“Circle Mirror Transformation” features, from left: Annika Whetstone, Andrea Gutierrez, Branden Fisher, Madyson McCabe and Mikey Fried.
Wright State Theatre will present the regional premiere of Annie Baker’s Obie Award–winning play, “Circle Mirror Transformation” from Nov. 19–21 and Dec. 3–5 in the Herbst Theatre in the Creative Arts Center.
Performances are Nov. 19 and 20 and Dec. 3 and 4 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 21 and Dec. 5 at 2 p.m. No performances are scheduled for Thanksgiving weekend.
Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and $5 for students. For tickets, call the Box Office at 937-775-2500 or purchase tickets online.
Seating is limited. All performers and audience members are required to wear masks during performances.
“Circle Mirror Transformation” tells the story of a group of adult amateur actors who enroll in a Vermont community center’s drama workshop and gradually learn more than just acting. Through a series of touching and often comic games and exercises, the characters reveal their deeper selves to each other.
Joe Deer, artistic director of the Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures, describes the play as a “beautifully crafted diorama, a Petri dish in which we see, with hilarious detail and clarity, the quiet sadness of a motley quintet.”
“Circle Mirror Transformation” opened Off-Broadway in 2009 and received the Obie Award for Best New American Play.
Baker is best known for her 2014 Pulitzer Prize–winning drama, “The Flick.” She received a 2017 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in recognition of her ability to mine the “minutiae of how we speak, act, and relate to one another and the absurdity and tragedy that result from the limitations of language.”
“Circle Mirror Transformation” is directed by Josh Aaron McCabe, associate professor of theatre. McCabe has been a core member of the nationally acclaimed Shakespeare and Company in The Berkshires, Massachusetts, since 2006. Prior to joining the Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures, he served as the director of Shakespeare and Company’s “Shakespeare in the Courts Program.”
Wright State’s production features Mady McCabe as Marty, Branden Fisher as Schultz, Andrea Gutierrez as Lauren, Annika Whetstone as Teresa and Mikey Fried as James.
2021–22 theatre season
Wright State Theatre’s season continues in 2022 with “Sweat” from Feb. 3–13 in the Festival Playhouse. The season also includes:
- “The Gondoliers,” 18–27, Herbst Theatre
- “Sweet Charity,” March 18–April 3, Festival Playhouse
R.E.A.C.H. Festival brings celebration of Indigenous peoples to Wright State 
Wright State’s Stein Galleries to present exhibition by New York painter Simon Carr 
Miracle Makers mark half-a-million ways Wright State students help hospitalized children 
Food run 
Therapy dog helps Wright State students feel at ease 