Rapture, Blister, Burn

Rapture, Blister, Burn follows two successful women on radically opposing trajectories. Catherine has built a career as a rockstar academic while Gwen has built a loving home;each, however, longs for the road not taken. In this dangerous game of musical chairs, audiences will enjoy playwright Gina Gionfriddo’s searing insight and trademark wit. In the era of social media’s#MeToo and #TimesUp movements, the feminist underpinnings of this play could not be more relevant.

2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist

Courtney Lomelo as Catherine
Elaine Robinson as Gwen
Susan Shofner as Alice
Christina Austin Lopez as Avery
REVIEWS:
- Houston Chronicle: ‘Rapture, Blister, Burn’ at 4th Wall touches on hot topics
- Houstonia: It’s Hard Not to Get Caught Up in Rapture, Blister, Burn
- Broadway World Houston: RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN raises a feminist eyebrow at 4th Wall Theatre Company
PREVIEWS AND MENTIONS:
- Houstonia: Family or Career? Rapture, Blister, Burn Suggests There Is No Right Answer
- Houston Press: Houston Premiere of Comedy Rapture, Blister, Burn at 4th Wall Theatre Co. Explores Roads Not Taken
- Broadway World Houston: First Look at 4th Wall Theatre Company’s RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN
Stage Manager | Kalin Menzel
Assistant Director | Braden Hunt
Set Design | Kevin Rigdon
Lighting Design | Kevin Rigdon
Sound Design | Yezminne Zepeda
Costume Design | Macy Lyne
Properties Master | Afsaneh Aayani
Board Operator | Bradley Jackson
Gina Gionfriddo (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright and accomplished television writer. Her play Rapture, Blister, Burn was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The show had a twice-extended run off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons and also recently had a successful run at the Hampstead Theatre in London. Ms. Gionfriddo’s play Becky Shaw, also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama enjoyed a long off-Broadway run at Second Stage (Outer Critics Circle Award) and in London at the Almeida Theatre, where it received two Evening Standard Award nominations.
Her other plays include After Ashley (Vineyard Theatre, Obie Award); U.S. Drag (Clubbed Thumb and the stageFARM); Squalor and America’s Got Tragedy (one-acts at the stageFARM) and Guinevere (O’Neill Playwrights Conference). Ms. Gionfriddo received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting, as well as the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights and an American Theatre Critics Association/Steinberg Citation.
She has worked as a writer and producer for Law & Order and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and as a writer for Cold Case. Her other TV work includes Borgia and House of Cards. Ms. Gionfriddo is a graduate of Barnard College and Brown University’s MFA playwriting program. She has taught at Brown University and Providence College. (Bio courtesy of Goodman Theatre)