Trinity Rep presents "The Clean House" by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Laura Kepley in the intimate Dowling Theater through June 3. Playwright Ruhl was hailed by The New York Times as “a provocative new theatrical voice,” and recently named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. In The Clean House, Lane, a career-oriented doctor hires a quirky Brazilian maid. The only problem is that the maid, Matilde, hates to clean but loves a good joke. Director Laura Kepley sums up this illuminating comedy as "an invitation to look at the state of our own houses – our love lives, our families, our relationships –and learn to embrace the chaos we can't control."

		Playwright Sarah Ruhl says that the seed for the play grew from overhearing a comment at a cocktail party full of doctors. “Walking into the room, I overheard a woman saying that her Brazilian cleaning lady was depressed and she didn’t want to clean and that she’s taken her to the hospital to get medication,” said Ruhl, "The woman continued, “I didn’t go to medical school to clean my own house." Seizing upon that singular moment, Ruhl created an insightfully written play about humor, cleaning and ultimately about the passions that measure the value of a life. When asked about the production, director Laura Kepley comments, "As a playwright, Sarah takes us on such an imaginative, theatrical, and emotional journey. When planning this season, Curt Columbus and I spoke a lot about where the balance was in opening with Cherry Orchard and ending with The Clean House. Both plays ask the question “How do we respond when the worst thing in the world that we can imagine happening to us, happens?” she goes on to add, "Both Chekhov and Ruhl astonish us with their compassionate view of humanity. I don’t think it’s an accident that Ruhl, like Chekhov, has the characters, laughing, and laughing hard, through tears." The ensemble cast is made up of Trinity Rep company members Angela Brazil (A Delicate Balance, Cherry Orchard, Cyrano de Bergerac), William Damkoehler (A Delicate Balance, Hamlet, Cyrano de Bergerac), Janice Duclos (A Delicate Balance, Hamlet), Barbara Meek (Our Town, Cherry Orchard, Cyrano de Bergerac) and Cynthia Strickland (A Delicate Balance, Hamlet). The set will be designed by David Cosier, costumes by William Lane, lighting by Brian J. Lilienthal and sound design by Peter Hurowitz. Director Laura Kepley is the Artistic Associate and Peter Kaplan Fellow at Trinity Rep where she co-created (with D. Salem Smith) and directed the world premiere docu-drama Boots on the Ground. Kepley and Smith's new piece, entitled Some Things are Private, explores the intersection of our private lives with public values and will be produced as part of next year's season at Trinity Rep. Laura directed the second cast of the 2004 production of A Christmas Carol and served as the assistant to Oskar Eustis on the premiere of Rinne Groff's The Ruby Sunrise at Actors Theatre of Louisville and Trinity Rep. Other directing work includes Laura Schellhardt’s The K of D at the Kennedy Center and the Orlando Shakespeare Festival, Trista Baldwin’s Falling Up at Perishable Theatre, various selections from new works at New York’s Public Theater and productions in the New York, Seattle, and Philadelphia Fringe Festivals.

Laura received her MFA in Directing from the Brown University/Trinity Rep Consortium staging such plays as The Seagull, Top Girls, The Winter's Tale, and Iphigenia and Other Daughters. For the Brown New Play Festival she directed Laura Schellhardt’s Shapeshifter and Deborah Stein's Aerodynamics of Accident. Laura teaches at Brown University and the Brown/Trinity Consortium.

Sarah Ruhl’s plays include The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize Finalist, 2005; The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004); Passion Play, a cycle (The Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center, a Helen Hayes Awards nomination for best new play); Dead Man’s Cell Phone; Melancholy Play; Eurydice; Orlando and Late: a cowboy song. Her plays have been produced at Lincoln Center Theater, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, South Coast Rep, Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, The Wilma Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Madison Rep. and the Piven Theatre, among others. Her plays have also been produced in London, Germany, Australia, Canada and Israel, and have been translated into Polish, Russian, Spanish, Norwegian, Korean and German. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel. In 2003, she was the recipient of the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award and the Whiting Writers’ Award. She is a member of 13P and New Dramatists and recently won the MacArthur Fellowship.

Talkbacks will be held after every performance of The Clean House. Audiences are invited to share their response to the play, the production, the themes — no topic is too high or low, no opinion is right or wrong. A company or staff member will moderate talkbacks for approximately twenty minutes after each show.

Since its founding in 1964, Trinity Repertory Company has been one of the most respected regional theaters in the country. Featuring an acclaimed resident acting company, Trinity Rep presents a balance of world premiere, contemporary, and classic works, including six subscription productions, an annual production of A Christmas Carol, for an estimated annual audience of nearly 160,000. In its 42-year history, the theater has presented 52 world premieres, mounted national and international tours, and, through its graduate-level theater arts conservatory, trained hundreds of new actors and directors. Project Discovery, Trinity Rep's pioneering educational outreach program launched in 1966, introduces over 30,000 Rhode Island and Massachusetts students a year to live theater. Trinity Rep's upcoming 44th season includes All the King’s Men by Adrian Hall, adapted from Robert Penn Warren’s novel; Memory House by Kathleen Tolan; Richard III by William Shakespeare; Some Things are Private co-created by D. Salem Smith & Laura Kepley, written by D. Salem Smith; Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward; and Paris by Night, book & lyrics by Curt Columbus, music by Andre Pluess & Amy Warren. For more information, call the box office at (401) 351-4242 or visit Trinity Rep's website at www.trinityrep.com. - -

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