Last Weekend For Hampton Theatre Company’s Production of ‘Admissions’

The many pitfalls, scandals and complications of getting into a top college have dominated headlines across the country in recent years. And it’s a timely topic that is currently being tackled by the Hampton Theatre Company (HTC) in “Admissions,” the company's second production of the 2019-2020 season which concludes a three-weekend run at the Quogue Community House on Feburary 2.

Playing the diversity card cuts both ways in this drama by Joshua Harmon. Sherri Rosen-Mason (played by Morgan Vaughan) is head of the admissions department at Hillcrest, a New England prep school, and is fighting to diversify the student body. With support from her husband Bill (played by Morgan Vaughan's real-life husband, Tristan Vaughan), the school’s headmaster, she has largely succeeded in bringing a stodgy institution into the 21st century. But when their only son Charlie (played by Hampton Bays High School senior Ian Hubbard) is deferred by an Ivy League university, he claims to be the victim of reverse discrimination because he is white. That’s when personal ambition collides with progressive values, bringing convulsive results.

Presented at Lincoln Center in 2018, “Admissions” was the winner of Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Play. In a review for the New York Times, Jesse Green said that the play was “good satire at work, causing us to think critically about people we don’t at first recognize as images of ourselves ... An extraordinarily useful and excruciating satire — of the left, by the left, for the left — for today.”

New York City-based playwright Joshua Harmon is also the author of “Bad Jews,” “Significant Other” and “Skintight.”

Also appearing in this production is HTC's artistic director Diana Marbury as Roberta and Minerva Perez, a newcomer to the HTC stage, who plays Sherri’s best friend, Ginnie. HTC president Andrew Botsford directs the production. Set design is by Sean Marbury, lighting design is by Sebastian Paczynski, sound is by Seamus Naughton and costumes are by Teresa Lebrun.

Performances of “Admissions” at Quogue Community Hall are Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. An additional matinée will be offered during the final weekend of the production, on Saturday, February 1. The Hampton Theatre Company is offering special dinner theater packages in collaboration with the Westhampton, Southampton, Hampton Bays and Quogue libraries. A lunch theater package is available for the Saturday matinée on February 1, with the Quogue Club at the Hallock House. Discount tickets are available for veterans, Native Americans, under 35, students, and groups. For tickets and information visit hamptontheatre.org. Tickets can also be purchased at OvationTix at 1-866-811-4111.