# The Owl Answers (Fall 2017) ![Enosa Ogbeide surrounded by ominous performers with white masks in The Owl Answers](/sites/g/files/omnuum6821/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2025-07/171011TDMOwlAnswersPER-012.jpg?itok=k6XHIVOo) ## expand\_more ![Poster for The Owl Answers](/sites/g/files/omnuum6821/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-07/owl-poster-full_01.png?itok=MdbZctVI) Written by Adrienne Kennedy Directed by David R. Gammons Produced by Dana Knox #### PERFORMANCE DATES AND TIMES Farkas Hall Friday, October 13 at 7:30pm Saturday, October 14 at 7:30pm Sunday, October 15 at 2pm Thursday, October 19 at 7:30pm Friday, October 20 at 7:30pm Saturday, October 21 at 7:30pm Run time: 1 hour, no intermission. *The Owl Answers lobby display will be in the Farkas Hall Lobby before and after the performance*. The display contains images and items from the collections at Houghton Library, the New York Public Library, the Chicago Public Library, and Adrienne Kennedy’s personal collection. The display gives a brief production history and contains an exploration of the influences on her work based on her autobiography *People Who Led to My Plays*. Brief Post-Show Talkbacks will follow these performances: Saturday, October 14 with [Robbie McCauley](http://robbiemccauleyncompany.com/) and Ernest Julius Mitchell Friday, October 20 with Joan Harris and Professor Glenda Carpio Saturday, October 21 with [Eisa Davis](http://www.eisadavis.com/) and Professor Monica White Ndounou #### DIGITAL SCRAPBOOK [View the Physical Scrapbook for the Owl Answers here](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1i3g62OrIlZ4PIdG24hNH8HiTR1IgNOEA?usp=sharing), or [watch the YouTube version of the Physical Scrapbook here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6cEKuHEDqo). #### ABOUT THE SHOW *“I who am the ancestor of Shakespeare, Chaucer and William the Conqueror, I went to London... I was the only Negro there.”* Clara Passmore, the illegitimate daughter of a white man and a black woman in the American South, struggles to define herself even as she is denied and ostracized by the European culture she idolizes. Unable to claim her father’s heritage and unwilling to accept her mother’s, Clara is caught between time and place; history and myth. Characters and locations morph and overlap kaleidoscopically in this surreal and haunting drama. Kennedy’s experimental masterpiece about race and identity feels as raw and relevant today as when it premiered in 1965. #### CAST SHE who is CLARA PASSMORE who is the VIRGIN MARY who is the BASTARD who is the OWL … Enosa Ogbiede BASTARD’S BLACK MOTHER who is the REVEREND’S WIFE who is ANNE BOLEYN … Me’Lisa Sellers GODDAM FATHER who is the RICHEST WHITE MAN IN THE TOWN who is the DEAD WHITE FATHER who is REVEREND PASSMORE … Sharmarke Yusuf THE WHITE BIRD who is REVEREND PASSMORE’S CANARY who is GOD’S DOVE … Marvin Merritt & La'Toya Princess Jackson THE NEGRO MAN … Elijah De’Vaughn SHAKESPEARE … Colin McGinn CHAUCER … Caleb Spiegel Ostrom WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR … Jacob Roberts #### STAFF Director … David R. Gammons Assistant Director … Aislinn Brophy ‘17 Dramaturg … Rebecca Curran Assistant Dramaturg … Landy Erlick ‘19 Producer … Dana Knox Assistant Producer … Inaara Shiraz ‘19 Technical & Production Supervisor … Andrew Gitchel Technical Director … Joe Mastrangelo Graffiti Artist ... Acóma Stage Manager … Lauren Burke Assistant Stage Manager … Abbie Sage ‘21 Costume Designer … Rachel Padula Shufelt Costume Construction … Becca Jewett Assistant Costume Designer … Ali Astin ‘19 Props Master … Emily Hartig Props Assistant … Ben Ubiñas ‘19 Carpenters … Anna Parker, Shanna Burrows, Patrick Kilgore, Johnny Gill, Hank Brancaccio Master Electrician … Frederick Frank Electricians … LeeAnna Studt, Ryan Shepard, Rebecca O’Leary, Tyson Miller, Adrien Yuen, Katie Hoolsema, Lily McMurrer, Yasmin Yacoby, Abbey Dutton, Evyn Newton, David Johnson-Carter Lighting Designer … Jeff Adelberg Light Board Op … Michael Dold Sound Designer … David Wilson Sound