Invisible Theatre will bring Jewish playwright Susan Miller’s latest off-Broadway play, “20th Century Blues,” to Tucson to round out its 48th anniversary season, April 23-May 5. Miller has won two Obies, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and countless other awards.
The play, which debuted off-Broadway in November 2017, centers on four women, Danny, Sil, Mac, and Gabby, who share 40 years of friendship. They met in a lockup — as Danny says, “It was the ‘70s. You were no one if you didn’t spend a night in jail.” They have convened each year to have their pictures taken in a ritual that chronicles their changing (and aging) selves as they navigate through love, careers, children, and the complications of history. Now Danny, the photographer, wants to make these photos public in a museum retrospective.
IT Managing Artistic Director Susan Claassen, who will direct “20th Century Blues,” says “Susan Miller prizes what Judaism has meant to her as a lesbian writer and performer: ‘Judaism offers a sense of charity, of opening doors within yourself to truths and knowledge, to an understanding of the complex relationships between people.’”
Miller is best known for her Obie Award-winning one-woman show, “My Left Breast,” which has been performed across the United States, Canada and France. Her first Obie was for “Nasty Rumors and Final Remarks.” Her other plays include “A Map of Doubt and Rescue,” “Average American,” and “The Grand Design.” She won The Writer’s Guild of America Award for her web series “Anyone But Me,” about teenagers coming of age.
For more information, visit www.invisibletheatre.com.
