Katonah Classic Stage (KCS), Westchester’s critically acclaimed professional theatre company, proudly announces its upcoming repertory production of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie and David Ives’ Venus in Fur. These two electrifying plays, performed in rotating repertory for the first time in history, promise an unforgettable theatrical experience that explores power, gender, seduction, and class with searing intensity and surprising resonance.
Though written over a century apart, Miss Julie (1888) and Venus in Fur (2010) offer audiences a compelling dialogue across time. Strindberg’s naturalistic tragedy and Ives’ modern, metafictional comedy both center on explosive encounters between men and women, where roles blur, dominance shifts, and nothing is quite as it seems.
The same cast, including audience favorite Lea DiMarchi and stage veteran James Louis Wagner, will appear in both plays. “We wanted to do something ambitious; two plays that challenge audiences and reflect our mission of presenting classic and contemporary works in conversation,” said Artistic Director Trent Dawson. “Strindberg’s Julie and Ives’ Vanda are women trapped and liberated by their own performances. These plays are fierce, though-provoking and intellectually charged.”
About Miss Julie
Strindberg’s groundbreaking psychological drama unfolds over a single, tension-charged evening in the kitchen of a Swedish manor house. As the aristocratic Julie enters into a dangerous flirtation with Jean, her father's ambitious valet, the rigid boundaries of class, gender, and social expectation begin to blur.
What starts as flirtation escalates into a raw battle of wills—and identities—revealing the destructive costs of defying social hierarchies. Strindberg’s naturalistic masterpiece scandalized audiences in its time and continues to provoke with its uncompromising portrayal of power, repression, and rebellion.
About Venus in Fur
Fast-paced and witty, David Ives’ Venus in Fur is a modern theater-goer's dream—an audition gone awry that becomes a mesmerizing chess match. Thomas, a playwright/director, is struggling to cast the female lead in his adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s 19th-century novel Venus in Furs.
Enter Vanda, an apparently scatterbrained actress who seems all wrong for the part—until she reveals a mastery of both the character and the man behind the table. As role-play and reality intertwine, power shifts, and the play questions who is directing whom. Brimming with sharp dialogue, Venus in Fur blurs the lines between theater and life, fantasy and control.
“This pairing isn’t just theatrical, it’s philosophical,” noted Dawson, “Both plays explore how performance is a tool of both survival and seduction. When women take control of the narrative, the results are both explosive and revealing. Together, these two works invite reflection on how far we’ve come—and how far we’ve yet to go—in navigating identity, control, and the roles we play in pursuit of passion and power."
Performance Details:
Both shows run in rep starting 10/14-11/2 2025, including 7PM evening and 2PM matinee performances.
Opening Nights: 10/17, 10/18
Director: Trent Dawson
Venue: Whippoorwill Hall
Tickets: Individual and Fall Season tickets available https://katonahclassicstage.com
Opening Nights: 10/17, 10/18
Director: Trent Dawson
Venue: Whippoorwill Hall
Tickets: Individual and Fall Season tickets available https://katonahclassicstage.com
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