Montana Repertory Theatre presents, in partnership with Missoula Public Library
Performances
Clarkston, by Samuel D. HUNTER / SATURDAY, MARCH 29
CRY IT OUT, by MOLLY SMITH METZLER / SATURDAY, APRIL 12
EELPOUT, by PAUL W. KRUSE / SATURDAY, MAY 3
2 PM IN THE COOPER ROOM, 4TH FLOOR OF THE MISSOULA PUBLIC LIBRARY
FREE & OPEN TO ALL, DONATIONS WELCOME
Montana Repertory Theatre is pleased to announce our next First Reads Series: Clarkston, by Samuel D. Hunter, Cry It Out, by Molly Smith Metzler, and Eelpout, by Paul W. Kruse. Performances will run Saturday, March 29, Saturday, April 12, and Saturday, May 3 at 2 PM in the Cooper Room at Missoula Public Library (respectively). First Reads is a series of staged readings produced in partnership with Missoula Public Library. Admission is free and open to all, with donations encouraged.
Clarkston, by Samuel D. Hunter
Saturday, March 29 AT 2 PM / DOOR AT 1:30 PM
Jake meets Chris when they are assigned to the same night shift at Costco in Clarkston, Washington. Chris has a hard life, and living in Clarkston has forced him down a dead-end road. Jake went to a liberal arts school, but fled his Connecticut town when he was diagnosed with a fatal illness. He and Chris form an awkward bond: both are gay, but have led completely different lives. Can they learn to help each other?
Award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and producer Samuel D. Hunter was raised in Idaho. His experiences in Idaho, Montana, and the broader northwest region have influenced much of his work, particularly in capturing the complexities and nuances of rural American life, and he frequently mentions Missoula in his scripts. One of his most famous plays, The Whale, was partially inspired by his experiences in the northwest, and was adapted to an Academy Award-winning film of the same name, directed by Darren Aronofsky, and starring Brendan Frasier. The Rep produced Hunter’s play I am Montana during its 2008-2009 season.
Cry It Out, by Molly Smith Metzler
Saturday, April 12 AT 2 PM / DOOR AT 1:30 PM
Four months ago, Jessie was a corporate lawyer with a glamorous Manhattan life. Today, she is in dirty yoga pants, covered in breast milk, trying to comfort a screaming newborn. So when she spies a fellow new mom and neighbor, Lina, at the local Stop & Shop, she vaults over the cantaloupe to introduce herself. The two moms agree to meet for coffee during naptime in the sweet spot behind their adjoining yards where both their baby monitors get reception, and a fast friendship is born.
A comedy with dark edges, Cry It Out takes an honest look at the absurdities of being home with a baby, the power of female friendship, the dilemma of going back to work, and the effect class has on parenthood in America.
Molly Smith Metzler is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Kingston, N.Y. She is the creator and showrunner of the limited series Maid (based on the memoir of the same name by Missoula-based writer Stephanie Land), which debuted on Netflix in October 2021 and spent 13 weeks on the top-10 list, viewed by more than 67 million households.
As a playwright, Metzler’s plays, including Cry it Out, Elemeno Pea, The May Queen, Carve, Close Up Space and Training Wisteria, have been produced at Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), Humana Festival/Actors Theatre of Louisville, South Coast Repertory, Northlight Theatre, Studio Theatre (DC), Detroit Public Theatre, City Theatre (Pittsburg), Geva Theatre Center, Chautauqua Theater Company and many more.
Eelpout, by Paul W. Kruse
Saturday, May 3 AT 2 PM / DOOR AT 1:30 PM
Eelpout is a fast-paced, surreal farce, where friends are lovers, fish can talk, and life’s mysteries beckon from the bottom of a frozen lake. Sven Svensen and Ole Olsen have been best buds since kindergarten, but all that changes on the morning of Ole’s ice-fishing bachelor party. Could they be something more than friends, or is Sven destined for something even more wild and strange. This fantasia on Midwestern masculinity invites us to consider the limits of Queerness. Naturally, this includes a dream ballet Eelpout Orgy!
Paul William Kruse often writes collaboratively, drawing from his years of experience as a videographer and documentarian, and has been commissioned twice by Montana Repertory Theatre (Hip Strip Hijinks, BINGO!). He is a 2023–2025 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis and a cohort member of Audible’s third Emerging Playwrights Fund. His audio play Once Removed was an official selection at the 2022 Tribeca Festival. Paul’s plays have been produced by Adjusted Realists in Brooklyn, NY; Quantum Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA; the Vortex Theater in Austin, TX; and in high schools around the country. Paul has developed work at The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Yaddo, the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and Middlebury College. Paul completed his MFA at UT Austin in 2020, where he was a fellow with the Michener Center for Writers. From 2012–2022, Paul was resident playwright with Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective, which he co-founded with Adil Mansoor and Nicole Shero.