Mrs Hawking VII:
IN THE BONES
by Phoebe Roberts and Bernie Gabin
LIVE ONSTAGE
Saturday, January 18th at 3:00PM
In the Amesbury AB at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge
as part of the Arisia 2025 convention
In this live theatrical play, our heroes’ battle to defeat Jack the Ripper has not been without cost– to their bodies, their souls, and the bonds between them. Mrs. Hawking and Mary’s relationship has been fractured to the point where Mary has left to start a new life in New York while Mrs. Hawking is left to nurse old wounds in London. As both attempt to forget about the other, the appearance of a stranger with a familiar face reminds them that you can’t tear some people out of your life without leaving holes behind. CN: Gunshot sound effect.
Act 1
Scene 1 – an exchange of letters between New York and London in 1890
Scene 2 – the Swann kitchen at the British Embassy in New York, later that morning
Scene 3 – Mrs. Hawking’s study, that evening
Scene 4 – the Hawking parlor, later that week
Scene 5 – the streets of New York, the next day
Scene 6 – offices of Hawking Capital and Investments, the next day
Scene 7 – the Hawking parlor, later that afternoon
Act 2
Scene 1 – the Swann kitchen, a few days later
Scene 2 – Nathaniel’s study at home, that same day
Scene 3 – a London grocery store, later that evening
Scene 4 – the Swann kitchen, the next day
Scene 5 – Mrs. Hawking’s parlor, that night
Scene 6 – the Swann kitchen, a few days later
Scene 7 – the Hawking parlor, that same day
Scene 8 – an exchange of letters between New York and London
CAST
1890 – London, England
MRS. VICTORIA HAWKING, lady’s society avenger ……… Cari Keebaugh
MR. NATHANIEL HAWKING, her gentleman nephew and assistant ……… Christian Krenek
MRS. CLARA HAWKING, Nathaniel’s society wife ……… Jackie Freyman
MISS BEATRICE HAWKING, their teenaged daughter ……… Naomi Ibasitas
MRS. MIRANDA BARRYMORE, a society lady ……… Arielle Kaplan
MISS VIOLET STRALLAN, a London nurse ……… Robin Abrahams
MRS. NELLIE LINDEN, a former maid made good ……… Kate Potter
MR. QUENTIN BOOTH, a local grocer ……… Pieter Wallace
1890 – New York, New York
MRS. MARY STONE, once Mrs. Hawking’s protege, now independent avenger ……… Coryn May
MR. ARTHUR SWANN, Mary’s husband and MI6 agent ……… Matthew Oak Kamm
MRS. KATHLEEN DUNCAN, family friend to the Swanns ……… Jamie Lin
MR. OLIVER WARREN, a British joiner in America ……… Andrew Prentice
Townspeople, ruffians, ensemble ……… Jenn Benfield, Jason Tilton, Pieter Wallace
CREW
Director ……… Phoebe Roberts
Technical Director ……… Bernie Gabin
Stage Manager ……… Naomi Ibasitas
Assistant Stage Manager ……… Kathy Bedard
Fight Choreographer ……… Dan Prior
Fight Captain ……… Pieter Wallace, Kathy Bedard
Costumer ……… Jenn Benfield
Wardrobe Technician ……… Kate Potter
Set Design ……… Carolyn Daitch
Stage Crew ……… Michael McAfee
Sound Design ……… Neil Marsh
Graphic Design ……… Judith Lingford
There will be no intermission. Show runs approximately 70 minutes.
Who’s Who…
Robin Abrahams (Violet Strallan) is delighted to reprise her “Fallen Women” role as nurse Violet Strallan. She previously played Drs. Gall, Adler, and Pinch (“R.U.R.” and “Web of Murder,” Theatre@First; “Comedy of Errors,” Quannapowitt Players), so playing a nurse is a nice change of pace. Other favorite acting roles include Fabian in “12th Night” and Jaques in “As You Like It” (Dream Role Players); Marjory in “The Moors” (Entropy Theatre); Vera Martin in “She Kills Monsters” (Theatre@First); Mrs. Higgins in “Pygmalion” (Theatre to Go); and Mrs. Ill in “The Visit” (Apollinaire). Offstage, Robin is best known as Miss Conduct, advice columnist in the Boston Globe Sunday magazine. Her modern-day adaption of The Island of Dr. Moreau will be produced by Theatre@First this March, which fills her with alternating delight and terror.
