On Thursday, June 19, Shakespeare & Company opens Season 2025 with the World Premiere of The Victim by Lawrence Goodman, directed by Daniel Gidron.
Through interconnected monologues, three women — a doctor, a home healthcare aide, and a Holocaust survivor — present their claim to be the true victims of injustice. Throughout the play, several uncomfortable questions are raised: has DEI gone too far? How do you rank whose oppression and suffering matter most? How is the memory of the Holocaust used and abused? Can we ever hope to overcome our differences?
The play stars Stephanie Clayman as Daphne, a successful New York doctor whose racial diversity training goes wrong; Yvette King as Maria, a health aide grappling with racism during the COVID-19 pandemic; and Annette Miller as Ruth, a Holocaust survivor facing horror and finding her way back to love and healing. Goodman said his play grew from thinking about victimhood at a time when Americans can’t seem to agree on what the word ‘victim’ means.
“I wondered why when one group calls themselves victims, other groups feel their victimhood status is threatened,” he said. “Asserting victimhood endows you with a moral status; others somehow feel like you are encroaching on their moral high ground.”The Victim runs through July 20 at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre. Tickets are on sale now at shakespeare.org or by calling the Box Office at 413.637.3353. $5 Card to Culture tickets for EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare participants are available for in-person purchase or by calling the Box Office. For more information, visit shakespeare.org.
About the Cast
Stephanie Clayman has performed Off-Broadway in The Women’s Project, Vineyard Theatre, and regionally at Kennedy Center and Trinity Rep. In the Boston area, she’s performed at the Huntington Theatre, Gloucester Stage, Merrimack Rep, New Rep, Lyric Stage, Central Square Theater, and on film, she’s appeared in The Women, Orphan, and A Simple Question. She can be seen putting her Deaf Studies degree to good use in What’s the Worst That Could Happen? as her character gleefully interprets a string of invective into American Sign Language. An alumna of Shakespeare & Company’s Center for Actor Training Month-long Intensive (1989), some of her favorite roles include Clive/Betty (Cloud Nine), Flora (Humble Boy), Irene (Beyond Words), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Gertrude (The Underpants), and Ann Landers (The Lady With All the Answers).
Yvette King has previously performed in Elektra: The Opera at NYC’s DiMenna Center, Rabbit Hole at Atlantic Theater Company, Vatican Falls at Theatre for a New City, Houseless in Paradise and The Unsaleable Thing as part of NYC’s Fringe Festival, and The Taming of the Shrew at Riverbank State Park. Yvette was also a company member of The Bats of The Flea Theater under the artistic direction of Jim Simpson. She holds a BA in Theatre from SUNY Albany.
Annette Miller has performed on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in Boston, in Regional Theaters, and in Film and Television. She has been a leading actor at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., for 25 seasons. Annette was awarded a Special Citation at the 2024 Elliott Norton awards ceremony for her body of work and her recent sold-out reprisal of Golda’s Balcony at Shakespeare & Company and at Boston’s Emerson Paramount Theater, February and March 2024. She was acclaimed by The Wall Street Journal as the best actor of the 2020 season in regional theater for her performance as Gladys Green in The Waverly Gallery. She received the 2018 Berkshire Theater Critics Association Award for Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role for her portrayal of Katherine in Mothers and Sons. Annette originated the role of Golda Meir in Golda’s Balcony before it went to Broadway, for which she received both Boston’s Elliot Norton Best Actor Award and the Independent Reviewers of New England Best Actor Award. In Florida, she received the Carbonell Best Actor Award nomination for her portrayal of Vi in August Osage County and the Elliot Norton Best Actor Nomination for her role as Martha Mitchell in Martha Mitchell Calling. Other favorite roles include Maria Callas in Master Class, Madam Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard, Vera in 4,000 Miles, Diana Vreeland in Full Gallop, Duchess of York in Richard III, and Maria in Twelfth Night.
Film role credits include: Mrs. Tanken in Don’t Look Up with Leonardo DiCaprio, You Will Not Play Wagner (featuring Annette, which has been successfully seen at the New Plaza Cinema in NY and the Miami, Sarasota, Boca, Chicago, and Vancouver Jewish film Festivals and this June at the prestigious Berkshire International Film Festival.), Company Men, Autumn Heart, The Imported Bride Groom, The Next Karate Kid, The Eye Has to Travel (documentary on Diana Vreeland), and See How She Runs. On TV, Annette had recurring roles on As The World Turns and Ryan’s Hope. Other awards include the Boston Jewish Film Festival Award and the Zev Cohen Leadership Award. Annette studied with Stella Adler and holds a BA and MFA from Brandeis University. She is currently an Alumni Scholar at Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center where she wrote and continues to perform for organizations and colleges. Now is Our Time: for a Theatrical Collage on the Pleasures and Perils of our Third Chapter.
