Connecticut's Sharon Playhouse presents a staged reading of Kate Hamill’s new adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter April 16 at 7 PM.
Gretchen Mol (Boardwalk Empire, Disgraced, Manchester by the Sea) and Tim Blake Nelson (Old Henry, Watchmen, Socrates) co-star as Hester Prynne and her estranged husband, respectively, with Pun Bandhu, Spencer Scott Barros, Emma Simon, Samantha Steinmetz, and Griffin Tomaino. Andrus Nichols directs.
The Scarlet Letter follows Hester Prynne as she tries to find her own moral compass in a society that harshly punishes women for independent thought, sexuality, or defiance. She and the other Massachusetts Bay colonists—including her lover and estranged husband—struggle with their own deeply-ingrained guilt and shame, as they try to determine what evil truly is.
Director Nichols says, “Kate loves complicated women, and all of her adaptations are inherently feminist. She digs into the struggle that women have historically navigated to protect their own identities and truths under the weight of immense societal pressure and expectation about the way they are to behave.”
Sharon Playhouse Artistic Director Justin Boccitto and Associate Artistic Director Michael Kevin Baldwin produce.
Visit SharonPlayhouse.org.