Nicki Buscemi (fight double for Mary Swann) is delighted to be joining the Hawking Universe for the first time in In the Bones. Trained as a modern dancer in college, she now teaches writing and literature classes by day and dances and (stage) fights by night. In recent years, she has been studying and performing belly dance and has helped to choreograph dances and fights for various North Shore Community College productions.
Jackie Freyman (Clara Hawking) is thrilled to be coming back to live performance and reprising her role as Clara Hawking (the other Mrs. Hawking) in the Mrs. Hawking series. Other favorite roles include Lottie Wilton in Enchanted April (Theatre To Go), Suzanne in The Scarlet Pimpernel (Post Meridian Radio Players), Tinker Bell in Peter Pan (Post Meridian Radio Players), and the ghost of Mrs. Ball in Mother Goose’s Grave (Theatre@First’s Festival@First: Wicked Boston).
Jackie has been performing since the age of six and studied acting, writing, and directing at Emerson College. She became a produced playwright in 2022 and hopes to reprise that role, as well (fingers crossed!). Thanks to the friends and family who have supported her over the years, and the biggest thanks to Phoebe for letting her play in this wild Victorian sandbox!
Naomi Ibasitas (Beatrice Hawking, Stage Manager) is an actor, stage manager, and director within the Boston fringe theatre community. She is excited to be debuting the role of Beatrice Hawking in the Hawking universe! Previously you may have seen her as Madam Malaika Shah in Part IV and Part V as well as Rosaline Pembroke in the Hawking spin-off, Gentleman Never Tell. As always, Naomi is so excited to see Mrs. Hawking back on the stage live, and please check out the Hawking films on Youtube (because they are SO GOOD)!
Non-Hawking acting credits include Disenchanted! (Mulan/Pocahontas) with the Walpole Footlighters, the Annual Asian American Playwrights Collective Festival 2024 (various roles), and 7 Rooms: The Masque of the Red Death (Misha in Toasting Man) with Flat Earth Theatre. Off the stage, she is a character performer with Spark a Dream Princess Parties! After the Hawking show, see her again at PMRP’s performance of Gender-Swapped Star Trek: The Menagerie as Lt. Sulu directly after! And on Monday, please swing by the Disney Sing-Along led by her (in Moana cosplay) and Mel Carubia!
Matthew Oak Kamm (Arthur Swann) is simply chuffed to be returning to Arisia and Mrs. Hawking in 2024! You may also have seen him in Mrs. Hawking parts II-V (Arthur Swann) and the digital spin-off Gentlemen Never Tell (Theo Pryce). Many thanks to Phoebe and Bernie for continuing to make the Hawking magic happen, year after year. When not acting or participating in miscellaneous geekery, Matt works to protect local wildlife as part of Zoo New England’s Field Conservation Department. During his rare and mysterious “spare time,” he enjoys birding, cooking, and spending time with his wife and daughter.
Arielle Kaplan (Miranda Barrymore) is delighted to add another member of the Frost Family to her roster, albeit one with a very, very different outlook on life. As an actor and violence designer, she has been fortunate enough to work throughout New England, notably with The Barnstormers (Big River, Witness for the Prosecution), Berkshire Theatre Festival (Babes in Arms), Advice to the Players (The Comedy of Errors, Henry V), Flat Earth Theatre (Tales of a Fourth Grade Lesbo), and the Regent Theatre (Old Jews Telling Jokes). She has also been in Fiddler on the Roof six times and could happily continue playing Hodel in another six productions.
In 2021, she originated the title role in the musical Miriam, and this June, you can see her as Alice in T: An MBTA Musical at The Rockwell, before leaving for her next adventure at Hebrew Union College. She is deeply grateful to Phoebe and Bernie for having her as part of Team Hawking since Victoria made her appearance in Ryan McKittrick’s playwriting class at Brandeis University. Arielle is an award winning cosplayer/sewist and can often be found as Princess Leia with The Rebel Legion. For more personal information, write to her mother.
