I And You

Artistic Director Michael Stevenson & Managing Director Liz Gray Present I AND YOU
by Lauren Gunderson
Directed by Imani Mitchell
December 3-28, 2025 PERFORMANCE LENGTH: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes, No Intermission
FEATURING:
McKenna Sennett Braeden Harris*
Lydia Crist^ (U/S) George Hillman (U/S)

Scenic Designer Caleb Jones		Lighting Designer Shae Mercer
Costume Designer Rebecca A. Valentino
Sound Designer Ed Lee		Properties Designer Riley Cisneros-Gruenthal

Intimacy Coordinator Nicole Limón		Dramaturg K. Kevyne Baar, PhD

	Stage Manager Erika L. Plancencia*

Assistant Stage Manager Lydia Crist^


SPONSORED BY:


FEMINIST LIONESS FUND




SEASON WINE SPONSOR:


“I and You” is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service imprint. (www.dramatists.com)

*Member Actors' Equity Association \| ^Capital Stage Apprentice

OUR MISSION

Capital Stage is dedicated to creating transformative, thought-provoking theater experiences that challenge, inspire, and connect.

THINGS TO KNOW

HEALTH & SAFETY:

Visit our COVID-19 Safety Protocols & Procedures Page to stay up to date on our Health & Safety requirements and recommendations.

VIDEO/PHOTOS:

Recording and photography during the performance are prohibited at Capital Stage by copyright law and union regulations.

CELL PHONES:

Patrons are asked to turn any noise making devices off upon entering the theatre.

LATE SEATING & RE-SEATING:

Due to the design of our theatre, we cannot guarantee seating for late arrivals or for patrons who leave the theatre during the performance. As a courtesy to our artists and our audiences, late arrivals will be seated in a suitable location by our staff if possible and at the appropriate intervals.

REFRESHMENTS:

Only concession items purchased in the Wine & Dessert Bar are allowed in the theatre, patio and lobby areas. Yes, you can bring your drinks and snacks into the theatre!

CHILDREN:

Capital Stage is noted for bringing intimate bold productions to our region and we encourage young adults to experience a live performance. Children age sixteen and up are welcome at Capital Stage unless specifically noted in the production’s description.

WHEELCHAIR SEATING:

Seating locations at Capital Stage for patrons using wheelchairs or with limited mobility are located in the first row. Tickets for these seats may be purchased in person or by calling the Box Office at 916-995-5464. Please call ahead to notify the staff if you required these seats.

RESTROOMS:

Restroom facilities are located in the lounge behind the Wine & Dessert Bar.

INFORMATION:

Brochures and information about upcoming Capital Stage productions and events are available in the box office or by visiting capstage.org.

Capital Stage is a member of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

Capital Stage is a member of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre.

Capital Stage is a member of the National New Play Network, the country’s alliance of leading nonprofit theaters that champion the development, production and continued life of new plays.

Capital Stage is a member of Blue Star Theatres, offering discounts to Military personnel, Military family members, and Veterans.

SDC is the theatrical union that unites, empowers, and protects professional Stage Directors and Choreographers throughout the United States.

The Representative Voice of Designers and Scenic Artists

Cast

McKenna Sennett

Caroline

Braeden Harris*

Anthony

Lydia Crist^

U/S Caroline

George Hillman

U/S Anthony

Creative Team

Lauren Gunderson

Playwright

Imani Mitchell

Director

Michael Stevenson

Artistic Director

Liz Gray

Managing Director

Tony Gabrielson

Production & Company Manager

Erika L. Placencia*

Stage Manager

Lydia Crist^

Assistant Stage Manager

Caleb Jones

Scenic Designer & Technical Director

Shae Mercer

Lighting Designer

Rebecca A. Valentino

Costume Designer

Ed Lee

Sound Designer

Riley Cisneros-Gruenthal

Properties Designer

Samantha McLean Haas

Scenic Charge Artist

K. Kevyne Baar, PhD

Resident Dramaturg

Nicole C. Limón

Intimacy Coordinator

Special Thanks

Joe Bertolucci, Affordable Heating & Air, Inc.

