Diversionary Theatre’s first production of 2026, a world premiere of Harrison David Rivers’ “Straddle,” has been a true team effort.
It began with Artistic Director Sherri Eden Barber, who co-conceived this play with Rivers, reaching out to her longtime friend and creative associate in want of “a piece about two women that sees them as full beings. I wanted a romantic dramedy. I wanted a feast for them in the room.”
“My big philosophy is, if I can’t find it, let’s make it. He’s known me since the only thing I was making was mistakes.”
Barber is credited as co-conceiver of “Straddle,” a story about two lesbian women over 40 who’ve been married for 14 years — and together longer than that. The couple, Vita and Dodie, are struggling with, as Barber puts it, the questions “How do you keep it going? What is it to sustain a long-term relationship, to essentially have the ordinary become the extraordinary?”
“Straddle” co-stars Marti Gobel, last seen at Diversionary in its production of Rivers’ “We Are Continuous” a year ago, and, making her Diversionary debut, Summer Broyhill, a veteran of Broadway, Off Broadway and an alumna of the Old Globe/USD Graduate Acting Program.
Barber praises the Minneapolis-based playwright Rivers for “writing female characters in such an excellent, real, grounded and full way. I knew he was the one.” In collaborating “we have a beautiful shorthand together. I’m speaking in images and ideas and beats, and dreaming architecturally, and he’s speaking in words. We have this trust between the two of us and this clarity of language.”
Once the play was written, Barber brought in two other key members of her “Straddle” team, scenic designer McKenna Perry and lighting designer Annelise Schultz-Salazar.
“They’re both queer women who have a deep understanding of what we were doing,” Barber said. “When we were stumped on something, we (she and Rivers) pulled the two of them in.”
Then there’s her actors.
“There was an incredible click,” she recalled when hearing Gobel audition for “We Are Continuous.” “I was blown away. She knows Harrison and knows me.”
Broyhill “is so game. We’re asking them both to really dive into what they know and what they don’t know as actors.”
Barber admires “the love, commitment and rigor that these two have, and the bravery they have to tell a story that is so darn universal.”
As Diversionary Theatre winds toward the conclusion of its “Love As Revolution”-themed 40th season (it culminates with a production of “Rent” opening in May), Barber reflected on revelations she’s made since assuming the artistic director role there a little more than a year and a half ago.
“I’ve learned how much this community cares and how incredibly fortunate and invested they are in what they do. They come to the theater really wanting to be affected and moved and wanting it to succeed. I truly believe Diversionary is a place where we are taste-makers. We’re asking you to see something you haven’t seen before.
“I’ve learned about myself that the difficult really galvanizes everyone, and it’s worth it.”
‘Straddle’
When: Previews, Feb. 18 through 27. Opens Feb. 28 and runs through March 15. 7 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays
Where: Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Blvd., University Heights
Tickets: $11.50-$61.50
Phone: 619-220-0097
Online: diversionary.org