Three Sisters

About the Production

Three Sisters is Chekhov's most sustained meditation on the relationship between desire and stasis. The Prozorov siblings want Moscow and cannot go. Every character in the play is similarly frozen—not by circumstance alone, but by the particular human tendency to mistake dreaming for living.

This production chose to set the play in its original period (1900) while treating that choice with contemporary eyes. The costumes are worn, lived-in. The house is not a museum piece but a place people actually inhabit, with all the mess and accumulation that implies.

Directorial Approach

The challenge of Chekhov is that nothing happens—and everything happens. The scenes of apparent inaction are the dramatic centers. What is the event in act two? It is the failure of the party to arrive. That non-arrival is the play.

We rehearsed for six weeks before the design elements entered the room, allowing the company to discover the text's silences before we gave them furniture to hide behind. By the time the set arrived, the actors knew where to stand without being told.

Creative Team

• Translation: Paul Schmidt
• Set Design: Riccardo Hernandez
• Costume Design: Susan Hilferty
• Lighting Design: Jennifer Tipton
• Masha: Kate Arrington
• Irina: Kayli Carter
• Olga: Rebecca Mozo
• Vershinin: Brian Gleeson