Written, directed, and designed by: Sloan Aulgur

"Green Herrings in a Yellow Room" is a theatrical table reading about a play-in-progress. It is a counter-production of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, the short story published in 1892, which follows an unnamed woman prescribed a "rest cure" by her husband, John. Confined to a room wrapped in gothic yellow wallpaper, the narrator becomes obsessed with its patterns. As her mind deteriorates, she sees a woman trapped behind the paper. This production reimagines Charlotte's bedroom as not yellow, but green-a rich, vibrant green laced with the medium responsible for its provocative coloration: arsenic. Developed through a method of "unfabulation," this performance un-writes the feminist text to reveal the toxic material histories behind 19th-century arsenic wallpaper. Set around a central table of archival props and models, audience members find themselves cast into an unfolding production-an investigative live performance about the production of another story. Guided by the Director, participants read from verbatim historical texts, engaging in a layered, live dramaturgy that blends theater with design theory. "Green Herrings in a Yellow Room" undoes Charlotte's literary misdirections and the public discourse surrounding the color in question. Requires audience participation.

Cast:
Director (played by Sloan Aulgur)
The director of the Counter Production of The Yellow Wallpaper.

Charlotte
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of The Yellow Wallpaper.

Narrator
The woman narrator within the story The Yellow Wallpaper.

Husband
John, the husband within the story The Yellow Wallpaper.

Journalist
The New York Times and the media surrounding The Yellow Wallpaper.

Chemist
Dr. Kedzie, the chemist investigating the wallpaper.

Physician
Weir Mitchell, the physician enforcing time with the wallpaper.

Architect
Clarence Carpenter, the architect specifying the wallpaper.

Bio:

Sloan Aulgur is an architectural designer, researcher, and playwright whose work explores the intersection of material, performance, and narrative. She holds a Master of Architecture from MIT and a B.S. in Interior Design from the University of Arkansas. Her interdisciplinary work spans scenic, exhibition, and architectural design, with projects like MIT's Face to Face with Es Devlin, and The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology a Collateral Event at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Sloan's practice is interested in creating props- objects that offer material properties or spaces creating narrative propositions.