maiden voyage
A digital staged reading
Written by Cayenne Douglass
Directed by Liz Fenstermaker
June 8 - 14, 2020
REGISTER to view the performance
FREE to watch, though donations are welcome! Please visit our donation page to make a contribution in support of our artists and to help keep us afloat during this challenging time.
In solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, we will be donating 50% of the proceeds from the reading through June 14th to two organizations: Violence in Boston and Black and Pink. Thank you for joining us in supporting these organizations, and for championing new work by local writers during this time of social distancing!
Maiden Voyage charts the first all-female patrol aboard a U.S. submarine. It’s smooth sailing until mechanics and interpersonal relationships start to go awry. As the Captain’s leadership is tested and the motivations of the crew are questioned, the team must ask themselves: what is the true cost of a successful mission?
Please Note:
This performance is now a digital staged reading due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To view the performance, please register via Eventbrite and you will receive an emailed link to the reading. The video will only be available to view from June 8-14, 2020.
This play includes scenes depicting sexual violence, specifically the underrepresented experience of female to female sexual assault in the military, and suicide. Fresh Ink recognizes these are challenging but important topics to engage with, and encourages survivors and their allies to visit the Service Women's Action Network, RAINN, and Suicide Prevention Lifeline for resources and support.
Cast and Production Team
Ricky Martin - Ann Carpenter
Ace - Louise Hamill
Dot.com - Elainy Mata
Sledge - Jane Reagan
Twinkle Toes - Katie Grindeland
Scooby - Elena Toppo
Esmeralda - Luz Lopez
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Playwright - Cayenne Douglass
Director - Liz Fenstermaker
Dramaturg - Ramona King
Assistant Director - Elena Toppo
Assistant Dramaturg - Lara Brennan
Scenic Design - Jonathan Rooney
Lighting Design - PJ Strachman
Costume Design - Marissa Wolf
Sound Design - Benjamin Finn
Prop Design - Andrew Child
Intimacy Coordinator - Ayshia Stephenson
Ann Carpenter (Ricky Martin) is happy to be returning to Fresh Ink after participating in a staged reading of Death Wings in the fall. She has been active in Greater Boston theatre for over 20 years and has appeared at Apollinaire Theatre, TheatreonFire, Actor's Shakespeare and Hub Theatre Company among others.Favorite roles include Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest with the Longwood Players (Dash Award Best Supporting Actress), The Tooth Fairy in the Norton Award winning God's Ear with Actor's Shakespeare, and Falstaff in Henry the IV with Praxis Stage. With Apollinaire Ann has played many interesting roles ranging from God to Pope Joan to a heartless billionaire to a cockroach. She is looking forward to working with Fresh Ink in this exciting new play.
Louise Hamill (Ace) was recently seen in The Audacity: Women Speak and Birds with Sleeping Weazel and Martha’s (B)Rainstorm and Don’t Give Up the Ship with Fresh Ink Theatre Company. She has also worked with The One-Minute Play Festival, Happy Medium Theatre, Heart and Dagger Productions, and Boston Lyric Opera, among others. She is the Artistic Director and co-founder of Fresh Ink Theatre Company. Louise has a BA in Theatre from Connecticut College and studied at the British American Drama Academy.
Elainy Mata (DOT.COM) is incredibly excited to be part of Maiden Voyage with Fresh Ink Theater. Elainy is a graduate of Suffolk University where she received her bachelors in Government and Broadcast Journalism and a Masters in Political Science. Recent credits include Sofia in Los Que Sueñan (Yo Soy Lola), Nick and Ernie in It’s a Wonderful Life and Madeleine in The Salonnieres (Greater Boston Stage Company), Letters from War (North Shore Music Theater, Marblehead Little Theater, and Salem Theater Company) where she won the award for Best Actress in a Drama from BroadwayWorld, Red in Red and the Wolf (The Players Theater in New York), Sarah Kane in Women Writer's Suicide Club (Boston Community Collaborative), Mimi in RENT(Suffolk University), Jocasta in Oedipus(Suffolk University), and Heather in American Idiot (Marblehead Little Theater). IG: @elainymata
Jane Reagan (Sledge) is a Boston transplant and Bay Area native. Recent credits include King John (Praxis Stage), The Earth Room (Fresh Ink), 1776 (New Rep), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (New Rep’s Classic Rep). She is a teaching artist with Central Square Theatre and is directing a puppet show with The Plenty Collective. Emerson College, BFA Acting 2018. Janeereagan.com.
Katie Grindeland (Twinkle Toes): Previously at Fresh Ink Theatre: La Llorona (Rachel), rabbit rabbit (Playwright, Staged Reading). Other credits include The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberly and Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly (Merrimack Repertory Theatre), The Crucible, Around The World in Eighty Days, and Twelfth Night (Olney Theater Center/National Players), Romeo and Juliet, The Scarlet Letter, and Good (New Repertory Theatre), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company and Hampshire Shakespeare Company), Stuart Little (Wheelock Family Theatre), My Fascination With Creepy Ladies (Anthem Theatre Company), Nosferatu, The Vampyr (Milky Way Coffee Roasters and Sparkhaven Theatre Company), various workshops/readings with Speakeasy Stage, Central Square Theatre/Front Porch Arts Collective, New Repertory Theatre, Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Fresh Ink Theatre, and more. They also freelance as an educator and props/scenic artist with companies such as New Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, Bridge Repertory Theatre, etc. Grateful everyday for M.H, her family, and the opportunity to play. Emerson College: BA Theatre Education. www.katiegrindeland.com
Elena Toppo (Scooby/Assistant Director) is excited to be making her debut with Fresh Ink Theatre Company. Elena is a theatre artist currently working in the Boston area both onstage and behind the scenes. Her past performance experience includes Virginia in Anthem Theatre's production of My Fascination with Creepy Ladies, Rosencrantz in Praxis Stage's Hamlet, as well as Napoleon in Classic Repertory Company's Animal Farm. Behind the scenes, she has been involved as an Assistant Director for Praxis Stage's King John and Moonbox Productions' Turning the Tide. Elena graduated from Boston University with a BFA in Theatre Arts and a Minor in Deaf studies.
