Performed in a frat-House living room in November 2023. Directed by Milly Hopkins. Starring Susannah Yezzi as Jenny, and Rosalind Joyce as Petra. Lighting by Fiona Bird.
Director’s Note:
“In 1960, in a tiny theater in Provincetown, a safe haven for gay life and young artists, Edward Albee premiered the one-act play, Zoo Story. Two middle-aged men sat on a Central Park Bench and it changed American Theater Forever.
It’s a play about the hope and struggle for connection, recognition, and conversation. To try and connect with a stranger and break through an anonymous, complacent world. But, their frustrations are also masculine attempts to assert themselves on, and dominate that world.
So, in our adaptation, two young women meet trying to escape the noise of a party, one you’ve probably been to. When Jenny walks into Petra’s life, both change forever. It’s a night of all sorts of games. Why does one stay, and why won’t the other go?”
– Milly Hopkins
Video of the Performance:
“Yezzi’s portrayal of Jenny was nothing short of a tour de force as she made the erratic character’s pain palpable, her strange worldview enticing, her absurdity seductive…Joyce played her part with a quiet grace that subtly communicated her fears and desires… Zoo Story was more than just a one-act play; it was a whole universe, with its own logic and parameters—the length of a couch, the space of an evening. With just a three-person team behind it, Zoo Story was nevertheless one of the best performances I’ve seen all semester.”
— Grace Novarr, in a Review for BWOG, Columbia Student News
The Sti Cazzi Players 