Blessed Unrest: A Fantasia on Martha Graham's Demons | BorderLight 2026

Anne J. McEvoy

Someone needs to write a book about Anne McEvoy. Many know her as a local theater actor and director. She has played most Cleveland area stages — and also her streets as a historic interpreter.

Did you also know she co-founded Nature's Bin in the 1970s, which was not only an important local food source but provided vocational training for those with developmental disabilities?

I first got to know Anne when we were both cast in You Can't Take It With You at Great Lakes Theater in 2005, and soon after we played together in The Dark Lady of the Sonnets for the GLT outreach tour.

She's originated roles in a few of my plays, including my adaptation of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and during the quarantine she was a player in Savory Taṇhā for Cleveland Public Theatre. 

And with Women in History she has interpreted a slew a memorable characters, including Sarah Bernhardt, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abigail Adams, and Dorothy Fuldheim, among many others. She also performed the role of Mary, mother of Jesus, in Mamaí Theater Company's final production, The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín, a production marked by crowds of protestors lining the avenue currently occupied by the BorderLight Festival. 

William & Elizabeth
"The Dark Lady of the Sonnets"
(2006)

In Blessed Unrest: A Fantasia on Martha Graham's Demons (written by the performer, directed by Jamie Koeth) McEvoy embodies the legendary mother of modern dance as she grapples with the limitations of her physical self. The unapologetic anger she feels that can no longer dance, anger and resentment, but never self-pity.

Emily Kuntz makes two remarkable appearances, first as a memory of a young Graham, dancing in ponytail and black headband. Later, as a contemporary student, providing the septuagenarian Graham the opportunity to find a way back from despair.

It's a bravura performance from McEvoy, and one I hope finds a larger local audience some time soon.

BorderLight Theatre Festival at Playhouse Square, July 8-11, 2026

Closed Loop of Consanguinity | BorderLight 2026

Carol Laursen & Emily Liptow

I am always so grateful to have the opportunity to catch something I missed the first time around. Emily Liptow and Carol Laursen were developing Closed Loop of Consanguinity at Cleveland Public Theatre as part of Soft Launch last winter (where our elder child was also presenting) but we missed it. Here it is again!

Carol and I met at Ohio University and we performed together in Michael Frayn's Wild Honey in 1990, and later in Eight Impressions of a Lunatic for Red Hen Productions. I have directed her In Shakespeare. We are both citizens of Cleveland Heights, her children were child-minders for our children. I love Carol.

Closed Loop of Consanguinity is a brief, semi-improvised dance and movement piece in which the two artists explore the space and objects and each other and at times even the audience. The event begins with a voiceover inviting the audience to switch seats, to have a different perspective, and I kept thinking of that as I watched them, asking myself what their perspective was at any given moment.

After the show an audience member I was speaking with wondered what "consanguinity" means and I told them it's having a common ancestor, to be connected by blood.  I also admitted I looked that up before the show.

Consanguinity is on a double-bill with In Visible Orbit, created and performed by Greenhouse. They perform strenuous choreography to anxiety-inducing music, allowing us to bear witness to the physical toll the work takes on them, at the same time how dedicated they are to the performance. It's a celebration of grace and exhaustion, pain and exhilaration.

While I was there I ran into playwright Eric Coble. He strongly recommends H.O.P.E., Natasha Mirny's modern interpretation of the myth of Pandora. 

BorderLight Theatre Festival at Playhouse Square, July 8-11, 2026