SMART

About

Elaine’s cantankerous, ailing mother, Ruth, won’t let aides in the house to help her, making it impossible for Elaine to go to work. In desperation, Elaine buys a “Jenny”, a smart device which doubles as a babysitter/companion for her mom – while allowing Elaine to check on Ruth from anywhere. Jenny quickly feels like another member of the family, playing games with Ruth and talking Elaine through her insomnia. But what if Jenny isn’t the only one listening? A play about how and why we let technology into our homes, and the unexpected changes that tech can bring.

Cast and Creative

Blair Baker *

Gabby

Kea Trevett *

Elaine

Christine Farrell *

Ruth

Mary Elizabeth Hamilton 

Playwright

Jess Chayes

Director

Ant Ma

Scenic Designer

Amy Sutton

Costume Designer

Christina Watanabe

Lighting Designer

ien DeNio

Sound Designer

Katie Scarlett Graves *

Production Stage Manager

 

* appearing through an agreement between this theater and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
The designers of this production are represented by United Scenic Artists Local USA-829 of the IATSE.
The director is a member of the Stage Director and Choreographers Society, a national theatrical labor union.

More Info

Meet playwright Mary Elizabeth Hamilton

Mary Elizabeth Hamilton is a Brooklyn based playwright, tv writer and mom. She holds her MFA from The University of Iowa and an Artistic Diploma from Juilliard. Mary was a Jerome Fellow at The Lark and has participated in Youngblood, The O’Neill, Ars Nova, I-73, New Georges’ The Jam, and Play Penn. Her play 16 Winters won ASC’s New Contemporaries Award and her Sloan commission, SMART, was produced off Broadway at Ensemble Studio Theater and optioned by AMC. Mary was a Story Editor on “Why Women Kill”, wrote the podcast “Power Trip” starring Tatiana Maslany, and is a resident playwright with New Dramatists.

What are the origins of this play?  What inspired you to write about these topics specifically?

SMART was commissioned six years ago by the Sloan Foundation, which commissions plays about science and technology. At the time, we had just gotten an Alexa for my partner’s mom, who was dealing with memory loss after a stroke. I became interested in the ways in which the device – and tech in general – can be used for communication with people dealing with memory or language loss. As much as the play explores themes of boundaries in technology, to me it’s also a play about communication, and the ways in which we attempt to connect using whatever means we have at our disposal.
Tell us more about the role EST/Sloan played in this play’s development?
Well, this play would not exist without EST and Sloan. They’ve played a huge part in the play’s development – from initial notes on the pitch, through two week-long workshops and one zoom workshop, and finally a full production last year. EST has been unbelievably supportive, thorough, thoughtful and involved with every stage of bringing this story to life. The Sloan foundation has also played a big role, both in financially allowing me the freedom and support to write and develop this play with actors, and also in their notes on the play’s use of science and technology, pushing me to research and make the play as accurately as I could in that regard. 
Christine Farrell as Ruth and Kea Trevett as Elaine in the world premiere of SMART at Ensemble Studio Theatre in 2023.  Farrell and Trevett reprise their roles in WHAT’s upcoming production. (photo: Carol Rosegg, courtesy of Ensemble Studio Theatre)

What are your hopes for this production?

Every production teaches you new things about a play, but in this one, I’m also learning old things about the play. In revising the play for the production last year at EST, post-pandemic, it seemed important to stay up to date with all of the advances that had happened in tech since I first wrote the play. We now have chat GPT and Whitney Houston holograms to contend with, after all…it’s a different world! Well, it is and it isn’t. In my focus on keeping the tech up to date (a Sisyphean task) I think I lost touch a little bit with the human impulses that first drew me to these characters and made their stories seem so urgent. So this production has, at least so far, been about going back to an early draft of the play and seeing how the bones of that still influence the present draft. I’m hoping that this production can go back to some early impulses, while retaining all that’s been learned in the interval. We’ll see!

SMART

by Mary Elizabeth Hamilton
directed by Jess Chayes
June 8 – 23, 2024 | Previews June 6 & 7
Running Time: 90 minutes
SMART is performed without an intermission
PURCHASE TICKETS
This production is made possible in part by The Ensemble Studio Theatre / Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project.
SMART was originally commissioned and developed by EST/Sloan Project.