"Fireflies" Brings a Late-Life Romance and Small-Town Gossip to Shakespeare & Company

Through July 19 | Lenox, MA

Shakespeare & Company is running "Fireflies" through July 19 at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre—a two-act play by Matthew Barber, directed by Daniela Varon, about what happens when a charming stranger disrupts the carefully maintained life of a small-town Texas schoolteacher.

Eleanor Bannister, played by Isabel Keating, is retired, respected, and settled. When a hole appears in her roof, it brings Abel Brown—played by Jeb Brown—to her doorstep. He's smooth, he's persuasive, he offers to fix the roof, and he begins to quietly upend things. As an unexpected late-life romance develops, the town watches and gossips and wonders whether Abel can be trusted. The play sits in the tradition of Southern character drama, concerned less with plot than with observation—what people say to each other, what they don't say, and what the presence of a stranger can reveal about a life.

Keating is one of the stronger casting choices of the Berkshire summer season. She spent this past Broadway season in "The Queen of Versailles" and has a history that includes Tony, Drama League, and Outer Critics nominations for "The Boy from Oz," an Emmy-nominated PBS "American Masters" appearance as Judy Garland, and the Helen Hayes Award for her performance in Tom Stoppard's "Indian Ink." Jeb Brown is a Broadway veteran whose resume includes a recent Tony nomination for "Dead Outlaw," along with "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical," "Aida," "Grease," and the original Spider-Man musical, which he has survived and presumably recovered from. Annette Miller, a 25-season Shakespeare & Company veteran who received a Special Citation at the 2024 Elliott Norton Awards for her body of work, plays Grace Bodell.

Barber's best-known work is his stage adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim's "The Enchanted April," which premiered at Hartford Stage in 2000 and went to Broadway in 2003, earning a Tony nomination for Best Play and the John Gassner Award for Outstanding New American Play. "Fireflies" is an original work. The creative team includes scenic designer Marcelo Martínez García, whose recent credits include "Manahatta" at the Public Theater and work at the Alley Theatre and Yale Repertory; costume designer Alicia Austin, a Princess Grace Award recipient who has designed for Roundabout Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, and Hulu's "Only Murders in the Building"; and sound designer Bryn Scharenberg.

Runtime is two hours and ten minutes with a fifteen-minute intermission.

Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, 70 Kemble St., Lenox, MA. Tickets at shakespeare.org.

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