUEER [and is this.damn.good]…,” exclaim Nicole Pacent and Heather Renee Wake. “We can think of very few queer period comedies in existence, and to have one that is this well-written and this funny presents a once-in-a-lifetime experience for both us as actors, and you as audience members. It's a night of gay in all the right ways.”
Biographies
Nicole Pacent (Anna/Claire) is an actor, singer, writer, and LGBTQ activist. She plays Rebecca Wilson on Criminal Minds: Evolution (Paramount+), as well as Mystique in Insomniac Games' Wolverine for PlayStation5 (Sony/Marvel Studios). Pacent has appeared on numerous television shows, including WestWorld, Call Me Kat, Anyone But Me, Good Trouble, and Black-ish, and she's performed in productions across Los Angeles, including Castle In The Sky (Under The Rose), Twelfth Night (Open Door Shakespeare), and Beneath the Bowtie (The Geffen). As an artist-activist, Pacent has written for queer publications, created an educational YouTube series on bisexuality, and co-hosted 259 episodes of Coming Out Pod, a weekly podcast that gave queer people from all walks of life the opportunity to tell their coming out stories. Nicole holds a BFA in Drama from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and is a proud member of Ammunition Theatre Company.
Heather Renee Wake (Anna/Claire, Producer) is an LGBTQ+ actress, singer, stunt performer, and multidisciplinary entertainer whose career spans television, film, video games, and live performance. Her screen credits include American Housewife, Nashville, and multiple horror projects premiering this fall, including Sweetest Day and Cry Baby, debuting at the Filmquest Film Festival. Wake has recently starred in two immersive theatrical productions, including Castle In The Sky (Under The Rose) and Neil Simon's Rumors (InHouse Theatre Company), and performed MOCAP for Bethesda Games (still under NDA). She is thrilled to be a new member of InHouse Theatre Company. Wake embraces an even more theatrical side as her burlesque alter ego, Rita Von Riot, a glamorous and mischievous performer who blends vintage torch-singer elegance with a touch of chaos. Her next performance will be Oct 27th at the Velvet Martini Lounge. Wake is also a writer for Upworthy, covering all things progressive history and pop culture.
Dulce Valencia (The Maid) is an actor, writer, and filmmaker from Guerrero, Mexico. Past acting credits include Mary, I Hope You're Having Fun In Hell, Dad (Hollywood Fringe), Jasmine, Hart Island Requiem (reading, The Drama League), and Scherzo (Asylum Theatre). Outside of acting, she leads Define American's entertainment work, partnering with writers and studios to tell humanized, nuanced stories about the immigrant experience.
Bernardo Cubría (director) is an award-winning Mexican playwright/screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles. His play Crabs in a Bucket won the 2024 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Writing. His play The Play You Want premiered at L.A.'s Road Theatre in 2022, garnering Cubría both a Stage Raw Award and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle nomination for Playwriting. It received its regional premiere at Milagro Theatre in Portland in 2023. In 2019, Cubría was nominated for the Ovation, Stage Raw and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Best Playwright awards for his play The Giant Void In My Soul. Other playwriting awards include the Smith Prize for Political Theater. For film, he penned the feature screenplay Like It Used to Be and Guerrero which Gina Rodriguez is attached to direct and star in, and Cubria was a 2023 Sundance Screenwriters Lab fellow for the screenplay Kill Yr Idols which he co-wrote and that Carlos Lopez Estrada is attached to direct. He was also a writer on Season 3 of Acapulco on Apple +. Cubria is fresh off his Geffen directorial debut for the show Am I Roxie?
David Mamet's numerous plays include Oleanna, Glengarry Glen Ross (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), American Buffalo, Speed-the-Plow, Boston Marriage, November, Race and The Anarchist. He wrote the screenplays for such films as The Verdict, The Untouchables and Wag the Dog, and has twice been nominated for an Academy Award. He has written and directed ten films, including Homicide, The Spanish Prisoner, State and Main, House of Games, Spartan and Redbelt. In addition, he wrote the novels The Village, The Old Religion, Wilson and many books of nonfiction, including Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business; Theatre; Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama and the New York Times bestseller The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture. His HBO film Phil Spector, starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, aired in 2013 and earned him two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing. He was co-creator and executive producer of the CBS television show The Unit and is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company.
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