Directed by Aretha Sills, MOTHER AND DAUGHTER is made up of two one-act plays that explore the explosive power dynamics between mothers and daughters as well as the unbreakable bonds between them.
“Strange and Mighty Power,” written by Aretha Sills in the Story Theater style made famous by her father Paul Sills, tells the myth of Demeter and Persephone as re-enacted by a single mother and her teenage daughter planning to run away with an older man. “Strange and Mighty Power” is a mythic story of obsessive love told from many angles. It features Emily Button, Nancy Kern, and Sol Mason.
The second one-act was devised under the direction of Aretha Sills by her longtime players/improvisers Emily Button and Nancy Kern, using the improvisational theater methods of Viola Spolin. It takes a mother and daughter’s relationship from womb to grave over the course of a few pivotal events in their lives.
Both one-acts are explorations of the boundaries and barriers that exist between mothers and daughters — sometimes porous, sometimes impermeable — and the ways in which they struggle to navigate the complex relationship that defines them.
Production Team
