COLUMBUS, Ohio — Fresh off its New York debut last year, "Summer, 1976" is a brand-new play by Pulitzer prize-winning playwright and one-time Columbus resident David Auburn.
Now, the play has found its way to central Ohio, thanks to the members of the Wild Women Writing Club.
"I knew him...I kind of watched Dave grow up here," said Wild Women Writing founder Katherine Burkman of Auburn.
The playwright is most famous for penning the play "Proof" which debuted in 2000 before going on to win the Pulitzer.
Before that, Auburn grew up in Columbus where his father taught at The Ohio State University alongside Burkman who is a retired English professor. After a 30-year career at Ohio State, Burkman retired to pursue her passion of writing, acting in, and directing plays.
For "Summer, 1976," Auburn set the play in the city of his youth.
"The play is about a friendship that develops between two women in Columbus," explained Burkman, "not because they are drawn to each other, but because their children love each other and their children want to get together all of the time, and so they spend the summer together."
Burkman described the story's presentation as a "memory play" where the characters are reflecting on the summer through monologues to the audience while occasionally dropping into scenes of dialogue.
Wild Women Writing is Burkman's second group. Her first, dubbed Women at Play, was a play on the phrase "men at work," was a collaborative play-writing collective that would put on sight-specific productions, performing in locations that reflected the settings of their plays.
This production only runs for one weekend, but Burkman plans to have one more performance at a later date.
One of the original actors had to bow out of the production recently due to illness and Burkman wants to make sure that she has the opportunity to perform the piece once she has recovered.
"Summer, 1976" by Wild Women Writing has 2 p.m. matinees on March 23 and 24 as well as a 7 p.m. showing on March 23.
For more information and to order tickets, click here.