About the play
A longing awakened.
Sandra is a theater professor — elegant, composed, and living alone years after a divorce. Her elderly, widowed mother Abby occupies a life of desperate hoarding, fiercely proud and endlessly demanding of her daughter's attention.
When Sandra casts Tyler, a veteran of the Afghanistan War, to portray Tom Wingfield in her upcoming production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, she discovers a long-dormant yearning for connection. The wily Abby detects her daughter's fascination — and finds every way to sabotage it.
At last, Sandra faces a wrenching decision born from her mother's chaotic front room. Warm, humorous, and quietly devastating, Front Room asks how much of ourselves we surrender to the ones we love.
Front Room has been developed over nearly a decade, with readings at UW Eau Claire and UW Oshkosh between 2016 and 2018, before finding its world premiere home here at Pablo Center.
"Kalinoski investigates such matters with a lyrical resourcefulness that drenches his play with the light of truth."— William Mootz, Louisville Courier-Journal
About the playwright
Richard Kalinoski
A Wisconsin native and Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Kalinoski is among the most internationally produced American playwrights of his generation. He has lived in Eau Claire since 2023, and will direct Front Room himself.
His play Beast on the Moon has been translated into 20 languages and produced on stages across five continents — from Athens and Brussels to Moscow, New York, Prague, São Paulo, and Toronto.
Recognition
- Molière Award — Best Play, Paris 2001
- Osborn Award — Best New American Play, ATCA 1996
- Five Ace Awards including Best Play, Buenos Aires 2001
- Khorenatsi Medal for Arts, President of Armenia, 2005
- "A triumph" — Ben Brantley, The New York Times
- MFA, Carnegie Mellon University · BA, UW Whitewater
- Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance Paul Award & Playwrights First Award — A Crooked Man, 2007
- Two-time recipient of the Wisconsin Arts Board Literary Fellowship