Luz Lopez (Esmerelda) has got soul but she’s not a soldier. Her character is a Navy SEAL. She is excited to be making her debut with Fresh Ink Theatre. You may have recently caught her as Policarpa in Artists' Theater of Boston’s staged reading of Diana Burbano's Policarpa, creeping around in Anthem Theatre Company’s ‘My Fascination with Creepy Ladies’, or in Sleeping Weazle's ‘The Audacity: Women Speak’ (Elliot Norton Award-Outstanding Production)
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Cayenne Douglass (Playwright) has had work developed and/or produced at Ensemble Studio Theatre, New Perspectives Theatre Company, Dixon Place, Brave New World Repertory Theatre, Midtown International Theatre Festival, Big Apple Theatre Festival, ESPA Primary Stages Detention Series, Manhattan Repertory Theatre, The Players Theatre, FEAST: A Performance Series, Edmunds Driftwood Players in Seattle and “Ain’t I a Woman” in Louisville, KY. Cayenne has participated in The First Stage Residency through The Drama League, The Barn Arts Residency in Bass Harbor, ME and The Emerging Artists Residency at The Tofte Lake Center in Ely, MN. She has been published by Smith & Kraus in three monologue anthologies. In 2019 Cayenne was a Kennedy Center Region 1 finalist for The Gary Garrison National Ten-Minute Play Award and in 2020 was a semi-finalist for that same award. Cayenne's short play, Variable Rates of Kindness was recently chosen for Take Ten Theatre Masters, a MFA 10 minute playwriting competition, and as a result, her play will be published in the Theatre Masters Take Ten 2020 anthology by Samuel French/Concord Theatricals. Additionally, this spring Maiden Voyage was recognized nationally by the Kennedy Center. Maiden Voyage is the second place recipient of The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award and was also recognized for distinguished achievement for The Rosa Parks Award and The Paula Vogel Playwriting Award. Cayenne has just finished her course work for her MFA in Playwriting at Boston University. Her thesis production is scheduled to go up at Boston Playwrights' Theatre December 2020. WEBSITE: www.cayennedouglass.com IG: bruteful_theatre
Liz Fenstermaker (Director) is excited to for this innovative project with Fresh Ink! She was also happy to be a part of Girlish (costume design) and Distant Neighbors (director). She was Artistic Associate at Bad Habit Productions for five seasons, directing Six Degrees of Separation,Top Girls, and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (IRNE, Best Director, Ensemble, Play), costuming Rooms: A Rock Romance and Orlando, and creating three original works for young audiences. Other directing: Hair, Sweetest Swing In Baseball (AFD); Falsettos (Hovey); 365 Days/365 Plays (Cape Cod Theatre Project); The Children's Hour, Doubt, [title of show] (Curtain Call). This reading is Liz's last mission in Boston theatre for a while. "Now voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find." - Walt Whitman
Ramona Rose King (Dramaturg) is a dramaturg and the Producer of HowlRound at Emerson College. Maiden Voyage is Ramona's fifth production with Fresh Ink, having previously dramaturged Girlish, La Llorona, Clytemnestriad, and 1 2 3. Previously, Ramona worked as HowlRound's Associate Producer, the Literary Manager at Company One Theatre, the Executive and Development Assistant at ArtsBoston, and the Literary Associate at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. An advocate for new plays, Ramona has also developed work with SpeakEasy, Company One Theatre, and Emerson College, reads scripts for multiple companies, and was a founding editor of the New England New Play Alliance's weekly newsletter. Ramona is a member of LMDA, and has a BA in English and Theatre from Boston University and a Masters Certificate in Gender, Leadership, and Public Policy from UMass Boston.
Special thanks from the Maiden Voyage team:
Michael Hisamoto, Helen Muller, Caley Chase, Veronica Wiseman, Mackenzie Cala, Melissa Barker, Lisa Nguyen, Zoë Laiz, Lizzie Milanovich, Jess Malone, Corianna Moffatt, Amanda Harris, Aislinn Brophy, and The Lyric Stage.
Special thanks from Cayenne:
Thank you to Alex Keegan who conducted a 10-hour workshop of this play when it was in its nascent stages at ESPA Primary Stages. To Kirsten Greenidge, who helped fine tune the intention of this material under a directed study at Boston University, and of course Fresh Ink Theatre for partnership and support in developing this material (special thanks to director, Liz Fentermaker and dramaturg Ramona Rose). Thank you to Caley Chase who directed the First Look Reading. And thank you to the actors! Your commitment and insights have been instrumental. Additionally I'd like to thank the main research consultant on this script, Nick Markovich for our detailed conversations regarding firsthand accounts of being in service in the US Navy for five years, nine months, twenty-one days aboard USS Pennsylvania – SSBN 735 and thank you to Tamsyn Thomson, who was one of the first women to go on a submarine patrol since women first gained access in 2011. She was one of three women in a crew of 150 men and was able to provide insights specific to her gendered experience.