By Shari Barrett
Winner of a 2026 Los Angeles New Play Project award, Joy Gregory’s provocative new work, Saint Megan, explores belonging and the price of challenging the world in which you live. Joy participated in Rogue Machine’s second annual Playwright’s Roundtable where the script emerged and became an Ojai Playwrights Conference finalist this year, and the Rogue Machine run marks the first Playwright’s Roundtable script to be given a full production.
Saint Megan is inspired by the true story of Megan Phelps-Roper, granddaughter of the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, a hyper-Calvinist sect notorious for its outrageous picketing at military funerals. As the play’s Megan defends her faith online during honest conversations on Twitter, she is challenged about her interpretation of Bible passages, which eventually cause her curious mind to threaten her ties to her family and the only community she has ever known. But what will it take to finally change her mind about her deeply ingrained religious beliefs?
Part family drama, part spiritual reckoning, part Twitter conversation – with music video parodies and Shaker dances – Saint Megan explores the long history of American Christian zealotry, our longing for salvation, and the moral courage it takes to face uncertainty. According to Joy, her play is a fictionalized dramatization inspired by real events and public figures, with certain scenes, timelines, and dialogue fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
This is not an easy play to watch, especially since the script packs a real punch moment-to-moment, requiring us to consider both sides of the issues even when we are firmly rooted in our own beliefs. But the most difficult part, at least for me, is listening to teenage Megan, her siblings, and their mother Shirley spout anti-gay and antisemitic rants that really have no place in a world where equality for all people should be the accepted norm. At least that is the world in which I want to live.
“This production of Saint Megan continues and expands on our seasonal theme of Perception and challenges us to test the limits of our own compassion – of our willingness to try and understand our fellow humans. Even if those humans say and do things that we find reprehensible,” shares Artistic Director Guillermo Cienfuegos.
First-time director Lina Patel shares in program notes that she is “drawn to plays that hold irreconcilable things simultaneously – comedy and horror, love and cruelty, conviction and doubt. A central question for me with this play has been: what do we lose when our beliefs harden, and what might we find if they soften? How do we understand a loving, educated, often hilarious and sweet family and the cruel and destructive value system they live by?”
How indeed? And given the ways our country is being torn apart politically and socially with each side calling the other’s beliefs abhorrent, this play speaks directly to the need for “art” to tell the truth so a safe space for change can be created. But, of course, that’s if both sides are willing to listen and not judge… which is easier said than done.
Kudos to the stellar cast for their dedication to bringing these often-reprehensible characters fully to life, including the sensational Rachel Sorsa as the mother Shirley Phelps; Caitlin Zambito as the overly righteous and then questioning Megan Phelps; Shannon Lee Clair as Amy/Theresa/Shaker Woman); Meg Cain as Grace Phelps; Cordelia Leigh as Bekah Phelps; and Zach Rocklin-Waltch as Chad.
Solid technical credits include Amanda Knehans (Scenic Design), Azra King-Abadi (Lighting Design), Christopher Moscatiello (Sound Design), Christine Cover Ferro (Costume Design), Grant Gerrard (Technical Director), Emmy Frevele (Movement Director and Choreographer).
Following select Sunday performances, Rogue Machine hosts 30-minute Kila Kitu-moderated conversations connecting Saint Megan to real-world questions. The series is included with admission, and I encourage everyone to attend – to listen as well as comment.
Produced for Rogue Machine by Justin Okin and Betsy Zajko with Associate Producer Emily Jerez, Saint Megan runs on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. through November 22 (dark on Saturday, October 31) at the Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles 90046. Tickets are $45 for general seating on Fridays, Sundays and Mondays, $35 for Seniors; or $60 on Saturdays, $45 for Seniors, available in advance at https://roguemachine.com, by calling (213) 282-8185, or at the door. Student tickets are $25 at the box office on a first-come, first-served basis during the hour before the show. Run time is approximately 90 minutes, no intermission.
Little Fish Theatre is presenting Lucas Hnath’s sharp, funny, and thought-provoking A Doll’s House, Part 2 for one more weekend, October 23-25. The intimate, incisive, and emotionally charged exploration of freedom, identity, and self-discovery is directed by Stephanie A. Coltrin, Co-Artistic Director for Little Fish Theatre and Shakespeare by the Sea. The cast features LFT’s Artistic Associate Tara Donovan as Nora, Patrick Vest as Torvald, Shirley Hatton as Anne Marie, and Adrianne Gaor as Emmy.
A Doll’s House, Part 2 begins fifteen years after Nora Helmer famously walked out on her husband and children at the conclusion of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Boldly contemporary while honoring its theatrical roots, Hnath’s acclaimed, Tony Award-nominated play examines the consequences of Nora’s departure and the unfinished business she left behind. And as old wounds are confronted, long-held beliefs are challenged as each character must reconsider the roles society assigns – and the price of refusing to play them – revealing profoundly different ideas about love, marriage, duty, and personal freedom.
Join Little Fish Theatre for an evening of unexpected turns, hard truths, and heartfelt connections, where one knock at the door reopens a story the world thought it knew, as their final full production at The Pond, 514 N. Prospect Avenue, Suite L1, in Redondo Beach 90277, the company’s temporary performance space at the Beach Cities Health District campus in Redondo Beach, on Friday October 23 and Saturday October 24 at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday October 25 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $36 Regular, $34 Senior, and $20 Student, available in advance at www.littlefishtheatre.org with available seats sold at the onsite box office prior to each performance. Enter the driveway just north of Prospect and Diamond to access free onsite parking. Follow LFT’s progress on finding a new theater space on their website and socials.