Cari Keebaugh’s (Mrs. Hawking) favorite activity is stalking the night in Victorian London as a vigilante. When she’s not performing with her Hawking family, she can often be found treading the boards with other local theater troupes; recent roles include pirate Rachel Wall (PEM’s Haunted Histories: Fatal Graces), Denise/Perkins the Butler (Quannapowitt Players’ The Play That Goes Wrong), and as a member of the Beast Folk in Theatre@First’s upcoming None Escape. She enjoys a good stage punch (and kick and stab), and when she’s not throwing them herself Cari loves helping other actors throw punches (and kicks and stabs): as a violence designer, she has directed the stage combat in shows such as Marian, or the True Story of Robin Hood (Theatre@First) and Fight Girl Battle World (North Shore Community College Performing Arts), among others. She is greatly looking forward to working with the Dream Role Players as their violence designer for their 2025 summer show! Cari lives on the North Shore with her very own Prince Charming, and she is a big fan of swords, tea, and glitter. You can follow her adventures on her website, http://www.VeryCari.com.
Christian Krenek (Nathaniel Hawking) is thrilled to be back onstage with his favorite nineteenth century family! By day, Christian works for SpeakEasy Stage Company by finding memes; by night, he goes to escape rooms, does puzzles, gets murdered, flirts awkwardly with men (“Want to hear some fun facts about Queen Victoria?”), and hunts for kittens to cuddle. So much love to everyone in the cast and crew, and especially to Phoebe for letting him bring his favorite role ever to life for all these years. Break a leg (and a teacup)! (He/Him/His)
Jamie Lin (Mrs. Kathleen Duncan) is a Taiwanese-American actor, playwright & director originally from the Bay Area. Favorite roles include originating Jade in The Fortune Teller (CHUANG Stage), Alice/Bus Driver in T: the Musical (The Rockwell), and attempting a cockney accent in Mrs. Hudson Investigates (PMRP). Fortunately, Phoebe has let her be The Token American(TM) today. Offstage, she serves as Theatre@First’s EDI Coordinator and for fun, rolls many dice to menace her D&D tables. Her profile on New Play Exchange can be found here.
Neil Marsh (Sound Design) is glad to have had a reason to once again boot up his PC tablet and Adobe Audition for the purpose of entertaining the lovely people at Arisia. Neil is one of the co-founders, and a former Artistic Director, of the Post-Meridian Radio Players, as well as being the principal sound designer at Theatre@First for several years.
Neil was the Creator and Executive Producer of PMRP’s 2012 Parsec Award-winning audio drama miniseries, The Mask of Inanna, as well as the director of a number of plays in the group’s early days including 2006’s The Monkey’s Paw, 2009’s The War of the Worlds: The Mob vs. the Martians and the Fall of Boston at the Somerville Theater, and 2012’s Sorry Wrong Number. Neil’s two plays for T@F, both of which were initially performed at Arisia, were 2016’s Cage of Light and 2017’s Useless Questions.
Neil currently lives in semi-retirement in Woburn, MA with his wife, Beckie, and their orange feline overlord, Nicholas.
Michael McAfee (Stage Crew) has been active in Boston area fandom since the early 1990s, and joined the crew of Mrs. Hawking with “Base Instruments” in 2017. Along with helping out the Mrs. Hawking plays, he has served a variety of roles in the Post Meridian Radio Players, most recently adapting HG Wells’s short story “The Inexperienced Ghost” for their Halloween 2024 show. He’ll be taking part in their upcoming Spring 2025 show; keep an eye on their website (www.pmrp.org) for official announcements. He also appears regularly at various local poetry open mics. Michael is always happy to discuss creative projects; feel free to say hi!
Phoebe Roberts (Playwright, Director) is a writer and theater artist from the Boston area who is one half of the creator team behind Mrs. Hawking, in eight installments currently being produced by Breaking Light Productions. You can find the filmed versions released so far on the Mrs. Hawking Youtube channel here. Her other work includes the comedy series Dream Machine and Texts from Avengers Tower. By day she teaches writing and English at various universities in the Boston area.
Pieter Wallace (Quentin/Ensemble) has worn many hats in the working with Breaking Lights Production, but he can most often be found involved in (the losing side of) the fight choreography. He joined the company in 2018 and is delighted to work with the team again for this production. He hopes you enjoy the show and would like to thank you for coming out to see it!
Behind the Scenes…
Enjoy peeking behind the curtain? Take a look at some special behind-the-scenes footage with the cast and crew of Team Hawking!
Costuming
Historical Tidbits
Stage Combat
