The Resident Acting Company is staging The Bald Soprano, the play that began Eugène Ionesco's career, in the 80-seat Frank Shiner Theater at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture. Bradford Cover directs. Performances begin October 11, and opening night is October 15.
Ionesco got the idea while studying English from a language textbook, whose stilted sample conversations suggested people who talk at length and communicate nothing. The result premiered in Paris in 1950 as his first produced work, and it became one of the plays that defined the Theatre of the Absurd. Its evening opens as a painfully courteous gathering at the Smiths' home and comes apart line by line, as small talk gives way to cliché, contradiction and non sequitur, and finally to open warfare on language itself.
The cast is drawn entirely from the company's own members: Rachel Botchan, Anique Clements, Dan Daily, Dominic Cuskern, Andy Paterson and Carine Montbertrand. The production uses the English translation by Donald M. Allen.
The Bald Soprano is a limited engagement through November 1, 2026, at the Frank Shiner Theater, the Sheen Center's black-box space at 18 Bleecker Street. Ticket prices and a performance schedule were not part of the announcement.
