The Playwrights Realm to Produce World Premiere of Mary Gets Hers

The Playwrights Realm will present the world premiere of Realm Writing Fellow Emma Horwitz’s Mary Gets Hers, the company’s first production since 2020. Performances will run from September 11-October 7 in The Susan & Ronald Frankel Theater in The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space.

Directed by Josiah Davis, Mary Gets Hers is inspired by Hrosvitha of Gandersheim’s Abraham, or the Rise and Repentance of Mary. Set in a funhouse, slapstick vision of 10th Century Germany—where a raging plague is turning people into foam—Mary Gets Hers is the story of an abandoned orphan named Mary, found by two overzealous hermits. The men, whose monastic lifestyle consists of psalm-singing, wet cereal-slurping, and attempting discussions with God, scheme a saintly rescue mission to protect her purity at any and all costs. Mary, however, has other plans for herself.

The Realm returns to producing after three years of refocusing its efforts on becoming a full-time playwrights service organization in response to the pandemic. “After three years of working within a different model, we were cautious about coming back to production,” said Playwrights Realm Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner. “But Emma’s poignant, funny play was everything we love about theater, and emphasizes production as a continuation of our support for the careers of Realm Playwrights.”