CapRadio

Di Arie Vineyard & Winery

Feminist Lioness Fund

Oak Park Brewing Company

Production Staff

Artistic Director - MICHAEL STEVENSON

Director - IMANI MITCHELL

Production & Company Manager - TONY GABRIELSON

Stage Manager - ERIKA L. PLACENCIA*

Assistant Stage Manager - LYDIA CRIST^

Scenic Designer & Technical Director - CALEB JONES

Lead Carpenter - CONOR WOODS

Carpenter, Painter - SUNNY MACKEY

Lighting Designer & Lead Electrician - SHAE MERCER

Costume Designer - REBECCA A. VALENTINO

Scenic Charge Artist - SAMANTHA McLEAN HAAS

Sound Designer & Engineer - ED LEE

Properties Designer - RILEY CISNEROS-GRUENTHAL

Build Crew - SUNNY MACKEY, CONOR WOODS, CALEB JONES

Painters - SAMANTHA McLEAN HAAS, CALEB JONES, SUNNY MACKEY, CONOR WOODS

Wardrobe/Run Crew - STEPHEN BYRUM^, HAILEY BOWLAND^, JAMES SIMPSON^

Resident Dramaturg - K. KEVYNE BAAR, PHD

Intimacy Coordinator - NICOLE C. LIMÓN

BIAPOC Liaison - RICHARD FALCON

Infection Control Manager/Admin. & Payroll Assistant - ELIJAH PETERS

Graphic Designer, Marketing Manager, Webmaster - MISTY MCDOWELL

Photographer - CHARR CRAIL

^ Capital Stage Apprentice | * Member Actors' Equity Association

About The Play

by K. Kevyne Baar, PhD

“When you read a poem and you write about it, the set tone in that language infects your literary analysis. So my analysis was quite full of Whitman-esque little bits of language, so it felt meta on about three or four levels. I remember that chill and that excitement and that sense of what Caroline says, and Anthony says, too, that it’s about how this poet is talking to you.”

– Lauren Gunderson

The poem being referenced is “Song of Myself,” from Walt Whitman’s classic, Leaves of Grass, a poem dear to our playwright and by extension, to the two young people of I AND YOU; heady material for the young and vulnerable. The work as a whole, with excerpts put forth by our characters, “was an attempt to reach the common person through an American epic, venerating the body as well as the soul, and finding beauty and reassurance even in death.” Or, as the critic Ben Brantley opines, Whitman “provides a good road map to the perplexities of life for the young and restless.”

I AND YOU introduces us to two high school students, Caroline who is suffering from an unspecified illness and in who’s bedroom the play is staged, and Anthony, grappling with social anxiety and a need to finish this assignment. For those in the audience who never had his poem assigned in an earlier class, the play might encourage you to look it up as well as the others in the collection. It allows us to understand why our playwright and her characters find it so compelling.

There is a surprise (not to be revealed by me) within the sentimentality of the play, reason enough that like so many of Gunderson’s plays, this one has received numerous productions across the United States as well as the American Theater Critics Association Steinberg-A.T.C.A. new play award for 2014. Yes, it has been around long before making it to Capital Stage, and yet, there is an ageless and comfortable quality to the material. In an interview before the production at the Olney Theatre in Maryland, Gunderson was asked what she hopes audiences will get from this kind of play? It is only fair that we give her the last word.

“I would love this community to get a sense that we’re all in one story together. Even though we might not think a 16-year-old has much to tell as a 60-year-old or a 50-year-old or a 40-year-old, of course they do, because we’re all human beings and we’re all looking for meaning, and we’re all looking to live a life that matters, a life of love and compassion and being understood. And those things don’t ever change, whether you’re six or 60. So I think that’s the biggest gift. It’s also an interesting thing to resuscitate Walt Whitman, not that he has any press problems, but when you look at a poem that’s over 150 years old and you find that it’s still relevant, I think it’s a metaphor for theatre as a whole. It’s an art form that’s so old and so basic, in a real fundamental way, still matters to us now, and can pull it together in one room and have on great cathartic experience together. I think that’s theatre at its best, and I hopefully this play is part of that tradition.”

About The Playwright

by K. Kevyne Baar, PhD

“[I AND YOU] is a play I’ve been wanting to write for a long time, and through writing it, I’ve kind of changed how I know playwriting, how I tell a story, what a story is really about and what we want a story [to be]. So, it’s changed me a lot through writing it, as much as I hope it’s changed people through seeing it.”

