collaboratively devised by the Coven under the Direction of Sabrina Mandell
Ensemble/Performers
Carolyn Cook, Gwen Grastorf, Alyssa Keegan, Sabrina Mandell, Amber Mayberry, Kristin Putchinski & Tia Shearer
Stage Manager (who also managed sound design and lighting)
Donna Reinhold
Support Team
Nancy Rodriguez
Photographic Documentary
Leah Huete
Show is approximately 50 minutes with no intermission
Note from the Artistic Director
This magic was crafted in one week by a coven of extraordinary people who are proposing and proving that art can be made with care, collaboration, consent, weeping, laughter, occasional chaos, collective moderating, and the acknowledgement of each players needs. It is a model in progress, a worthy pursuit that may just change the world. I was very inspired following the recent journey that film director Chloé Zhoa took to make Hamnet. She created an intentionally mindful space for the entire community of people that built the film. This is the power we have when all feels hopeless and as individuals we feel helpless. We can make a sanctuary and cultivate community. Together we can thrive and plant the seeds that will nourish us on this sometimes tempestuous voyage.
- Sabrina Mandell
Songs
The Host of Seraphim Dead Can Dance
Ring A Ring o'Rosie Folk Song/Playground Game
It Had to be You Harry Connick Jr.
You Don't Own Me Leslie Gore
I Want to be Evil Eartha Kitt
On the Sea Traditional
Wellerman Traditional Sea Shanty
Masquerade Suite Waltz Aram Khatchaturian
The Union From St. John's Anita Best
Wilderness and The Arrival and the Reunion Dead Can Dance
Sympathy Magic Florence and the Machine
Sources/Inspirations
The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus
Selected Writings William Sharp, Elizabeth Amelia Sharp
“In the beginning, said a Persian poet Allah took a rose, a lily, a dove, a serpent, a little honey, a Dead Sea apple, and a handful of clay. When he looked at the amalgam it was a woman.”
Orpheus & Eurydice Greek Myth
Sea Facts collected by Tia Shearer and Kristin Putchinski
Hellacious Stand Up Comedy Loose Five written by Tia Shearer
I Go Down To The Shore by Mary Oliver
"I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice
Excuse me, I have work to do.”
Excerpt from The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Hekate speech from The Witch by Thomas Middleton
Dream with Clam Diggers by Sylvia Plath
This dream budded bright with leaves around the edges,
Its clear air winnowed by angels; she was come
Back to her early sea-town home
Scathed, stained after tedious pilgrimages.
Barefoot, she stood, in shock of that returning,
Beside a neighbor's house
With shingles burnished as glass,
Blinds lowered on that hot morning.
No change met her: garden terrace, all summer
Tanged by melting tar,
Sloped seaward to plunge in blue; fed by white fire,
The whole scene flared welcome to this roamer.
High against heaven, gulls went wheeling soundless
Over tidal-flats where three children played
Silent and shining on a green rock bedded in mud,
Their fabulous heyday endless.
With green rock gliding, a delicate schooner
Decked forth in cockle-shells,
They sailed till tide foamed round their ankles
And the fair ship sank, its crew knelled home for dinner.
Plucked back thus sudden to that far innocence,
She, in her shabby travel garb, began
Walking eager toward water, when there, one by one,
Clam-diggers rose up out of dark slime at her offense.
Grim as gargoyles from years spent squatting at sea's border
In wait amid snarled weed and wrack of wave
To trap this wayward girl at her first move of love,
Now with stake and pitchfork they advance, flint eyes fixed on murder.
We Alone by Alice Walker
We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the marketplace.
Wherever there is gold
there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse
for you.
Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.
This could be our revolution:
to love what is plentiful
as much as
what is scarce.
Performer Bios
Carolyn Cook (Coven Ensemble) is an Atlanta-based actor, director, playwright and teacher, and the founder of Théâtre du Rêve (Theater of the Dream), Atlanta’s unique French-language theater. She is a regular on Atlanta stages, including the flagship Alliance Theater and the former Georgia Shakespeare, where she was a resident company member for twenty years. She has received numerous Suzi Bass Awards (Atlanta’s Tonys) for her work as an actor, and was one of two recipients of the Suzi Bass Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2024 for her contributions to Atlanta theater. Cook holds a B.A. in French from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (now Randolph College) and started a master’s in dramatic theory and criticism before realizing she’d much rather drop out and play dress-up. She’s a Happenstance Fan Girl and is thrilled to be invited to PLAY with this remarkable group!
