Doug Wright, 2004 winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for his play I Am My Own Wife, has earned a reputation for dramatizing subversive, extravagant, and controversial characters from history. Writing with dark humor, Wright examines the nature and price of freedom through the final days of one of France’s most infamous and scandalous figures.

Imprisoned in France’s Charenton Asylum at the turn of the 18th century is the Marquis de Sade. In defiance of the increasingly punitive censorship that deprives him of quill, ink, and even clothes, he writes with anything and everything available to him in his cell: an obsession that swings between madness and a heroic refusal to be silenced. Last seen as Vladimir in New Rep’s award-winning production of Waiting for Godot, stage and screen star Austin Pendleton returns to play de Sade, who embraces freedom of expression while affirming to us that all freedoms have a price.

Sexually explicit language, situations, and full nudity.

by Doug Wright
BOSTON AREA PREMIERE

January 5 - February 6, 2005

Starring Austin Pendleton

Directed by Rick Lombardo**

Richard Chambers, scenic design
Frances Nelson McSherry, costume design
John R. Malinowski, lighting design
Rick Lombardo, sound design
Cheryl D. Olszowka*,
production stage manager

CAST (in order of appearance)
Dr. Royer-Collard, Steven Barkhimer*
Monsieur Prouix/Lunatic, Kevin Landis
Renée Pélagie, Rachel Harker*
Abbe de Coulmier, Benjamin Evett*
The Marquis, Austin Pendleton*
Madeleine Leclerc/Madame Royer-Collard,
Marianna Bassham*

Place:
The Charenton Asylum

Time:
1807

*member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional Actors
and Stage Managers in the United States
**member of Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Inc.

Read More about Quills:
A Conversation with Austin Pendleton
A Conversation with Rick Lombardo