Engineer/Board Op … Ari Kaufman Assistant Sound Designer/Engineer … Abigail Ory ‘21 Scenic Designer … Janie E. Howland Scenic Charge … Holly Diaz Painters … Courtney Licata, Bree Dagdagan, Rachel Linker, Kristen Kern, Jake Wasson Run Crew … Elektra Newman, Andrew Bourque Vocal Coach… Colton Weiss Choreographic Assistant … Margaret Canaday ‘20 Graphic Design … Dan Pecci #### ABOUT ADRIENNE KENNEDY **Adrienne Kennedy** (b. 1931) is a three-time Obie-award winning playwright whose works have been widely performed and anthologized. Among her many honors are the American Academy of Arts and Letters award and the Guggenheim fellowship. In 1995-6, the Signature Theatre Company dedicated its entire season to presenting her work. She has been commissioned to write works for the Public Theater, Jerome Robbins, the Royal Court Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, and Juilliard, and she has been a visiting professor at Yale, Princeton, Brown, the University of California at Berkeley, and Harvard. She lives in New York City and is a 2016–2017 Hutchins Fellow in African American Studies. She wrote on a piece on Michelle Obama for the *Nation.* (from [Harvard Review Online](http://www.harvardreview.org/?q=authors/adrienne-kennedy)) #### ABOUT DAVID R. GAMMONS **David R. Gammons** is a director, designer, visual artist, and theatre educator. He is currently an Associate Professor at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee and a Lecturer on the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Gammons studied playwriting with Adrienne Kennedy at Harvard University in the early 1990's, and directed her groundbreaking play *Funnyhouse of a Negro* at Brandeis University in 2010. Recent professional directing projects include *Edward II*, *The Comedy of Errors*, *Medea*, *The Hotel Nepenthe*, *The Duchess of Malfi*, and *Titus Andronicus* for Actors’ Shakespeare Project; and the New England premieres of *Hand to God*, *Necessary Monsters*, *The Whale*, *The Motherfucker with the Hat*(2013 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production), *Red* (2012 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production), and *Blackbird* at SpeakEasy Stage Company. He is the 2007 and 2017 recipient of the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director. Mr. Gammons has served as a guest artist and director at Northeastern University, MIT, Suffolk University, Boston College, Brandeis University, The American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, and Harvard University, where he directed Arthur Kopit's *Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad* as the inaugural production of the New College Theatre, now Farkas Hall. Mr. Gammons is a graduate of the Directing Program of the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University, and of the Visual and Environmental Studies Department of Harvard University. For more information, please visit [davidrgammons.com](http://davidrgammons.com/). #### LEARN MORE [A Reflection on Directing Plays of Adrienne Kennedy by David R. Gammons](/file_url/2101) [Email Correspondence from Adrienne Kennedy](/file_url/2106), May-June 2017 [Email Correspondence from Adrienne Kennedy to David R. Gammons](/file_url/2111), August 2017 [FORGET by Adrienne Kennedy](http://www.harvardreview.org/?q=extracts/forget), Harvard Review Online [The Owl Answers by Adrienne Kennedy](/file_url/2116) ![Sharmarke Yusuf as a Reverend with two actors as white birds in The Owl Answers](/sites/g/files/omnuum6821/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-07/171011TDMOwlAnswersPER-252.jpg?itok=R5D1qLWS) ![Two actors hold a scarf across a bed in The Owl Answers](/sites/g/files/omnuum6821/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-07/171011TDMOwlAnswersPER-169.jpg?itok=t6GOzrfB) ![The performers in the birdcage set for The Owl Answers](/sites/g/files/omnuum6821/files/2025-07/171011TDMOwlAnswersPER-217.jpg) ![Me’Lisa Sellers as Anne Boleyn in The Owl Answers](/sites/g/files/omnuum6821/files/2025-07/171011TDMOwlAnswersPER-069.jpg)