Coffee House Club : A thousand shapes
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About the Event
In Barrie Kreinik’s compelling new play A Thousand Shapes, the lives of three university women—a professor, a PhD candidate, and a freshman—grow dangerously entangled as they examine the romantic friendship of literary icons Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. Boundaries are crossed and illusions shattered as the women confront elemental questions about hierarchy, power, and sexuality. When do our labels become our limitations? Can we learn from the past as we stride into the future? And how many shapes can love really take?
About the Presenters
Barrie Kreinik, Playwright (Vita)
Barrie Kreinik is an actor, singer, writer, and award-winning audiobook narrator based in New York City. Her original audio drama The Queen of Fourteenth Street, produced by Hachette Audio, was one of Barnes and Noble’s Best Audiobooks of 2024 and received an AudioFile Earphones Award. She has been a semifinalist in three national playwriting competitions and her plays have been workshopped at Trinity Rep and the Bechdel Project. Barrie’s performance credits include numerous Off-Broadway and regional theatre productions and over 200 audiobooks. She holds an MFA in Acting from Brown/Trinity Rep and a BA in Theatre and English from Cornell.
Caitlin Davies, Director
Caitlin Davies is a theater and audiobook director and award-winning audiobook narrator. She has directed in New York and regionally and assistant directed Mac Beth (Hunter Theater Project, dir. Erica Schmidt), Hindle Wakes (Mint Theater Company, dir. Gus Kaikkonen), The Sound of Music (Alabama Shakespeare Festival, dir. Rick Dildine) and Into The Breeches! (Trinity Repertory Company, dir. Tyler Dobrowksy). Audio productions directed by Caitlin have been Audie Award Finalists, Best Of The Year selections, and won AudioFile Earphones Awards. She has a BA in English from Vassar College and MFA in Acting from Brown/Trinity Rep.
Orlagh Cassidy (Alice)
Award-winning actor Orlagh Cassidy is a New York based actor who has worked on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in Regional Theatres. She has graced the stages at The Nederlander Theater, The Walter Kerr Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Manhattan Class Company, The Irish Repertory Theatre, Origin Theatre and The Public Theater. She has had supporting roles in the feature films St. Vincent, Shirley, After Yang, and The Pale Blue Eye. She has been a frequent guest-star and recurring player on series such as Homeland, The Sinner, Gotham, Law and Order SVU, The Good Wife, The Loudest Voice, and Bull. She spent 11 years in ‘Springfield’ recurring on Guiding Light as District Attorney turned Mayor, Doris Wolf. Known at her Alma Mater, S.U.N.Y. at Purchase, as the ‘queen of dialects,’ she has had an extensive career in audiobooks, winning over 25 awards for her narration from Audiofile Magazine along with two Audie Award nominations
Jocelyn Kuritsky (Vivian)
Jocelyn Kuritsky is an actor & creator, with a focus on experimental theater & new forms. She has performed in a wide array of NYC stage productions. She has also appeared on TV, in film, & in audio fiction podcasts. Jocelyn is the creator of A Simple Herstory, a Telly Award winning multi-platform podcast series. Season 1 was honored at The Tank Theater’s 2022 Gala, & the series was also profiled in Forbes. She is also a founder & the actor-in-residence of the Drama Desk nominated & Lucille Lortel Award winning immersive theater company, Woodshed Collective. Along with her colleagues at Woodshed, she is one of the original conceivers of Broadway’s groundbreaking, Tony Award nominated KPOP.
Kimberly Chatterjee: OFF-BROADWAY: Life Sucks (Wheelhouse Theater), Kate Hamill’s Pride and Prejudice (Primary Stages), Dance Nation (Playwrights Horizons), The Tempest (Classical Theatre of Harlem). SELECT REGIONAL: Legacy of Light (McCarter Theatre), The Light and the Dark (Chautauqua), Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B (Portland Center Stage), Emma (PlayMakers Repertory), Romeo and Juliet, Mr. Burns, As You Like It, Macbeth, Measure for Measure (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival), Noises Off (The Guthrie), As You Like It (Folger). TV: “High Maintenance.” TRAINING: NYU New Studio on Broadway. Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Autumn Dornfeld (Virginia)
Autumn Dornfeld: New York Theater: The Graduate (Broadway and National Tour), Beebo Brinker Chronicles, UnCivil Wars with Estelle Parsons, Prometheus Bound with David Oyelowo, Frankenstein Upstairs, The Taming of the Shrew, Will Eno’s Intermission, Perfect Harmony (Co-creator), Homebody/Kabul, A Home Without, Old Money. Regional Favorites: The Grapes of Wrath, Under Midwestern Stars, The Tin-Pan-Alley Rag, A Little Night Music (Citysearch award Best Supporting Actress), The ThreePenny Opera. Film/TV includes: The Undeserved, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, “Law and Order,” “All My Children,” Trading Women, Sunburn.
Gillian Wiggin (Stage Directions)
Gillian Wiggin is an actor, voiceover artist and teaching artist. Credits include: NYC: Agamemnon (La Mama, E.T.C.), Cymbeline, Love’s Labor’s Lost (Baryshnikov Arts Center); International/National Tours: Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song! (dir. Melvin Van Peebles, Sons d’Hiver Festival, Paris), Catch-22, Julius Caesar (Aqulia); Regional: Illyria (Virginia Shakespeare Festival), Blithe Spirit (Gulfshore Playhouse), Bedroom Farce (Oldcastle Theatre Company); VO work: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, plus numerous commercials and audiobooks. BFA from NYU.
Helen Sheehy, Talkback Host
Helen Sheehy grew up on farms in Oklahoma and Kansas, although she’s lived in Connecticut most of her life. She’s worked as a dramaturg, written biographies of theatre pioneers Margo Jones, Eva Le Gallienne, and Eleonora Duse, and penned a number of articles, essays, and short stories. She’s taught acting at a university and in a maximum security prison. She’s a member of PEN and the Authors Guild. Her first novel Just Willa, a sweeping work of historical fiction about a daughter’s search to understand her mother and the lost world she inhabited in rural Oklahoma, was published by Cave Hollow Press in April 2025.