Compass Rose Theater has announced the cast and artistic team for its upcoming production I and You by Lauren Gunderson. The show runs from November 10 to December 10, 2023, at Maryland Hall in the Compass Rose Theater. To buy tickets www.CompassRoseTheater.org.
I and You features Lilli Brown as Caroline and Alie Karambash as Anthony. In this award-winning play, Anthony arrives unexpectedly at classmate Caroline’s door to finish an urgent assignment on Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. As the two drop their guards and share their secrets, a deeper mystery – one that connects them – is revealed.
“I and You is a meditation, a poem on our need for human connection and love,” says director Jerry Winters. “It couldn’t come at a better time.” Winters holds an MFA in directing from the University of South Carolina.
According to American Theater Magazine, playwright Lauren Gunderson is one of the most prolific playwrights in America. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the winner of the Lanford Wilson Award, and a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
The Washington Post review said I and You is “sharp and funny,” adding, “Gunderson taps into a buoyant spirit…the touching ‘barbaric yawp’ (Whitman’s phrase) of these two deeply engaging kids.”
The Compass Rose Theater Artistic and Production Team includes Jerry Winters (Director), Barbara Webber (Producer), Emily Palmerchuck (Lighting Designer), Omar Said (Artistic Designer), Susan Flynn (Costume Designer), and Craig Martien (Sound Designer).
“We are delighted to continue to attract very talented professional actors to work in a Compass Rose production,” says Barbara Webber, Executive Director of Compass Rose. “Their performance will remind audiences of their youth, life’s mysteries and our interconnectedness to one another. Gunderson created a beautiful story that will take your breath away.”
Since its founding in 2011 by Lucinda Merry Browne, Compass Rose Theater has produced more than 50 shows, garnering a Helen Hayes Award for A Chorus Line and five Helen Hayes Award nominations. Upcoming productions include The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn (January—February 2024) and The Music Man by Meredith Willson (March—April 2024).
