A World Premiere Comedy
By Mae E. Klingler

The next production in this year’s Shelterhouse line-up, and the winner of the Mickey Kaplan New American Play Prize, is A Sleeping Country, by Melanie Marnich.

In New York City, Julia works in a great job as a financial journalist, has recently become engaged to a man she loves very much … and has, what she believes to be, “The Worst Insomnia in the World.” In fact, she hasn’t slept in months, and the stress is starting to take its toll.

One day, her psychiatrist and childhood friend Midge passes along some intriguing research she has found that just might explain Julia’s condition. Only, unfortunately for Julia, the news is very bad — in fact, the worst kind imaginable. While Google-ing “crazy, Italian and insomnia,” Midge comes across a news article about a very wealthy, beautiful and noble Venetian family suffering from the rare disease called Fatal Familial Insomnia. In this disease, a rogue protein actually attacks and destroys the brain and other vital organs. This interferes with sleep, leading to deterioration of mental function and, ultimately, results in death.

Risking life and love, Julia takes a journey to determine her future once and for all. In this very funny but poignant play, the audience journeys with Julia, and along the way, learns the difference between not sleeping and being truly awake. Interestingly enough, Marnich wrote the play as a way to cope with her own growing case of insomnia, from which she had suffered for years.

“I decided that I could either fret about it or do something constructive with it. So I started noodling on this play,” she says. “I used the writing as an excavation through my own layers of frustration and confusion and, during the writing, I think I gained a comedic and compassionate perspective on it all.”

Marnich says that some of the more absurd dialogue and moments in the play actually came from encounters she had with doctors and therapists while trying to “cure” her sleeplessness.

“It dawned on me (during one particularly weird conversation I was having with a doctor) that, with the state of the world and our nation being what they are, I’d have to be crazy not to have insomnia,” says Marnich. And, with that, she had the focus and plot for A Sleeping Country.

This world premiere is the fourth recipient of the Mickey Kaplan New American Play Prize, which was established in 2004 in support of the Playhouse’s longstanding commitment to the development and production of new works by both established and emerging playwrights and to the introduction of powerful and inventive new voices to the American stage.

Mickey Jarson Kaplan was one of Cincinnati’s most generous and enthusiastic arts patrons and philanthropists. The prize was created in tribute to her memory by her husband, Dr. Stanley Kaplan.

The creative team of A Sleeping Country includes director Mark Rucker, set designer Rachel Hauck, costume designer Katherine Roth and lighting designer Phil Monat.

Audiences are sure to adore this hilarious, yet tender and poignant piece about sleep lost and hope found. So whether you count sleeping pills or count sheep, count on seeing (and enjoying) A Sleeping Country.