Image from “Dear Shirley” by Hinda Schuman, published by Daylight Books
Dear Shirley
Book and lyrics by Kevin Hammonds
Music by Kristin Bair
Based on the book “Dear Shirley” by Hinda Schuman (Daylight Books)
Dear Shirley is an intimate story of the unraveling of a woman’s eight-year marriage to a man, and the blossoming of her new relationship with a woman, as told through a series of letters to a cherished friend. Based on the memoir by acclaimed photographer Hinda Schuman that uses her unflinchingly personal images to document her life in the early 1980s, this new musical offers a raw but often comical look at friendship, love, loyalty, and change. In her letters to Shirley, Hinda is hilariously self-deprecating and heartbreakingly vulnerable, searching for guidance, consolation, and encouragement as she stumbles toward finding her truth.
“This is a true story. I have the photographs to prove it.”
NAMT Writers Residency at Philadelphia Theatre Company - Staged Reading (Zoom) - July 2020
DIRECTOR: Paige Price
MUSIC DIRECTOR: Matt Castle
STAGE MANAGER: Shelby North
DRAMATURG: Olivia O’Connor
Funding provided by a grant from the Frank Young Fund for New Musicals through the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT), and by the Philadelphia Theatre Company
CAST
HINDA: Mary Tuomanen
SHIRLEY: Anne Tolpegin
SUSAN: Sarah Gliko
JEREMY: Ben Dibble
HAL and others: Garrick Vaughan
NANCY and others: Rachel Camp
