Creative Team & Cast

Creative Team

Director – Chris Clavelli

Stage Manager – Christine Lomaka*

Set Design – Chez Cherry

Costume Design – Kevin Hutchins

Lighting Design – Matt Cost

*members of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States

Cast

Kate – Katharine McLeod*

Ben – Jason Cadieux*

Leaf – Josh Adams*

*members of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.

About the Playwright
Jenny StaffordJenny Stafford is an award-winning bookwriter, lyricist, and playwright whose works have been heard on Broadway, regionally, and internationally. 

Broadway: Cirque du Soleil’s Paramour.

Shows: The Homefront (with Sam Salmond, Village Festival 3of New Musicals, Village BETA series, NAMT finalist), The Artist and the Scientist (with Brandon Anderson, CAP21), Extended Stay (with Scotty Arnold, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Florida Festival of New Musicals), Prodigy (CCU, Collaborative Development Project, Two Rivers Theatre Company, and Indiana University), Beating a Dead Horse (winner of the 2017 Reva Shiner Comedy Award, Bloomington Playwrights Project and the Athena Project), Secret Hour (Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, And Toto Too, Prologue Theatre Company, Virtual New Works Festival, Capital Repertory Theatre New Works Festival), Eleanor and Dolly (Butterfly Effect Theatre Company, Athena Project), Color Inside the Lines (Denver Fringe Festival), The Goree All-Girl String Band (with Artie Sievers), To Have and to Hold (Prospect Theatre Company, Barrington Stage), Cinderella (commissioned/produced by the Spotlight Youth Theatre), Two Bugs are Better Than One (commissioned/produced Off-Broadway by the New York City Children’s Theatre, all with Willem Oosthuysen), The Star Child (with Sarah Underwood and Josh Freilich, French Woods), Awakening (with Joel B. New and J. Oconer Navarro), and Skittles (Woolly Mammoth).

International: Alive (The Space UK, Edinburgh), Color Inside the Lines (2021/2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Some Kind of Weasel (2020 Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Cirque du Soleil’s Paramour (Hamburg, Germany).

Her work has been featured at the Lincoln Center Songbook Series (The Lyrics of Jennifer Stafford), Prospect Theatre Company, The National Alliance for Musical Theatre Songwriter Salon, the New York Musical Theatre Festival, 54 Below, Ars Nova, Joe’s Pub, and numerous other NYC venues, including multiple inclusions in William Finn’s Ridiculously Talented concert series.

Awards include winner of the Capital Repertory Theatre’s New Works Festival, ASCAP Plus Awards (2020, 2021), Best Solo Show (Color Inside the Lines), the 2017 Reva Shiner Comedy Award and the Paulette Goddard Award. Two-time finalist for the Kleban Prize, finalist for the Yale Institute for Music Theatre, the Eugene O’Neill Musical Theatre Conference, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Conference, and the Ronald M. Ruble New Play Competition. Second prize in the McLean Drama Company Playwriting Competition.

She’s been an Artist in Residence at the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Village Theatre, the Johnny Mercer Writers Grove at Goodspeed, the Catwalk Institute, Hypatia in the Woods, Barn Arts, Goodspeed Musicals, CAP 21, the Ross Ragland Theatre and the Berkshire Playwrights Theatre.  Dramatists Guild member. MFA, Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Jenny is also a prolific teaching artist, teaching with the Metropolitan Opera Guild (where she was awarded the title of “Master Teaching Artist”), the New York City Children’s Theatre, Trinity Music NYC, and Colorado Christian University.  She has been a guest lecturer/artist at New York University, Baruch College, Indiana University, Santa Clara University, SUNY New Paltz, and Fordham University.  She also spent two summers teaching theatre and songwriting at Shanti Bhavan in Bangalore, India, with Artists Striving to End Poverty.

 

Get in on the Secret

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Katharine McLeod as Kate, and Jason Cadieux as Ben in Secret Hour

Katharine McLeod as Kate, Jason Cadieux as Ben in Secret Hour

Secret Hour

by Jenny Stafford

Entertaining, humorous, poignant, and thought-provoking, if you’ve ever been in a relationship, you’ll be talking about this provocative new play all the way home.

For fun, a married couple invents a game where they confess unflattering truths about themselves and promise to love each other anyway. But is unconditional love even possible? Is being truthful the same thing as being true to oneself? Thankfully, they have a wise and hilarious handyman with a life coach certificate to help them answer these and other compelling questions.

More about the play

The Public Theatre is proud to produce this compelling new play. This will be the play’s second production after its world premiere last year in New York.

Secret Hour is also a powerful play specifically for women, who must often choose between having a career path and a family. This play asks how relationships change us, and how much we are allowed to change within them. Do our connections with others help to transform us into our truest selves or does considering another person’s needs mean compromising what we really want?

Couples of all ages will find this play relevant to their lives and appreciate its intelligence and humor.

Playwright Jenny Stafford will be joining The Public Theatre in the rehearsal process and participating in two free post-show discussions with the cast and director directly following the Saturday, March 16th and Sunday, March 17th matinees. This is the second production this season where the playwright has attended their show at The Public Theatre and shared their thoughts and insights with our audience.

Sponsors

Thank You To Our Partners

IBEW Local 567
warp + weft
Performance Dates

Friday, Mar 15, 2024 – 7:30 PM
Saturday, Mar 16, 2024 – 3:00 PM * new time
Sunday, Mar 17, 2024 – 2:00 PM
Thursday, Mar 21, 2024 – 7:30 PM
Friday, Mar 22, 2024 – 7:30 PM
Saturday, Mar 23, 2024 – 3:00 PM
Saturday, Mar 23, 2024 – 7:30 PM
Sunday, Mar 24, 2024 – 2:00 PM

MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT at our post-show discussions following the Sat, 3/16 AND Sun, 3/17 matinees

Ticket Prices

$30 Adult / $25 Group (10+) / $20 Student (19+ with ID) / $15 Youth (13-18)
We consider this show PG-13.

FEES: A $3 fee will be added to each ticket at checkout.
Group Sales pay one $10 fee for the entire group of 10+ tickets. Call 782-3200 for Group Sales.

 

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The Public Theatre

31 Maple Street
Lewiston, ME 04240

Business: (207) 782-2211
Tickets: (207) 782-3200