Metro Weekly

Spotlight: Signature Theatre’s ‘Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes’

Cut short by COVID-19, the "fresh and subversive" comedy is now available to stream

Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes — Photo: Christopher Mueller

Forced to close its world-premiere, sold-out run early due to the onset of COVID-19, Signature Theatre got creative.

The Shirlington-based company successfully convinced its theater union partners to approve a limited streaming run of the work by D.C. playwright Dani Stoller, which was filmed as a three-camera video production during a live performance.

Billed as a “fresh and subversive new comedy” by Signature’s artistic director Eric Schaeffer, Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes focuses on Marian, the matriarch of a far-flung Jewish family, and her distressed daughter Lee, who interrupts her mother’s life of retirement in Florida after her marriage falls apart.

The five-person cast is led by Susan Rome as Marian and Shanara Gabrielle as Lee. Directed by Stevie Zimmerman. Limited online streaming available through midnight on April 12. Virtual tickets are $35. Visit www.sigtheatre.org.

 

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