Show Artwork by Michael Gelen, Inkwell Studios.
Show Information
View Irish Classical Theatre Company’s production of Or, September 12 – 28, 2025.
SETTING: London. A debtors’ prison and a rented parlor in a lodging house. The play is set in the Restoration period, but echoes between the late 1660s, the late 1960s, and the present.
RUN TIME: Approximately 90-minutes. No intermission.
CONTENT NOTES: This play contains staged intimacy, strong language, scenes with firearms and description of violent death.
Originally produced in New York City by Women’s Project (Julie Crosby, Producing Artistic Director).
Or, is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service imprint. (www.dramatists.com)
Cast
Actor One (Aphra Behn)
Actor Two (Charles II, William Scott, Jailer)
Actor Three (Nell Gwynne, Maria, Lady Davenant)
To Be Announced.
Production Team
To Be Announced.
OR,
By LIZ DUFFY ADAMS
September 12 – 28, 2025
A night in the life of Aphra Behn; poet, international spy, and England’s first professional female playwright.
A deliciously dizzying (semi)-historical romp.
Sprung from debtors’ prison after a disastrous overseas mission, Aphra is desperate to get out of the spy trade. She has a shot at a production at one of only two London theatre companies, if only she can finish her play by morning. But she’s thwarted by interruptions from sudden new love, actress Nell Gwynne; complicated royal love, King Charles II; and very dodgy ex-love, double-agent William Scott – who may be in on a plot to murder the king. Can Aphra save Charles’ life, win William a pardon, resist Nell’s charms, and launch her career, all in one night? Against a background of a long drawn-out war and a counterculture of free love and pastoral lyricism, the 1660s look a lot like the 1960s in this neo-Restoration comedy about “the female Shakespeare.”
Additional Programming:
Open Rehearsal (for Subscribers Only): Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 6:30 PM
Community Matinee Preview ($12/Ticket): Thursday, September 11, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Opening Night Reception: Friday, September 12, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Pay-What-You-Will Performances*:
Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Saturday, September 20, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Saturday, September 27, 2025 at 7:30 PM
*Purchase in-person at the Box Office on the day of the performance. Seating subject to availability.
Speaker Series: Sunday, September 14, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Talk Back Thursdays: Engage with the Creators! After every Thursday performance, stay for a free Talk Back where members of the creative team discuss their roles and answer your questions about their creative journey.
Thursday, September 18, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Thursday, September 25, 2025 at 7:30 PM
About the Playwright:
Liz Duffy Adams’ play Born With Teeth, recipient of a 2021 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award and a Steinberg-ATCA New Play Award Finalist, had its world premiere at the Alley Theater in 2022, a production that won Best Play/Production, 2022 Houston Press Awards and that moved to the Guthrie Theatre in 2023, then to Asolo Rep and Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2024. It will make its West End premiere in London in the Fall of 2025.
Her Neo-Restoration comedy Or, premiered Off Broadway at WP Theater and has been produced more than 80 times since, including at the Magic Theater, Seattle Rep, and Roundhouse Theatre. She’s a New Dramatists alumna and has received a Women of Achievement Award, Lillian Hellman Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Weston Playhouse Music-Theater Award, Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship, and the Will Glickman Award for Best New Play (Dog Act, a post-apocalyptic vaudeville). Her Artistic Stamp virtual play in letters, Wild Thyme, was nominated for a 2021 Drama League Award for Outstanding Interactive or Socially-Distanced Theater.
Publications include Or, in Smith & Kraus’ “Best Plays Of 2010;” Dog Act in “Geek Theater,” Underwords Press 2014; Poodle With Guitar And Dark Glasses in Applause’s “Best American Short Plays 2000-2001;” and acting editions by TRW Plays, Playscripts, Inc. and Dramatists Play Service.
Adams has an MFA from Yale School of Drama and a BFA from New York University’s Experimental Theater Wing. She has dual Irish and American citizenship, and lives in New York City on Lenape land, and in Western Massachusetts on unceded Pocumtuc and Nipmuc territory.
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