Rapture, Blister, Burn
by Gina Gionfriddo
directed by Joanna Settle
October 8 – November 8, 2014
When celebrity professor Catherine reunites with her best friends from graduate school, now a married couple with kids living in a New England college town, she begins to rethink the choices she’s made over the past twenty years. As these three friends navigate their new relationships with each other, feelings of regret begin to arise. Catherine’s homecoming leads to shifting dynamics and a larger look at how much (or little) the lives of women have evolved over the past century while examining subjects ranging from pornography to Betty Friedan to slasher films. Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winner Gina Gionfriddo (author of the Wilma’s hit production of Becky Shaw) offers a fresh take on timeless questions by wittily juxtaposing feminist theories with messy human desires.
PRESS / NEWS
“Lines that might normally get a titter become illuminating thanks to Joanna Settle’s incredibly nuanced direction and a cast that knows how to speak volumes with a squint of the eyes or a missed beat.”
“Gina Gionfriddo’s super-smart and wickedly funny “Rapture, Blister, Burn” is playing with just the right interpretations of both the theory and the reality.”
“[Rapture, Blister, Burn director Joanna] Settle has seen much local theater in her short time in Philadelphia. ‘I’m trying to meet the scene, and every time I do I am so happy. I’m a native New Yorker, and I am so happy to be here. It’s not the ‘sixth borough,’ it’s its own thing. It’s a community I feel I can snuggle into – the welcome has been amazing.'”