–Lauren Gunderson, 2015

Lauren Gunderson is a playwright, screenwriter and short story author from Atlanta, GA. She received her BA in English/Creative Writing at Emory University, and her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch, where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. She is also a familiar playwright to audiences at Capital Stage as her three plays set at Pemberley, written with Margot Melcon, and inspired by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, graced our stage during a number of Decembers. They include MISS BENNET: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY, THE WICKHAMS: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY, and GEORGIANA & KITTY: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY.

She is one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015 topping the American Theatre Magazine list three times including 2022/23. A two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I AND YOU and THE BOOK OF WILL. Gunderson is also the winner of the William Inge Distinguished Achievement in Theatre Award, the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award as well as a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Weisberger Award, and John Gassner Award for Playwriting. She was a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Residency with Marin Theatre Company.

Keeping it in the family, her play THE CATASTROPHIST, about her husband virologist Nathan Wolfe, premiered digitally in January 2021. It wasn’t her only science driven production. In 2019, HALF-LIFE OF MARIE CURIE premiered off-Broadway and is now at Audible.com. She believes strongly that, “Moments of scientific discovery are inherently dramatic.”

Her work is published at Bloomsbury (REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN: A LAUREN GUNDERSON ANTHOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, I AND YOU), Dramatists Play Service (THE REVOLUTIONISTS; THE BOOK OF WILL; SILENT SKY; BAUER, NATURAL SHOCKS, THE WICKHAMS and MISS BENNET) and Samuel French (EMILIE). She has a picture book Dr Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon that is available from Two Lions/Amazon. Then there are her credits as the book writer for musicals with Dave Stewart and Joss Stone (THE TIME TRAVELLER’S WIFE), Joriah Kwamé (SINISTER), Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk (JUSTICE and EARTHRISE), Kira Stone (BUILT FOR THIS) and Ari Afsar (JEANNETTE and this fall at the McCarter I AND YOU).

Less known is the Gunderson who is a self-described activist playwright. She notes that “we will always be in need of plays which are about desperate moments in time and how people find their way.” Touted as an arts-meets-activism writer, in April 2018, Gunderson created a national campaign of theater activism with royalty-free readings of her play NATURAL SHOCKS to address domestic violence and gun violence against women. She reminds us that, "It is a powerful thing to come together and laugh in a scary time... there is the important work of creating and sustaining community that theatre can do because it's congregational.” This is so true, even when, or especially when the protagonists are teenagers.

Meet the Company

McKenna Sennett

Caroline

McKenna is overjoyed to be making her Capital Stage debut! Previous credits include THE GROWN-UPS, TITUS ANDRONICUS, POCATELLO, and AFTER THE BLAST (Big Idea Theatre), HAMLET (CSU Sacramento), THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME, MACBETH, CLYBOURNE PARK, and PETER AND THE STARCATCHER (Solano College Theatre). McKenna has also acted in the 24 Hour Plays at B Street Theatre and the Playwrights’ Revolution here at Capital Stage. She thanks her friends and family for their endless love and support. @emcee.kenna

Braeden Harris*

Anthony

Braeden is thrilled to return to Capital Stage! Credits include: THE GLASS MENAGERIE, INSERTION (Murphys Creek Theatre), LOBBY HERO (The Stage at Burke), GEORGIANA & KITTY: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY (Capital Stage), THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG (San Francisco Playhouse), THE NEWLYWED GAME (B Street Theatre), THE KILLING (Actors Ensemble of Berkeley). Braeden earned his Associate's Degree in Theatre Arts from American River College and is a two-time nominee for the Irene Ryan Scholarship from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. He thanks his high school theatre teacher, Jennifer Ray, for inspiring him to pursue acting. @braedenharris

Lydia Crist^

U/S Caroline

Lydia is so happy to be in I AND YOU after recently making her debut at Capital Stage in EUREKA DAY! She has her degree in acting and directing from George Fox University, and is currently part of the Capital Stage Apprenticeship Program. She has previously played Annelle in STEEL MAGNOLIAS and Nellie in JEKYLL AND HYDE at Convergence Theatre Company. Enjoy the show!

George Hillman

U/S Anthony

George is unbelievably honored to be part of this team for such a beautiful play. George is currently in his final year at Sac State, working towards his BA in Theatre Arts. He loves to perform just as much as he loves to breathe, especially places in the community he has never worked with before. Some of his previous work includes Benedick in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at Sacramento State, Avery in THE FLICK at Big Idea Theatre and Junior in BEFORE IT HITS HOME at Celebration Arts. He hopes you enjoy team yawp insta: @Georgehthegreat