cunnicularii

written by Sophie McIntosh
directed by Nina Goodheart
produced by Good Apples Collective & Esmé Maria Ng

Mary is an expectant mother. Mary gives birth to a rabbit. Mary must adjust her expectations.

A piercing fable about the wonder and brutality of motherhood, cunnicularii interrogates the crushing pressure new parents face and questions how much of ourselves we can truly give to our offspring.

cunnicularii was presented as an Equity Showcase at Alchemical Studios, 50 W. 17th Street, New York, NY in the summer of 2024.

PRODUCTION TEAM
Director: Nina Goodheart
Producer: Good Apples Collective and Esmé Maria Ng
Assoc. Director & Assoc. Producer: Gabrielle Niederhoffer
Stage Manager: Cori Diaz
Movement Director: Willow Funkhouser
Lighting Designer: Paige Seber
Costume Designer: Saawan Tiwari
Scenic & Props Designer: Evan Johnson
Sound Designer: Max Van
Assistant Stage Manager: Caro Klureza*
Dramaturg: Mo Holmes
Composer: Maria Shaughnessy
Public Relations: Emily Owens PR

CAST
Mary: Camille Umoff*
Howard: Juan Arturo*
Gladys: Jen Anaya*
Doctor / Greg: Benjamin Milliken

* denotes member of
Actors’ Equity.

You can access the digital program from our production HERE.

is expecting the same as wanting?

and is wanting the same as love?

“See cunnicularii.”

— Sara Holdren, New York Magazine

“McIntosh’s latest, cunnicularii, is a swiftly cinematic marvel under Nina Goodheart’s impressively balletic direction. Goodheart directs with a fantastic sense of stagecraft, featuring fluid transitions and reveals that move the plot forward… creating an impressionistic portrait of women’s dystopias amid men’s picket fence paradises. cunnicularii demonstrates McIntosh’s immense skill at exploring womanhood across a range of genres, modes, and tones.’

— Juan A. Ramirez, Theatrely

“Sophie McIntosh's cunnicularii at Good Apples Collective is a sly, shoestring-budget cabinet-of-wonders: a woman (Camille Umoff) gives birth to a rabbit, and no one seems to blink. (No one blinks at the way she's bleeding, either.) Nina Goodheart's production happens in a space not much larger than a glassed-in porch, but Umoff's precisely calibrated trembling — the sheen of one tear in each eye, the way she blinks at her doctor's rudeness — is seamlessly naturalistic, even from only a foot or so away. Umoff's straight-woman response to the nonsense around her (Juan Arturo is her goofy husband, Benjamin Milliken is the doctor and a lawnmower-obsessed neighbor) unlocks both cunnicularii's humor and its swift pathos. (She also looks like a Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting.) cunnicularii isn't some 1:1 parable about postpartum depression; it's a humanist mystery in the absurdist tradition. The play shows a real person making her way through a bizarre environment, a world "out of harmony" that feels familiar without seeming real.”

— Helen Shaw, theater critic for The New Yorker

“cunnicularii, beautifully written by Sophie McIntosh and sensitively directed by Nina Goodheart, is a fantasy that deals with many of the adjustments in attitudes and perspectives encountered by new parents. It is a beautifully realized drama, both funny and serious. If you enjoy good theater, with solid acting, it will be very much worth the effort to see this production. The creative team does an extraordinary job with what is basically a stark, white room. The lighting design by Paige Seber adds definition to the space and beautifully underscores and transforms the scenes, infusing them with an extension of the emotions being expressed. Max Van’s sound design is a solid complement to the lighting, adding to the dramatic impact of the action. The sets and props by Evan Johnson are perfectly attuned to the story’s performance space and critical elements. Saawan Tiwari’s costume design rounds out the definition of the characters with a minimum of changes.”

— TheatreScene

“cunnicularii is a bold new play by Sophie McIntosh that asks uncomfortable and essential questions about the expectations placed on mothers. The play is wildly funny as well as deeply serious. When Mary, performed with haunting realism by Camille Umoff, gives birth to a rabbit, she finds herself grappling with difficult emotions, particularly her inability to connect with her rabbit daughter, Josephine. Performed in a stark white box studio at the Alchemical studios, NYC, the production’s pace is relentless, combining painfully realistic conversations with physical theater, dream sequences, and a highly effective lighting and soundscape. Mary’s internal world projects itself onto every detail of the performance, and the audience is swept along entirely. The play deals with difficult and distressing topics, including postpartum depression and grief… but, in the end, there is great hope and even greater love, found when Mary can accept without shame her own brutal and magical experience of motherhood.”

— Plays to See

“Nina Goodheart’s direction is immensely precise right down to the multifunctional set and blocking, creating a seamless flow for the audience in this intermissionless 95-minute play. Sophie McIntosh’s writing of cunnicularii captures the layered nature of motherhood with uncanny skill.”

— Theatre Beyond Broadway

“cunnicularii births a captivating magical realist look at motherhood… With her fantastic — and fantastical — new play, Sophie McIntosh explores the silences and prescriptions that continue to surround motherhood — and fatherhood. cunnicularii deftly interlaces its themes via a mixture of emotional authenticity, keen satire, and passages of lyrical beauty. We may be losing the right to choose whether to bear children, and we don’t want to tell you what to do with your life, but you still can, and should, choose to see cunnicularii.”

— Thinking Theatre NYC

“Part social commentary, part fantasy, part bedtime story, fully engaging… In director Nina Goodheart‘s crisp and attention-grabbing production, there’s a deep and compelling subtext burrowed beneath the whimsical surface. cunnicularii has secured my opinion that Sophie McIntosh is an exciting playwright to watch.”

— Theatre Pizzazz