REVELATION READING
THE ROVER
by Aphra Behn
adapted by Kate Walat
Directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch
Featuring Zach Appelman, Michael Braun, Kelley Curran, Darryl Gene Daughtry, Vivian Farahani, Andy Grotelueschen, Lauren Karaman, Ismenia Mendes, Conrad Ricamora, Antoinette Robinson, and David Ryan Smith
Sunday, January 11, 2026 | 7:30 PM
Lynn F. Angelson Theater | 136 East 13th Street
How far will women go to follow their hearts’ desire? It’s Carnival time in the Italian port town and two sisters from Spain hit the streets, one to reunite with her true love and the other looking for a man (any man) to evade the nunnery. Enter a band of roving English cavaliers and let the games begin, in this raucous and romantic Restoration comedy. From the first professional female playwright comes a play that was a hit in 1677 for telling it like it was (and is?) with women, men, and marriage, while asking timeless questions of sexual politics, rendered ever more relevant in this brand-new adaptation.
Produced in association with Classic Stage Company
THE CAST
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Florinda | Antoinette Robinson
Helena | Ismenia Mendes
Callis | Lauren Karaman
Don Pedro | Michael Braun
Don Antonio | Conrad Ricamora
Belvile | Darryl Gene Daughtry
Willmore | Zach Appelman
Frederick | David Ryan Smith
Blunt | Andy Grotelueschen
Angelica Bianca | Kelley Curran
Moretta | Lauren Karaman
Lucetta | Lauren Karaman
Sancho | Conrad Ricamora
Stage Directions | Vivian Farahani
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director | Gaye Taylor Upchurch
Adaptor | Kate Walat
Stage Manager | Dominique Nadeau
Assistant Director | Vivian Farahani
Associate Producer | Joana Tsuhlares
Managing Director | Sherri Kotimsky
Producing Director | Nathan Winkelstein
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Aphra Behn (1640-89), the first professional female playwright, led a tumultuous and colorful life, both in and out of the theater. She left England soon after the restoration of Charles II for the South American colony of Surinam, which provided the setting for her novel, Oronooko; or, The Royal Slave, which in turn was adapted for the stage and remained popular throughout the 18th century. Returning to England, she may have entered into a fictitious marriage with someone named Behn, but by the mid-1660s she was serving the crown as a spy in Antwerp during the Dutch invasion of Surinam. On her return to England she was thrown into debtors’ prison and appealed to the government for her back wages. After 1670, however, she emerged as a famous and influential poet and playwright, part of the elite milieu surrounding the court. Her best known plays are The Rover, The City Heiress, and The Feigned Courtesans, which was dedicated to her friend (and the King’s mistress) the actress Nell Gwynn. Behn was re-discovered, in a sense, by Virginia Woolf’s famous 1918 essay A Room of One’s Own: “… all women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”
ABOUT THE ADAPTOR
Kate Walat is a playwright and opera librettist. Her co-adaptation with Jeffrey Hatcher of Arden of Faversham premiered at Red Bull Theater, directed by Jesse Berger, and received a 2023 Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Adaptation. Her original plays include Creation (Theatre at Boston Court, LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Playwriting nomination); the political drama Bleeding Kansas (Hangar Theatre; Francesca Primus Citation/American Theatre Critics Association); and her Off-Broadway debut Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen (Women’s Project, published in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2007). As an opera librettist, her Paul’s Case (PROTOTYPE, Pittsburgh Opera) with composer Gregory Spears was named in The New Yorker’s Ten Notable Performances for 2014 and Opera News’ Five Best New Recordings of 2019; other works include Jason and the Argonauts (Lyric Opera of Chicago) and The Echo Drift (PROTOTYPE). Current works in development include a new play Mary Shelley Meets Frankenstein, and a chamber opera adaptation of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal. Kate is an affiliated artist with New Georges and with the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, and an associate professor and chair of the Department of Music and Theatre at SUNY Albany. BA, Brown University; MFA, Yale School of Drama.