MILES FOR MARY
It’s 1988, and the planning committee for Garrison High School’s ninth annual Miles For Mary Telethon is fired up and ready to go. Across subcommittee sessions in the Phys. Ed teachers' lounge, Drama Desk-nominated The Mad Ones assemble an analog elegy to the camcorder 1980s, Girls Track and Field, and the consecrated American High School.
Creator Credits
Created by The Mad Ones in collaboration with Amy Staats and Stacey Yen, Directed by Lila Neugebauer, Set Design by Amy Rubin, Costume Design by Ásta Bene Hostetter, Lighting Design by Mike Inwood, Sound Design by Stowe Nelson, Dramaturgy by Sarah Lunnie, Produced by Ann Marie Dorr at The Bushwick Starr
Featuring Marc Bovino, Joe Curnutte, Michael Dalto, Amy Staats, Stephanie Wright Thompson and Stacey Yen.
Production History
Miles for Mary premiered at The Bushwick Starr in October 2016. The hit production transferred and had it’s Off-Broadway premiere at Playwrights Horizons in Janurary 2018.
Press Raves
The New York Times Critics’ Pick at Playwrights Horizons
"This production slides from surface comedy into an unexpected realm of emotional substance, where laughter increasingly comes with a catch in its throat. You register the obvious jokes in each character — the rah-rah gym teachers, the eager disseminator of cheer and calm, the seething milquetoast. But, little by little, you catch glimpses of fraught, often lonely lives hidden behind the caricatures." —Ben Brantley
The New York Times Critics’ Pick at The Bushwick Starr
“Miles for Mary,” which is set in an Ohio high school office where a group of teachers conduct a series of preparatory meetings for a charity television marathon, provides an ideal showcase for this company’s strengths. As directed by Lila Neugebauer, with a precision-tuned six-member cast, the production cannily uses interactive acting to plumb the dysfunction in group dynamics." —Ben Brantley
"...this meticulous creation from The Mad Ones theater troupe would send you bolting for the exit, screaming, if it weren’t so funny and unexpectedly touching." —Ben Brantley
The New York Times Memorable Theater of 2016
"...As someone who grew up in Northeast Ohio in the 1980s, I totally appreciated returning to Northeast Ohio in the 1980s in the Mad Ones’ “Miles for Mary,” at the Bushwick Starr. Set in a high school teachers’ lounge, the production nailed the nostalgia-inducing props (a massive Apple desktop computer), costumes (acid-wash jeans) and music. “Don’t Dream It’s Over” never sounded so sweet." —Erik Piepenburg
The New Yorker
"...tilting almost imperceptibly from spoof to heartbreak, and then, in a climactic scene that commences with a failed tutorial on a new set of speakerphones, descending precipitously into a remarkable five-way argument that is so absurd and yet so plausible that it feels like an education in itself." —The New Yorker
New York Magazine / Vulture
"...a virtuosic, unrelenting examination of our possibly hopeless human efforts to understand each other." —Sara Holdren
TimeOut NY | 5 Stars
"Your troubles lift from your shoulders while you're watching the Mad Ones show Miles for Mary, a bittersweet comedy about high-school committee work in 1989... Essentially, it's pure delight, an easy way to pay a few bucks for radiating pleasure." —Helen Shaw
Awards and Nominations
Drama Desk Nominations for Outstanding Production of a Play and Outstanding Director of a Play for Lila Neugebauer
Lucille Lortell Nominations for Outstanding Play, Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play for Marc Bovino, Outstanding Director for Lila Neugebauer
American Theatre Wing’s Henry Hewes Design Award Nomination for Amy C. Rubin
Production Support
Miles for Mary was commissioned and developed through the support of The Bushwick Starr with additional developmental support from Ars Nova. Miles for Mary is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Subsidized studio space provided by the A.R.T./New York Creative Space Grant, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Additional support provided by the Studio42 Legacy Grant and The Nancy Quinn Fund, a program of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York).