Informed Consent – Off Broadway

Last weekend, we were in the New York City, catching up with family and friends, visiting museums, and, my favorite NYC thing to do – seeing shows. Fun Home was sold out, so I talked some friends into seeing Informed Consent at The Duke on 42^nd Street (considered “Off-Broadway because it only seats 200). I was curious to see it with a different cast, set, and director than Geva Theatre’s production in March 2014. And I was eager to share this smart play by Deb Laufer with my NYC pals. I felt proud of Rochester and Geva for being the first professional stop on the play’s journey to New York, and I felt a strange connection to its development under Director Sean Daniels, since I saw it evolve during my tenure as a Geva Cohort.

The theatre was full, and, curiously, not as comfortable or well designed as either Geva’s Wilson or Fielding Stage. The set was extremely creative – the back wall was composed of rows of those white office file boxes, 16 across and 19 high! There were four white spiral staircases that evoked strands of DNA (although they weren’t double helix, which would have been more cool). This was the New York City premiere of the play, and the program quoted Laufer: “I’m so grateful to so many people and organizations who have contributed to getting this play here….Ben Stanger, Sean Daniels, Geva Theatre Center, Cleveland Playhouse…” Sadly, most people reading that wouldn’t know where Geva Theatre is, or why she was thanking them.

My friends really enjoyed the pay, and I overheard other audience members on the way out expressing how much they did, too. The actors were all great, of course, although I thought most of the Geva cast would have done equally as well. The thing I relished most about the evening was that, unlike the usual experience of seeing a show that has already “made it” in New York and is now making the rounds in regional theatre, I got to experience having seen a play originate right here in Rochester and be produced a year later in New York. It reminded me how lucky we are to have a local theater of Geva’s caliber, that presents original productions of not just known hits like Spamalot and To Kill A Mockingbird, but also new plays, such as Informed Consent and Women in Jeopardy, any one of which might go on to enjoy a much broader audience.