Coming Up - 2025
The Skeleton Rep(resents) will present the World Premiere of
Georgia and the Butch:
Adapted from Maria Chabot & Georgia O'Keeffe Correspondence, 1941-1949,
a documentary play featuring the letters of the nine-year, intimate correspondence between Georgia O’Keeffe and Maria Chabot, adapted by Carolyn Gage and directed by Andrew Coopman at The Tank (312 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018), February 25-March 12, 2025.
Georgia and The Butch is a new play adapted from the letters between famous artist Georgia O’Keeffe and advocate for Native American arts and rancher Maria Chabot during their nine-year intimate relationship, from 1941 to 1949.
This production is intended to highlight an intense and controversial intimacy that has been minimized, mischaracterized, or written out of Georgia’s history. It is a relationship between an older, gender-non-conforming, fiercely independent artist and a young lesbian butch. Whatever imbalances and dysfunction there may have been between these incredibly strong-willed and visionary women, one cannot dispute that the camping trips with Maria resulted in some of Georgia’s most iconic landscapes, and that the house and garden at Abiquiu, designed and built by Maria, stand as a stunning testament to a young lesbian’s all-consuming devotion to her muse.
The cast will feature Ria T. DiLullo as Maria Chabot, Gael Schaefer* as Georgia O’Keeffe, and Haneen Arafat Murphy* as Mary Cabot Wheelwright. The creative team will include Sound Design by Robert Gonyo, Lighting Design by Jonathan Cottle, and Costume Design by Hope Salvan with Production Stage Manager Daniel Scarantino and Production Assistant Raina Lawrence. *Actor appears courtesy of the Actors’ Equity Association.
Performances are scheduled on Tuesday, February 25 at 7pm (opening night), Wednesday, February 26 at 7pm, Saturday, March 1 at 3pm, Monday, March 3 at 7pm, Wednesday, March 5 at 7pm, Saturday, March 8 at 3pm, Sunday, March 9 at 7pm, and Wednesday, March 12 at 7pm. Tickets ($20-$30) are available for advance purchase at https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2025/2/25/georgia-and-the-butch. The performance will run approximately 75 minutes, with no intermission.
Carolyn Gage (Playwright) is a playwright, performer, director, and activist. The author of nine collections of lesbian and feminist themed plays and eighty-three plays, musicals, and one-woman shows, she specializes in non-traditional roles for women, especially those reclaiming famous lesbians whose stories have been distorted or erased from history. In 2024, Gage won the national Alice B Award, given annually to living writers who have careers distinguished by consistently well-written stories about lesbians. In 2022, her play In McClintock’s Corn was National Runner-up for the Jane Chambers Award for Excellence in Feminist Playwriting, sponsored by the Women and Theatre Program of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Her catalog is online at www.carolyngage.com
Andrew Coopman (Director) (they/he) is a director, choreographer, and playwright of Middle Eastern descent and was a 2022 - 2023 Drama League FutureNow Fellowship recipient. Director-Choreographer credits include: The Apollo of Bellac (Hangar Theatre), Head Over Heels (Lakewood Playhouse), Henrik Ibsen's Rosmersholm (Jones Playhouse), Bryony Lavery’s Frozen: A Play (Cabaret Theater), Mary Zimmerman's The Odyssey (Studio East), Little Women the Musical (Seattle Musical Theater), Wilde Tales and The Very Last Green Thing (Seattle Opera), The Little Mermaid (Kitsap Forest Theater), Once Upon a Mattress (Snoqualmie Falls Forest Theater), The Wizard of Oz (Tacoma Little Theater), and multiple touring remounts of The Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System (TheaterWorksUSA). They will also be directing and choreographing the world premier of Alan Turing and the Queen of the Night at The Players Theater in August 2025. Associate Directing credits include: Orfeo y Euridice (Seattle Opera), Rogers and Hammersteins' Cinderella (Village Theater), and the upcoming workshop of The Right Girl. Andrew was a 2024 Artist in Residence playwright with Skeleton Rep(resents). Their original work,TAROT, will premiere at Strawdog Theatre Company in Chicago in 2025. Other new work includes …and then the lightning struck and TREESON: A New Eco-Musical. MFA Directing, University of Washington and MA, Educational Theatre, New York University – Steinhardt. Proud SDC member, and Artistic Associate at The Drama League. @arcoopman | www.AndrewCoopman.com
The Skeleton Rep(resents) is celebrating its tenth year as a new works development company with a mission to Explore Modern Myth. This can mean taking myths from the past into the present, or exploring what is mythical about our own age and putting that on stage. www.skeletonrep.org
Georgia and the Butch:
Adapted from Maria Chabot & Georgia O'Keeffe Correspondence, 1941-1949,
a documentary play featuring the letters of the nine-year, intimate correspondence between Georgia O’Keeffe and Maria Chabot, adapted by Carolyn Gage and directed by Andrew Coopman at The Tank (312 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018), February 25-March 12, 2025.