Gwen Grastorf (Happenstance Company Member/Social Media Maven/Coven Ensemble) is a performer and actor based in the DC metro area, and has been a company member with Happenstance Theater since 2012. Gwen has worked locally with Constellation Theatre, Faction of Fools, We Happy Few, Rorschach Theatre, Taffety Punk, the Tarot Reading, Washington Revels, and others. Gwen was raised in Frederick, Maryland, and got her degree at the University of MD, College Park. www.GwenGrastorf.com
*Alyssa Keegan (Coven Ensemble) is an actor, mental health coach, dancer, visual artist and creator and owner of Empowered Performer Project, supporting mental and somatic wellness for performers. Some of their theatre credits include Inherit the Wind at Arena Stage, Scenarios and Contractions at Studio Theatre; Come From Away at Ford’s Theatre; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Helen Hayes Award, Best Actress), How I Learned to Drive, and Becky Shaw at Round House Theater; Gloria, Botticelli in the Fire, and Shipwreck at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Vanity Fair at Shakespeare Theatre Company; Digging Up Dessa at The Kennedy Center; Twelfth Night and Richard III at Folger Theatre; and Working with the Labor Heritage Foundation in honor of laborers during the pandemic. AK can also be seen in television episodes of Law & Order: SVU and New Amsterdam (NBC) and Bull (CBS). They are also the voice of Reagan Somerset in K.F Breene’s bestselling book series Demon Days, Vampire Nights. You can see them next in Cult of Love at Roundhouse Theater (Winter 2026) AEA/SAG/AFTRA
Sabrina Mandell (Visionary Tornado/Artistic Director/Coven Ensemble) is the founder, Artistic Co-Director, Executive Director, and “Visionary Tornado” of Happenstance Theater. Sabrina has written, produced and performed prolifically since founding the company in 2006. She was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Actress in 2017 and has won two Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Costume Design. Sabrina performed for 10 years with the Big Apple Circus’ Clown Care Program in DC and Baltimore and has taught Theatrical Clown and Physical Comedy at the Shakespeare Theatre DC, Everyman Theatre in Baltimore, Round House Theatre, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She is also a poet, visual artist, graphic, costume designer and vintage clothing enthusiast.
*Amber Mayberry (Coven Ensemble) is a Washington, DC based dancer, actor, teacher, and choreographer. She was trained at the Washington School of Ballet and with Fabian Barnes at the Dance Institute of Washington. After receiving her BFA from SUNY Purchase, she performed with Elisa Monte, Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance Theatre, and The Trey McIntyre Project. Theatrical credits include Measure for Measure with Shakespeare Theatre Company, Oklahoma! and On the Town at The 5th Avenue Theater, and performances with the Washington National, Seattle, and Baltimore Lyric Opera houses. For twelve years, Amber performed extensively with Disney’s The Lion King, on Broadway, and on two of their national tours. Choreography credits: November 4 with Voices Festival Productions. In addition to her professional obligations, Amber is an advocate for making arts education accessible to all: teaching, coaching, and leading classes in Washington, DC, and various workshops nationwide. She has taught at The Washington School of Ballet, The Maryland Youth Ballet, The Dance Institute of Washington, Jones-Haywood, and is currently on faculty at Citydance Conservatory at Strathmore. Most recently, Amber received her MFA in Classical Acting from The Shakespeare Theatre Academy at The George Washington University.
Kristin Putchinski (Coven Ensemble) is a Baltimore-based performance artist and sculptor working at an intersection of experimental music, movement, sculpture, and video. She explores concepts of tension, transformation, and release through a series of actions, performances, and sculptures that utilize an upright piano as the primary object. Her interdisciplinary performances activate the instrument as both a sonic body and a sculptural form.
Her process is tri-fold: unmaking, playing, and remaking. Using physical gesture, repetitive labor, the stage and the camera, she transforms the piano from an intact instrument into fragmented material—ultimately creating sculptural works that continue their life through installation and, eventually, natural decay. With this work and through community engaged trash abatement projects, Putchinski’s art practice also considers the lifecycle of discarded items.
Putchinski spent twenty-seven years touring as an award-winning songwriter, musician, and composer before completing an MFA in Intermedia and Digital Arts from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2024.
Tia Shearer Bassett (Coven Ensemble) is an actor, producer, writer, mama, oddball, bright-eyed ADHD warrior-woman. She spent almost 10 years performing for children in hospitals and care facilities through Only Make Believe. She has voiced characters in over 300 audiobooks. She has performed in two national Kennedy Center tours, many Imagination Stage shows, The Second City’s “Twist Your Dickens,” and more. She now runs her own company, Flapjack Theatrics, which is as multifaceted and joy-leaning as her heart is.
Happenstance Theater is a professional company dedicated to devising original, performer-generated, visual, poetic Theater. Happenstance has won 5 Helen Hayes Awards and been called “DC’s leading peddler of whimsy” by the Washington Post.
* Actor appears through the courtesy of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
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