Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter

Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter

By Julie Marie Myatt

Directed by Jessica Thebus

Originally produced at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, OR.

February 24, 2008 through June 20, 2008

 



About the Premiere Production: 
When United States marine Jenny Sutter returns from Iraq, there are no brass bands. Re-entry is a grimy Los Angeles bus station and a one-way ticket to nowhere, which is exactly the way she wants it. Jenny's tour of duty has left her profoundly unable to reconnect with her mother and children. Instead, she opts for life out in the desert among people as marginalized as she is. These misfits are able to do something for Jenny - lovingly, humorously and non-judgmentally - that nobody else can: show her the way back to her own humanity.



Artistic Statement
Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter is a story that begs to be told in our country now, as growing numbers of men and women return home from Iraq. A moving and compelling piece of theater, it is timeless in its subject matter and universal in its themes, yet with a uniquely American perspective. It is an American play that transcends partisan politics, asking questions we as Americans must confront together.

With two consecutive productions on both coasts - first for one of the largest theater audiences in the West, then in our nation's capital - Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter holds tremendous potential for opening a path to national discussion. In its humility and compassion, Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter is ultimately a story of hope. - From Artistic Director Bill Rauch


Director: Jessica Thebus

Set Design: Richard L. Hay

Lighting Design: Allen Lee Hughes

Sound Design: Paul James Prendergast

Costume Design: Lynn Jeffries



Additional Funders: 

OSF Business Alliance
Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays



Subsequent Productions:

The Kennedy Center Terrace Theater in Washington, D.C., July 19-27, 2008

Pendragon Theatre in Saranac Lake, NY July-August 2008

Synchronicity Performance Group in Atlanta, Sept 12-Oct 12, 2008

Pygmalion Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, Oct 17 - Nov 2, 2008

Company of Fools in Hailey, Idaho 2009 Season



News

“Given the volume of accounts of Iraq that reveal the horrors in all their excruciating bloodiness, the restraint of Myatt’s work comes as a relief. ‘Welcome Home’ never attempts to be a purgative for Jenny’s trauma -- there’s no sequence in which, for instance, she relives the day her leg was blown off -- and yet an audience still gains insight into her suffering.”

- Washington Post

“The director Jessica Thebus has discovered the perfect tone for the piece: amusing, gritty and without a trace of sentimentality.”

- Stage Matters Blog