A true story, still unfolding.
At the center of an imperative discourse about what it means to have honor in today’s America.
June 3, 2017:
A 25-year-old former Air Force linguist named Reality Winner (Emily Davis) is surprised at her home by the FBI, interrogated, and then charged with leaking evidence of Russian interference in our voting system. She's in jail now.
Is This A Room stages the verbatim FBI transcript of what happened at Reality's house that day. With an original score by Sanae Yamada (Moon Duo, Vive la Void).
As the verbal dance between knife-sharp Reality and the FBI agents unfolds in Reality’s home and her autonomy shrinks before her eyes, a simmering real-life thriller emerges—with consequences that extend from the most personal to the totally political.
Is This A Room premiered at The Kitchen, New York City, for a limited sold-out run in January 2019.
Conceived and Directed by Tina Satter
Performed by Becca Blackwell, Emily Davis, Pete Simpson, T.L. Thompson
Touring Cast: Becca Blackwell, Frank Boyd, Emily Davis, Pete Simpson, T.L. Thompson
Production and Stage Management: Randi Rivera
Music Composition and Sound Design: Sanae Yamada
Co-Sound Design (The Kitchen premiere): Jimin Brelsford
Set Design: Parker Lutz
Costume Design: Enver Chakartash
Lighting Design: Thomas Dunn
Animal Design and Fabrication: Amanda Villalobos
Assistant Direction and Stage Management (The Kitchen premiere): Mariana Catalina
Half Straddle Producer: Meiyin Wang
Associate Producer (The Kitchen premiere): Isabella Hreljanovic
Touring Producer: Mariana Catalina
Production History
March 31 - April 1, 2022: Performances at FIND / Schaubühne, Berlin, Germany
January 29 - February 1, 2020: Performances at UMS, Ann Arbor, MI
January 9-11, 2020: Performances at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MI
October 3 - November 10, 2019: Performances at Vineyard Theatre, NYC (Off Broadway Premiere)
September 13-15, 2019: Performances at Annenberg Center/FringeArts, Philadelphia, PA
August 22-24, 2019: Performances at Noorderzon Festival, Groningen Holland
August 26-27, 2019: Performances at Young Levi Festival, Llubljana, Slovenia
January 4-13, 2019: Performances at The Kitchen, NYC (Premiere)
Tina Satter/Half Straddle’s Is This A Room: REALITY WINNER VERBATIM TRANSCRIPTION is made possible with support from Howard Gilman Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. IS THIS A ROOM: REALITY WINNER VERBATIM TRANSCRIPTION was developed in part at The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, New York Theatre Workshop's Dartmouth Residency, and a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Residency in 2018.
This engagement is supported in part by Mid Atlantic Arts through USArtists International, a program in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding.
