A POEM & A MISTAKE
About the Play
With elegant storytelling, A Poem and a Mistake cuts to the human experience of the duality in all of us: aggressor and victim, teacher and student, god and mortal. The result is a tour de force performance that changes every audience member that encounters it.
A Poem and Mistake is inspired by our work with Stephanie McCarter, award-winning translator of Metamorphoses (New Yorker Best Books of 2022), and the #metoo movement.
What People Are Saying
"Sharply written by Cheri Magid and punchily performed by Sarah Baskin"
“Humorous as well as thought provoking, pummelling through time, space, identity, myth and modernity.”
“A refreshing, bold and enlightening experiment in theatrical form.”
— The Scotsman
“Cheri Magid’s intelligent play provides a fine showcase for Sarah Baskin’s considerable acting skills. …They both then follow a poetically imagined but fast-paced journey through some of Ovid’s transformations, interspersed with Mara’s own personal experiences.
There’s an elegiac ending which shows that perhaps both have learned from the experience, though equally, that the abuse of power is as widely spread in its origin and nature as it ever was.”
— Alex Cranston, Three Weeks Edinburgh
“Baskin, directed by Michelle Bossy, is mesmerising. Her fluid character is another clever allusion to the play’s classical material, and she executes each shift with agile precision.
When a god enters the room it’s a strong, arched back and a haughty expression, and when a man, round shoulders and a grimace. Baskin’s movement about the stage is as articulate as the script.
…a compelling execution of an intelligent script.”
— Frankie Reason, Scottish Field
-
NYC-based actor and filmmaker originally from Montreal. As an actor, Sarah has worked on stage (Off-Broadway, Regionally, and in downtown theater) and screen(HBO, Amazon, Hulu, CBS, NBC, several independent films).Upcoming work includes a supporting role opposite Zak Efronand Joey King in the Netflix feature Untitled Romcom (dir.Richard LaGravanese). Sarah's award-winning directorialdebut, Les Câlins Cheaps (Cheap Hugs), is a bilingual short filmcurrently in its festival run. Company member of Subway TokenFilms, The Actors Center. MFA: American Repertory Theatre /Moscow Art Theatre School at Harvard University.
-
a Mexican-American theater, television, and filmdirector. Theater Michelle directed includes Smile, The Oxy Complex,There and Back, Every Good Girl Deserves Fun, Sex of the Baby, UnPlugged In, and Sarajevo’s Child. Her films include 18, She Grinds HerOwn Coffee, The New 35, Friendly Neighborhood Coven, Ladies Lounge,Miracle Baby, Incurable, klutz, Chance of Showers, Antisemite, and TheTrespassed. Under the Lantern Lit Sky and Nobody’s Home are Michelle’sfeature films. She directed music videos for Yassou and BrookeJosephson. Michelle directed the series There’s a Special Place in Hellfor Fashion Bloggers and The Broadway Babies Show. Michelle co-created the musical High School Confidential for Primary Stages, whereshe was the Associate Artistic Director. She holds the first directingdegree from Webster University. Member: Lincoln Center Director’s Laband SDC.
Meet the Team
-
writes plays, librettos, screenplays and television and her work has been seen nationally and internationally. She is currently writing a nine-episode scripted podcast, The Classics , about consensual non-monogamy, Ovid, academic freedom, and the alt right, for Sarah Jessica Parker and Audible UK. A Poem and a Mistake has been featured on BBC Radio 4, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, and produced at Delaware Rep. Penelope and the Geese , her opera with composer Milica Paranosic, was produced by UD Opera in June and then toured Greece. She also wrote for the Emmy -award winning kids’ show Arthur .
-
an award-winning theatremaker and producer nomadicallycreating innovative work in the United States and abroad. Recent work includesproducing Seriously Entertaining, a monthly literary series at Joe's Pub at the PublicTheater, New York City; line producing Shades Through a Shade for Gare St LazareIreland at the Dublin Theatre Festival; and leading numerous activations for LiveNation at major music festivals across the USA. Career highlights include co-producing, co-writing, and performing in Luck at the Dublin Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe,Adelaide Fringe, and 59E59 Theaters in New York City; devising and performing partof THISISPOPBABY's world-touring show RIOT (Dublin, Sydney, Melbourne, New York,Toronto); and producing the immersive, biographical, site-specific Only Miracles atTulane University. She also recently received a Certification of ProfessionalAchievement in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University.
