“Deirdre O’Connell has a peculiar challenge performing the recollections of Lucas Hnath’s mother in his play “Dana H.” Give credit to earbuds and Epsom salts.”

–The New York Times, February 12, 2020.

Deirdre O’Connel stars in the play Dana H. Written by Lucas Hnath and directed by Les Waters, Dana H. takes place in 1997 and starts in a hospital in Orlando, FL, where Higginbotham was a hospital chaplain. It was here that she met and befriended an ex-convict and neo-Nazi on the psychiatric ward who was seeking advice on how to reinvent himself. After his release, Higginbotham’s generous act of mercy mutated into a five-month, life-threatening horror story as the man insinuates himself into her life.

Higginbotham requested her son to write the play which he opposed vehemently until he came across a unique way of presenting it. Rather than having Deirdre O’Connell speak the lines, there is a recording of an edited interview with Higginbotham that O’Connell is able to lip-sync during the play.

The Off-Broadway premiere of Dana H. will play an additional week at Vineyard Theatre (New York) with an opening night set for February 25, concluding March 29.

Read the full article “Lip-Syncing Her Abduction, Matter-of-Factly” in The New York Times.