Burning

by Ginger Lazarus

directed by Andrea Humez

In this contemporary re-imagining of Cyrano de Bergerac, Cy, a former Army sergeant kicked out under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," takes on the world with her words as a blogger, blowing the whistle on sexual harassment within the Army and going toe-to-toe with her former commander. She secretly adores her friend Rose, who in turn has her eye on Cole, an inarticulate infantryman. Cy reluctantly signs on to ghost-write Cole's courtship of Rose, but lets her own fantasy take priority over the reality of the situation. This thought-provoking drama explores themes of truth, deceit and silence, and the power each has to do good or harm.

About the playwright: Ginger Lazarus is an award-winning Boston-based playwright, screenwriter, and teacher. She collaborated with CST's Youth Underground to create Here and There, a play about immigration, which is currently on tour. Other productions include The Housekeeper with Fresh Ink Theatre, Burning with Resonance Ensemble and Boston Playwrights' Theatre (2013 Boston My Theatre Award for Best New Work), The Embryos with Fresh Ink, A Blessing and a Curse: A Duet of Plays on Motherhood presented by Spiced Wine Productions, and Matter Familias with Boston Playwrights' (IRNE nomination for Best New Play). She received the 1999 John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award for MOCKBA: A Play About Moscow and was selected as a ten-minute play finalist in the 2002 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival for Shooting Sparks. Her plays have been produced locally by Another Country Productions, Centastage, Queer Soup, Playwrights' Platform, and the Boston Theater Marathon, and have been featured nationally in Untitled Theater's 24/7 Festival, Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Theater Festival, Pan Theater Ten Minute Play Festival, Women's Theatre Project's Naked Women Fully Clothed, and the Last Frontier Theatre Conference Play Lab. Two of her short plays also appeared at the Warehouse Theatre and Canal Café Theatre in London. Her screenwriting credits include two award-winning shorts for the Boston 48 Hour Film Festival and Mary, a film based on her stage play. Ginger holds a master's degree in playwriting from Boston University and has taught at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Emerson College. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, StageSource, and Rhombus playwrights' group.

About the director: Andrea Humez has directed a variety of full-length and shorter plays for Theatre@First, including Arms & the Man (2007), The Rimers of Eldritch (2008), Bare Bones: Two For the Seesaw (2011), FirstWorks: That Night in the Field (2015), and Stop Kiss (2016). Other directing credits include The Importance of Being Earnest (Arlington Friends of the Drama, 2013) and Spike Heels (The Occasional Players, 2009). She has appeared onstage with Theatre@First in roles including Margaret Fuller in the 2006 and 2010 productions of The Margaret Ghost.