WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – Dartmouth College alum Talene Monahon is making her return to the Upper Valley for the premiere of her new play “Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret,” which begins previews at Northern Stage on May 13.
Developing new works has been a focus at Northern Stage for over a decade, Carol Dunne, the theater’s producing artistic director, said.
That effort has redoubled in the years after COVID.
“New work in the American theater has been decimated since the pandemic,” Dunne said.
If regional theaters like Northern Stage don’t take it upon themselves to develop fledgling works, they might never get made, Dunne said.
Northern Stage and Classic Stage Company, an Off-Broadway theater, co-commissioned Monahon to write “Wonder!,” an adaptation of a 1714 farce by English playwright Susanna Centlivre. Set on a cruise ship, “Wonder!” revolves around a family vacation gone awry when a famous painting is discovered missing and the suspect is thought to be on board.
The theater has staged a number of other new works in the past couple years, including Eric Love’s adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan” and Matthew Libby’s “Sisters,” a heartfelt story about the intertwining lives of two siblings, one of whom is an AI program.
“Sisters” was directed by Aileen Wen McGroddy, who will return to Northern Stage to direct “Wonder!”
The play also marks Monahon’s homecoming at Northern Stage. Thirteen years ago, in her final year at Dartmouth, she acted in a production of “The Importance of Being Earnest” under Dunne’s direction.
In the years since, Monahon, a Boston-area native now living in New York City, has gone on to write many plays including the satirical drama “Meet the Cartozians,” which recently earned two Outer Critics Circle Awards nominations.
“It’s been such a joy to come back” to Northern Stage, Monahon said.
“Wonder!,” which runs roughly two-and-a-half hours, is an ensemble piece, and its cast of nine includes Canadian actress Martha Burns, a recent star in Northern Stage’s “The Children,” and Tony-Award winning actor Will Brill, who is also Monahon’s partner.
Directing the group has been “almost like conducting an orchestra,” McGroddy said.
The play is a comedy in the purest sense, with jokes packed into every minute of dialogue.
“Talene has written the script with a lot of keen ear to when the joke lands,” McGroddy said. Part of the work of directing has been to continue honing that sense of comedic timing, to figure out which jokes sing, and which can be left out.
For McGroddy, some of the joy of directing new plays is entering their “imaginative space” and getting to shape that space through collaboration.
“It’s such a pleasure to have a playwright there to collaborate with,” she said.
While big cities like New York bring a sense of momentum to the process of developing new plays, there’s something grounding about producing work for Upper Valley audiences, McGroddy said.
Monahon, who works primarily in New York, has found that any version of a play that’s staged in the city can feel like “the definitive production,” she said, “which can be really hard when you’re working on something for the first time.”
She hopes that “Wonder!” will eventually be staged more widely, so it’s been helpful to take the play out of New York for its premiere.
Perhaps it has to do with the area’s high concentration of artists and academics, but Upper Valley audiences are also generally receptive to new work, Dunne said.
Two recent readings of “The Age of Mary,” a new play by Avery Deutsch, winner of the 2025 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award, drew about 150 people between both events.
McGroddy has been part of readings for three different plays at Northern Stage and “All three of those readings have had really engaged, curious audiences,” she said.
“Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret” is in production from May 13 through May 31 at Northern Stage in White River Junction. For tickets ($40-$80; $28 for students and people 25 and under; $10+ at the May 13 preview) go to northernstage.org or call 802-308-4324.
