Bard Theater & Performance Program presents
Good Penny
April 18–20
Bard Theater & Performance Program presents
April 18–20
The Bard Theater & Performance Program presents Good Penny by DN Bashir, Assistant Professor of Theater & Performance at Bard College, and directed by Katherine Wilkinson.
William Axelrod | ZETH, COW, RONNIE
Andrés Berman | PK BLOOM, MISS SCARLET, DOG
Robert Holmes a Court | NEW ACCOUNT MANAGER, BULL
Aidan Kennedy | DIONYSUS
Lily Mikita | COWLY, AGATHA/AGAVE
Fyodor Michael | AMP, HUMAN, JILL
Brendan Paholak | JADE/KADMOS, HORSE
Andie Schultz | ABBY, SUSY
Helena Steger | MARIGOLD, GWEN/PENTHEUS
Playwright DN Bashir
Directed by Katherine Wilkinson
Set Design by Yi-Hsuan “Ant” Ma
Costume Design by Avery Reed
Lighting Design by Christina Tang
Sound Design by Caroline Eng
Choreography by Tara Lorenzen
Voice and Speech Support: Lindsey Liberatore
Violence/Intimacy Coordinator: Christina (Cha) Ramos
Production Stage Manager: Nakia Shalice Avila
Assistant Stage Managers: Jamie Parrott, Leo Riley
Script Support: Caleb Vaughn, Lucy Berger, Charlotte Willson
Costume Design Observer: Riley Faberman
Good Penny explores the divine authority of money through the lens of The Bacchae, slipping across time, consciousness, and form. The Greeks—or the Ancients—are not resurrected here as relics, but as vibrations still thrumming under our skin. They rise not as myth, but as memory. Their rites, their rages, still echo through our boardrooms and bedrooms. This play lives at the seams—between the corporate and the mythic, the personal and the political, the sacred and the profane.
It began with an obsession—with money. But obsession is only the surface. Beneath it: fear. Fear that I will never have or be enough. Beneath that: grief. Grief for all of the time effort energy spent playing a rigged game. Fear and Grief are harsh gods waging a quiet but radioactive war inside the body. They whisper insidiously – “Get Up! Work! Until you earn your place on this planet you don’t deserve rest or safety”. This core belief is calcified in the bones – inherited and enforced across generations, institutions, and systems. This possession of the soul led me—inevitably—to Dionysus, to madness, to rupture, to reckoning.
My work traverses in a lineage of theatrical experimenters—Brecht, Beckett, Kennedy, and debbie tucker green, makers who rupture form and summon deep seeing. Thus, I took license to break the frame of our source text to make space for excess, and uncertainty. In Good Penny, Dionysus leads us through five tales that weave in and out of Theban myth exploring currency in lineage, labor, and love.
Katherine, an expert on The Bacchae, brings not only rich dramaturgical depth, but a lived intimacy with Dionysian chaos. Her insight into Brechtian thought, Greek myth, and the sublime irrational has shaped the heart of this play. Collaborating with Tara Lorenzen of Bard Dance has been a revelation. Her choreographic imagination—rooted in the legacy of Trisha Brown, Ralph Lemon, and others—grounds the play’s fever dream in gesture, rhythm, and flesh.
I’m deeply grateful to Katherine, Nakia, Tara, and these extraordinary students, whose courage and rigor have midwifed this strange, tender thing into the world.
Dionysus, I hope you’re watching.
—DN Bashir
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Eat & StayBard College’s main campus is located in Annandale-on-Hudson (a hamlet of Red Hook), New York, on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 90 miles north of New York City and 220 miles southwest of Boston. The Taconic State Parkway and the New York State Thruway provide the most direct routes to our campus. Click the Google map below, or get directions by entering the following address into your GPS: 60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, NY 12571.
From the East
If you are traveling from east of the Hudson River in New York State, take the Taconic State Parkway to the Red Hook / Route 199 exit, drive west on Route 199 through the village of Red Hook to Route 9G, turn right onto Route 9G, drive north 1.9 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
From the West
If you are traveling from west of the Hudson River, take the New York State Thruway (I-87) to exit 19 (Kingston), take Route 209 (changes to Route 199 at the Hudson River) over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge to Route 9G, turn left onto Route 9G, drive north 3.5 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
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Accessible Seating
Wheelchair-accessible seating is available at all performances. Due to the flexible nature of this performance space, wheelchair seating varies for each production.
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