News

Alumna and longtime staff member Brittany Borders ‘04 recently debuted her first original full-length play, The Meeting Tree, at the Strand Theater in Dorchester. In partnership with The City of Boston and Front Porch Arts Collective, The Meeting Tree is produced through Company One, a professional Boston theater company dedicated to social justice, public engagement programming, and the development of new works. The play follows a determined woman on a journey to reclaim her family’s legacy by regaining ownership of the Alabama farm where her ancestors were once enslaved.

Now in its final week of performances before closing on Saturday, August 9, The Meeting Tree has received rave reviews from audiences, including one in The Boston Globe that called the show “a small gem of a play that deserves a much bigger audience.” Read the review in The Boston Globe here.

Borders started at Newton Country Day in the sixth grade and participated in numerous school productions, including The Taming of the Shrew, Once On This Island, and The Wiz. She also credits her tenth grade English teacher, Ann Lozeau, in helping her learn to write with intention and find her voice. As she entered adulthood, she ventured to make these passions her career. She graduated from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University with a BFA in Acting and has since been seen on stage and on the creative teams of productions at the Huntington Theatre Company, Front Porch Arts Collective, Lyric Stage Company, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, and more.

Borders’ writing career has also blossomed in recent years; she wrote Joy for Huntington Theatre Company and participated in several readings and workshops for new works at Fresh Ink Theatre and Quicksilver Theatre Company. But The Meeting Tree is a special endeavor for Borders, as it is her first original full-length play to hit a professional stage. When reflecting on her acting and playwriting careers, past, present, and future, Borders shares, “The thing I love most about theater is the collaborative process. In my professional theater career, I have had the opportunity to participate in the new play process numerous times; I got to sit in the room with a playwright as they were crafting a new project, poke holes, and ask questions before the script was finalized and before we moved into the mounted production. Transitioning into the position of playwright felt like the most natural progression in the world.”

This natural progression allowed Borders to share a story very close to home, and she is grateful to the creatives that surrounded her throughout the process who made it all possible. “The Meeting Tree definitely tackles some heavy topics, but the story is really anchored by a cast of very strong women. That was intentional,” she says. “Women are often the keepers of the legacy, the stories, and the history of a family. We have boundless capacity to change our future. It's in our hands. I hope that people understand that the past, our collective history, can feel sticky and, at times, shameful. But we have a responsibility to face it if we have any hope of moving forward.”

Read more about The Meeting Tree and purchase tickets to see the show before it closes on Saturday, August 9 here.