Georgia and The Butch is a new play adapted from the letters between famous artist Georgia O’Keeffe and advocate for Native American arts and rancher Maria Chabot during their nine-year intimate relationship, from 1941 to 1949.
This production is intended to highlight an intense and controversial intimacy that has been minimized, mischaracterized, or written out of Georgia’s history. It is a relationship between an older, gender-non-conforming, fiercely independent artist and a young lesbian butch. Whatever imbalances and dysfunction there may have been between these incredibly strong-willed and visionary women, one cannot dispute that the camping trips with Maria resulted in some of Georgia’s most iconic landscapes, and that the house and garden at Abiquiu, designed and built by Maria, stand as a stunning testament to a young lesbian’s all-consuming devotion to her muse.
The cast will feature Ria T. DiLullo as Maria Chabot, Gael Schaefer* as Georgia O’Keeffe, and Haneen Arafat Murphy* as Mary Cabot Wheelwright. The creative team will include Sound Design by Robert Gonyo, Lighting Design by Jonathan Cottle, and Costume Design by Hope Salvan with Production Stage Manager Daniel Scarantino and Production Assistant Raina Lawrence. *Actor appears courtesy of the Actors’ Equity Association.
Performances are scheduled on Tuesday, February 25 at 7pm (opening night), Wednesday, February 26 at 7pm, Saturday, March 1 at 3pm, Monday, March 3 at 7pm, Wednesday, March 5 at 7pm, Saturday, March 8 at 3pm, Sunday, March 9 at 7pm, and Wednesday, March 12 at 7pm. Tickets ($20-$30) are available for advance purchase at https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2025/2/25/georgia-and-the-butch. The performance will run approximately 75 minutes, with no intermission.
Carolyn Gage (Playwright) is a playwright, performer, director, and activist. The author of nine collections of lesbian and feminist themed plays and eighty-three plays, musicals, and one-woman shows, she specializes in non-traditional roles for women, especially those reclaiming famous lesbians whose stories have been distorted or erased from history. In 2024, Gage won the national Alice B Award, given annually to living writers who have careers distinguished by consistently well-written stories about lesbians. In 2022, her play In McClintock’s Corn was National Runner-up for the Jane Chambers Award for Excellence in Feminist Playwriting, sponsored by the Women and Theatre Program of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Her catalog is online at www.carolyngage.com
Andrew Coopman (Director) (they/he) is a director, choreographer, and playwright of Middle Eastern descent and was a 2022 - 2023 Drama League FutureNow Fellowship recipient. Director-Choreographer credits include: The Apollo of Bellac (Hangar Theatre), Head Over Heels (Lakewood Playhouse), Henrik Ibsen's Rosmersholm (Jones Playhouse), Bryony Lavery’s Frozen: A Play (Cabaret Theater), Mary Zimmerman's The Odyssey (Studio East), Little Women the Musical (Seattle Musical Theater), Wilde Tales and The Very Last Green Thing (Seattle Opera), The Little Mermaid (Kitsap Forest Theater), Once Upon a Mattress (Snoqualmie Falls Forest Theater), The Wizard of Oz (Tacoma Little Theater), and multiple touring remounts of The Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System (TheaterWorksUSA). They will also be directing and choreographing the world premier of Alan Turing and the Queen of the Night at The Players Theater in August 2025. Associate Directing credits include: Orfeo y Euridice (Seattle Opera), Rogers and Hammersteins' Cinderella (Village Theater), and the upcoming workshop of The Right Girl. Andrew was a 2024 Artist in Residence playwright with Skeleton Rep(resents). Their original work,TAROT, will premiere at Strawdog Theatre Company in Chicago in 2025. Other new work includes …and then the lightning struck and TREESON: A New Eco-Musical. MFA Directing, University of Washington and MA, Educational Theatre, New York University – Steinhardt. Proud SDC member, and Artistic Associate at The Drama League. @arcoopman | www.AndrewCoopman.com
The Skeleton Rep(resents) is celebrating its tenth year as a new works development company with a mission to Explore Modern Myth. This can mean taking myths from the past into the present, or exploring what is mythical about our own age and putting that on stage. www.skeletonrep.org