Coastal Disturbances

Coastal Disturbances is a play by Tina Howe, which premiered Off-Broadway in 1986 and transferred to Broadway. It received a Tony Award nomination as Best Play. The play takes place on a beach in Massachusetts.

Howe said that she "really wanted to write a love story... I think I've gone to great pains to bury my romantic and sexual side, and that I've been exploring my fanciful, artistic side. I thought it was time to try to face those deeper longings." Coastal Disturbances focuses on lovers trying to come to terms with each other.

The play opened Off-Broadway in a Second Stage Theatre production at the McGinn-Cazale Theatre on November 19, 1986, and ran for 45 performances. Directed by Carole Rothman, the cast featured Annette Bening (Holly Dancer), Timothy Daly (Leo Hart) and Rosemary Murphy (M. J. Adams). It transferred to Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre on February 14, 1987, in previews, opening on March 4, 1987, and closing on January 3, 1988, after 350 performances and 20 previews. The Off-Broadway director and most of the cast, including Bening and Daly, were in the Broadway production.

The play was produced at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, in July 2006, with Jeremy Davidson as Leo Hart, Annie Parisse as Holly Dancer and Patricia Conolly as M.J. Adams.

Artist M.J. Adams, a senior, paints at a private beach on the north shore of Massachusetts. At the end of August, her niece, Holly Dancer, a photographer, has come for a visit to escape her troubled life -- both private and work. The young attractive lifeguard Leo Hart is attracted to Holly, but he is just getting over a failed romance. Another visitor to the beach, Ariel Took, now divorced and bitter, brings her young son Winston to play on the beach, but she cannot get away from her own sadness. Also visiting is Faith, Ariel's Wellesley College roommate, who is pregnant, and who has brought along her adopted daughter Miranda. After Holly and Leo start a romance, Andre Sor, Holly's real romantic interest, arrives. Holly leaves to return to her New York home, and, although she has told Leo that she cannot continue their romance, she gives him her phone number. Finally, M.J. Adams and her husband Dr. Hamilton “Hammy” Adams come to the beach together, comfortable in their long relationship.

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