Debra Jo Rupp, Tamara Tunie Take Leads at Barrington Stage

Tamara Tunie

Tamara Tunie

(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – The summer theater season at Barrington Stage Company gets fully underway this weekend when Debra Jo Rupp opens in Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Kimberly Akimbo” and Tamara Tunie of TV’s “Law and Order” creates the lead role in the world premiere of “American Son,” written by Christopher Demos-Brown and already winner of the prestigious Laurents/Hatcher Award for Best New Play of 2016.

Debra Jo Rupp (“That 70’s Show”) plays the titular character in “Kimberly Akimbo,” in which a lonely teenage girl suffering from a disease a lot like progeria, that causes her to age four and a half times as fast as normal. Thus trapped inside an elderly woman’s body, she meets another misfit (a teenage boy), and the two form an attachment to one another that borders on attraction. The situation is not helped by Kimberly’s rapidly deteriorating health. Soon Kimberly’s family gets mixed up in some crazy money schemes, and the family gets emotionally destroyed. Directed by Rob Ruggiero, “Kimberly Akimbo,” on the second, “St. Germain” stage, begins performances Thursday, June 16, opens Sunday, June 19, and runs through July 16.

Tamara Tunie stars as Kendra Ellis-Connor in “American Son,” in which a recently estranged biracial couple is called into a police station after their son’s car is found. This timely and thought-provoking new play, directed by Julianne Boyd, tackles issues of race, bias, and culture in present-day America.  “American Son,” on the mainstage, begins previews on Friday, June 17, opens on Wednesday, June 22, and runs through July 9.

 

 

 

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