OFF PEAK

Comedy-Drama

by Brenda Withers

When two old flames run into each other on the evening commute, different views of the same past threaten to derail their connection. A new play about forgiving, forgetting, and the healing power of a good delay.

Production Notes

CHARACTERS:

SARITA Female. Age: 50s. Any race/ethnicity. 

MARTIN Male. Age: 50s. Any race/ethnicity

"Brenda Withers’s sly, smart, often very funny one-act, presented by Hudson Stage Company, Martin has apology on his agenda, and explanation, and restitution. But Sarita won’t exactly let him get away with it. She has her own feelings about the time they spent together. In the course of the next hour and a quarter, the writer, actors, and director, Jess Chayes, provide a natural, nuanced, complex portrait: what kind of people these are, were, might have been, might still be...You can believe that this is exactly how a weird encounter of this kind would go, Withers’s script providing an abundance of emotional and intellectual twists and turns—no apothecaries necessary." — Ken Marks, The New Yorker

Author

Brenda Withers

When I'm not writing plays, I spend a lot of time acting, directing, and helping to run the Harbor Stage Company, a magical theater on the shores of Cape Cod. 

Sometimes I perform in my own work and sometimes I work at terrific places like Actors Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage, Firelight Theatre Workshop, McCarter Theatre, and the Guthrie. Join the theater, see the world.

My plays have been produced at places like Portland Stage, Urbanite Theatre, Amphibian Stage Productions, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, HERE, Performance Space New York, and Square Product Theatre and have been the recipients of the Clauder Prize and an Edgerton Award. I studied drama and religion at Dartmouth College, and have enjoyed playwriting residencies with New Georges, the Camargo Foundation, and the Huntington Theatre Company.

​​I believe in theater as a democratizing force, something that can breed healthy discussion amongst people from all walks of life. I aim to create work that acts as a catalyst for compassion, delight, and civil debate in a larger arena. I'm deeply curious about the connection between the personal and the political and love funny plays about serious stuff....[FULL BIO]