Winner of the 1991 Dramatists Guild Hull Warriner Award and the John Gassner Award

Winner of the 1991 – 1992 Outer Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk Award for Best Play

Marvin’s Room is the comical and poignant story of two long-estranged sisters, the saintly and upright Bessie (Elisabeth Hardcastle) and the restless and irresponsible Lee (Jennifer Porter.)  For the last seventeen years, Bessie has lived in Florida where she cares for their father, Marvin, who has been dying for two decades, and her aunt Ruth (Pamela Chabora) who has three collapsed vertebrae and wears an electrode pack on her waist with which she can control her constant pain (and open the garage door.)  When Bessie learns she has Leukemia and is in need of a bone marrow transplant, she is forced to reach out to Lee, who lives in Ohio with her two sons, the bookish Charlie (Dylan Chestnutt) and the rebellious Hank (Stowell Watters) who is confined to a mental institution after having burned the family house to the ground, leaving Lee and Charlie to take refuge with a group of nuns in the basement of a local church.  With the help of a bake sale thrown by the nuns, Lee and her sons arrive in Florida to be tested one by one, and all are ultimately transformed by the ties that bind, whether they want to be or not.  Also featuring William McDonough III, Lowell Jeffers, Stephanie Atkinson, and Israel Buffardi.  Directed by Dana Packard