Some Things Are Private

Photographs by Wilson Chin

When an artist photographs her family, are the images intimate or indecent? Are they exploitations or expressions of love? American photographer Sally Mann published and sold images she created of her naked children playing at their summer cabin, and ignited a debate that raged across the country. In Some Things Are Private, Mann meets the fictional character Thomas Kramer, and their clash of beliefs and desires leads to unexpected places, revealing how provocative Mann’s images of her children remain today.

“Critic’s Pick” by The Boston Globe

“Luminous, intelligent, provocative, and deeply moving––all these adjectives apply to Some Things Are Private, as well as to the photographer whose pictures inspired it, Sally Mann. More than adjectives, though, what both Mann’s work and this remarkable play call for is an imperative: See it…It’s also great fun––never preachy, often humorous, and suffused throughout with a mixture of emotional warmth and intellectual engagement that’s only too rare in contemporary culture… Some Things Are Private is talking about the complexity and brilliance of Mann’s art by being, itself, a complex and brilliant work of art.”— The Boston Globe

“A riveting, illuminating evening of theater.”— EDGE New England

Credits:

 Premiere production:
Created by Deborah Salem Smith and Laura Kepley
Written by Deborah Salem Smith
Directed by Laura Kepley
Set design by Wilson ChinCostume design by William LaneSound design by Peter Sasha Hurowitz 
Lighting by Brian J. Lilienthal 
Projections by Jamie Jewett
Featured Richard Donnelly, Janice Duclos, Annie Scurria, Stephen Thorne, and Rachael Warren.