Cracked Pots By Kristen LePine Directed by Matt Bassett
Cracked Pots examines mental illness and treatment through three interconnected stories that span over 100 years. In 1887 journalist Nellie Bly fakes insanity to investigate the treatment of women being kept in a lunatic asylum. Sixty years later, her story finds its way into the hands of a twelve year old girl, Kit, whose brother has been abandoned in a mental health institution. In the present, Katherine has to face her fears and prejudice about mental illness in order to help her grandson.
Kristen LePine is an award winning playwright and educator. Her plays have been presented, developed, and commissioned by Active Cultures, the Hub Theatre, Inkwell, Intersections Art Festival, the Pittsburgh New Works Festival, Roundhouse Theatre’s First One-Minute Play Festival, Primary Stages, The Source Theatre Festival, Spooky Action Theatre, Studio Theatre, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. She is a company member at the Hub Theatre, and her play Leto Legend will have its premiere production at the Hub in the summer of 2015. Her historical fiction novel, Daughter of Sparta, is set to be released in 2015 by Zoozil Media. Kristen has an MFA in Dramatic Writing, and she is an adjunct professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Mary Washington.