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CRY IT OUT

written by Molly Smith Metzler

directed by Joanne Greenberg

PHANTOM THEATER

​AUG 22-24 | 8:00

970 Dump Road, Warren, VT

$20

THE GRAY SPACE

AUG 29 - SEP 7

Thur, Fri and Sat @ 7:30pm

Sat @ 2:00 pm

168 N. Main Street, Room #7, Northfield, VT

$20 | Thur. Aug 29th & Sept. 5th - Pay-What-You-Can ($5 minimum)

Dirt Road Theater presents Cry It Out by Molly Smith Metzler. A comedy with dark edges, Cry It Out takes an honest look at the absurdities of being home with a baby, the power of female friendship, the dilemma of going back to work, and the effect class has on parenthood in America.

CAST

​Kianna Bromley - Lina

Jesse Cooper - Mitchell

Sarah Debouter - Adrienne

Maren Langdon Spillane - Jessie

CREATIVE

Playwright - Molly Smith Metzler

Director - Joanne Grennberg​

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KIANNA BROMLEY (Lina) (she/her) is a licensed Theatre Arts Teacher and a performing artist based in Montpelier, Vermont. She recently taught Theatre Arts at Montpelier High School but is venturing out this coming year as the President and Founder of the Montpelier Performing Arts Hub which just purchased 35 College Street in Montpelier and is actively fundraising to renovate the space into a vibrant community space. On stage in Vermont, she has performed with Vermont Stage, Lost Nation Theater, Dirt Road Theater, Green Room Productions, and Lyric Theatre Company. Her favorite roles include Susan (Tick, Tick...BOOM!), Eponine (Les Miserables), Penny (Hairspray), and Velma Kelly (Chicago). She trained at Circle in the Square Theatre & School in NYC and the University of Vermont. She has studied voice with Ben Fankhauser, Stacy Chadwell, Bill Reed, and Beth Falcone. Kianna sings locally with an improvisational circle singing group, appears in sketch comedy, and is a trained intimacy choreographer. She would like to thank her incredible husband for being the best dad whenever she performs and her kids for their patience and support.

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JESSE COOPER (Mitchell) Jesse's recent acting gigs include Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (Johnny) for Vermont Stage’s The Bake Off!, Developed to Death (Mike St. Hammer) with the Civic Standard, 12th Night (Orsino) and Midsummer Night’s Dream (Oberon) both at Unadilla Theater. He is an unofficial member of Dirt Road Theater’s on-again, off-again sketch comedy troupe Customer Service. In his day job, Jesse co-owns Flywheel Industrial Arts, a custom design and fabrication shop.

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SARAH DEBOUTER (Adrienne) Sarah (Berlin) has been acting since she was 6 years old, debuting in a production of Piggy Pie. Over time, she has performed with Middlebury Community Players, Essex Community Players, and most recently the Valley Players in Waitsfield with their 2024 productions of Poet's Choice and Spamalot. She is very excited to perform with Dirt Road Theater for the first time. This show is important, and this cast is so talented; everyone brings complexity and emotion to these characters. She's grateful for the opportunity to shine light on the varying emotions of new parenthood, and how regardless of background - new parents all experience similar struggles.

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MAREN LANGDON SPILLANE (Jessie) lived and worked as an actor in New York City for several years, where her credits include world premieres of Itamar Moses' Love/Stories (Or, But You Will Get Used to it), A.R. Gurney's Office Hours, and Nick Jones' The Wundelsteipen [The Flea Theater, NYC], The Tenant [Woodshed Theater Company, NYC], and Three Sisters [Williamstown Theatre Festival, MA]. She is now happily settled back in Vermont, where she co-runs Dirt Road Theater and teaches and directs there and at many schools around the state. Maren is looking forward to starting work as Montpelier High School’s theater teacher this fall! VT acting credits include Gruesome Playground Injuries, Constellations, Collected Stories, and Time Stands Still [Greenroom Productions], Much Ado About Nothing [Middlebury Acting Company], Twelfth Night [Unadilla Theater] and Customer Service and The Ties That Bind [Dirt Road Theater]. She is excited to join the Middlebury Acting Company again this fall for their production of The Cherry Orchard.

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JOANNE GREENBERG (Director) Joanne directs plays, teaches drama workshops, and has led an improvisation troupe around Vermont. Recent productions include I Am My Own Wife, Time Stands Still, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, The Outsider, Marjorie Prime, The Whale, Bad Jews, True West, Proof, Collected Stories, Constellations, and Gruesome Playground Injuries. Joanne has also taught acting classes professionally and at Community College of Vermont. Earlier in her career, Joanne taught English and advanced acting classes at U-32 High School. In addition, she directed more than 50 major productions in the school’s award-winning theater program. This summer, she is thrilled to bring one more play to the magical Phantom Theater and to help Dirt Road Theater inaugurate The Gray Space with its first professional production.

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MOLLY SMITH METZLER (playwright) (bio from dramaticpublishing.com) Molly Smith Metzler is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Kingston, N.Y. She is the creator and showrunner of the limited series Maid, which debuted on Netflix in October 2021 and spent 13 weeks on the top-10 list, viewed by more than 67 million households. In March 2022, Maid won the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for Outstanding Writing of a Limited Series–Adapted Long Form, and was named a “TV Program of the Year” by the AFI (American Film Institute). It also received award nominations from The Golden Globes, SAG, the Critics’ Choice Awards, NAACP, and more. Metzler’s TV credits include several seasons of Shameless (Showtime), Casual (Hulu) and Orange Is the New Black (Netflix). In film, she’s written features for Universal, Disney and Fox 2000.

As a playwright, Metzler’s plays, including Cry it Out, Elemeno Pea, The May Queen, Carve, Close Up Space and Training Wisteria, have been produced at Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), Humana Festival/Actors Theatre of Louisville, South Coast Repertory, Northlight Theatre, Studio Theatre (DC), Detroit Public Theatre, City Theatre (Pittsburg), Geva Theatre Center, Chautauqua Theater Company and many more. Her play Cry it Out won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Playwriting (2018) and the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award Citation (2018). Her other awards include the Harold and Mimi Steinberg National Student Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center, the David Mark Cohen Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), and the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting. Metzler is a proud alumna of SUNY Geneseo, Boston University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Juilliard School, where she was a two-time recipient of the Lecomte du Nouy Prize from Lincoln Center.

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