In The Next Room or the vibrator play is a comedy about marriage, intimacy and electricity which had its world premiere earlier this year at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. A provocative, funny, touching and marvelously entertaining story about a young doctor and his wife set at the dawn of the age of electricity in the 1880s. Back then hysteria was a real diagnosis, and women were commonly treated with electrical stimulating machines to ease their condition! Playwright Sarah Ruhl wondered what exactly doctors were thinking when they used vibrator therapies on their female patients. And what did women think was happening to them? In the Next Room or the vibrator play looks at a young technology-obsessed doctor and the devoted wife who longs to connect with him -- but not electrically.

Sarah Ruhl returns to Lincoln Center Theater where she made her New York debut with her play The Clean House. Her other plays include Dead Man's Cell Phone, Demeter in the City, Eurydice, Late: a cowboy song, Melancholy Play, Orlando and Passion Play: a cycle. Her work has also been produced in New York at Playwrights Horizons and the Second Stage and nationally at many theaters including the Goodman, Yale Rep and the Woolly Mammoth Theaters.

Les Waters, an Obie Award winning director, is the associate artistic director of Berkeley Rep. His New York credits include productions at BAM. the Manhattan Theatre Club, CSC, Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, Second Stage Theater and Signature Theatre Company.
Cast Members: Laura Benanti, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Michael Cerveris, Maria Dizzia, Thomas Jay Ryan, Wendy Rich Stetson, Chandler Williams