Compensation
new full-length comedy
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, November 2019
"I don’t know what we are to each other. Not exactly. But... I know you first. And you know me first. And that means something."
"Unbeknownst to her mother, Tara drops out of college and becomes a surrogate for Gabriel and Elliott, a well-established gay couple. Suddenly, Tara finds herself carrying not only their future child, but a terrible secret as well. Compensation is a dialogue about the complex systems that coerce women into outsourcing their bodies for income, the ethical implications of men purchasing access to those bodies, and the profound yearning for family that drives these people to entangle themselves in these systems in the first place."
Written & Directed by Hannah Manikowski
Dramaturgy - Carley Johnson
Asst. Dramaturg - Sabrina Zanello Jackson
Set Design - Mark Ivachtchenko
Lighting Design - Hannah Kerman
Costume Design - Alexa James-Cardenas
Stage Manager - Emma Patterson
Production Manager - Evan Schild
Ensemble:
ELLIOT - Christopher Chene
GABRIEL - Darius Fraser
TARA - Clementine Wurzbach
Asst. Costume Designer - Laura Riviere
Asst. Stage Manager - Chris Chase
Asst. Production Manager - Mary Emily Landers
Photography - Louis Stein