The unlikely trio of Edward Albee, Horton Foote and E.M. Forster team up on the topic of human desire in Readers Theatre Repertory’s November 9-10 production of Only Connect, featuring Albee’s Zoo Story and Foote’s Spring Dance. “They’re so opposite, both the plays and the writers,” says director Bob Martin. “Urban and rural, modern and historical, quiet and violent… but they both focus on the need for and difficulty of connecting.”

Zoo Story introduces us to city dwellers Peter and Jerry, and examines their isolation and loneliness in a commercialized world. In Spring Dance famed “front porch playwright” Horton Foote brings us Annie, who is trapped in a very different situation, but grappling with the same deep desire to make contact with the world around her.

Martin says November is an ideal time for meditations on distance, and intimacy. “Autumn is always a time of reflection, at least for me. And reflection always leads to connections, old and new, strong and broken.” He says the plays challenge audience members to think about their own connection to life.

Randy Patterson, Nathan Dunkin, Christy Drogosch, & Brian Allard in Spring Dance by Horton Foote

Brian Allard & Nathan Dunkin in Zoo Story by Edward Albee

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