The list below follows Caravan’s own production record. A handful of pieces — short “happenings,” revues, and touring children’s shows — were performed in clusters and are grouped accordingly. Where a show toured or was revived, the run is noted.
The AFSC summers
The Firebugs 1965
Two “firebugs” store ammunition in a house’s attic until it burns down — a parable for nations stockpiling nuclear arms.
Cast: Summer ensemble
We Shall Overcome? 1965
Short scenes on communication and miscommunication between Black and white Americans, performed by an ensemble of young Black and white actors.
Cast: Summer ensemble
Pause and Begin Again Feb 1966
A topical revue of poetry, song, and humor inspired by the phrase “Make Love, Not War.”
Aria da Capo & Happy Days May 1966
A double bill staged in a pop-art setting with original music.
Cast: Boston’s Cabaret Players
Mother Courage 1966
Brecht’s anti-war play, staged as a statement on Vietnam: Mother Courage follows a war to sell her wares to soldiers, and loses her children to it.
Cast: Barbara MacKenzie-Wood as Katrin, with the summer ensemble
Finding the stage
How to Make a Woman 1967–72
A social commentary on the construction of gender roles — two women enter a dress shop run by men and are handed the roles society offers them. Caravan’s most consequential work, run intermittently for five years and toured to New England colleges, New York, and Poland.
Cast: Original: Mary Rosenblum, Aili Singer, Fay Hiken, Joe Volpe, David Baker, and others · later: Barbara MacKenzie-Wood, Aili Singer, Joe Volpe, David Starr Klein, Anne Barclay Priest, Pete Kovner
Experimental Happenings 1967
A cluster of short experimental events with audience participation — among them Experimental Happening, It’s Like A…, Money Talks, An Evening of Brecht, Mixed Media, and Theater of Cruelty.
Baden Lesson-Piece Feb 1967
A learning-piece parable of pride and renunciation, adapted with a chorus of two clowns.
Cast: Steve Burdett, John Graff, Jim Hayes, Patricia Collins, Judith Epstein
The Maids Aug 1967
Two maids live out abstract, mostly spiritual fantasies; at the close, the church’s real sanctuary doors opened and the maids walked toward the altar. The Boston Globe called it “near genius” — the review that filled the theater.
Cast: Carol Berman, Judith Epstein
A Halloween Happening Oct 1967
A participatory event; the audience was told in advance to arrive in costume or in old, “dispensable” clothes.
The Measures Taken Dec 1967 & Feb 1968
Four comrades relay to a tribunal how, for the sake of a mission, one of them was killed.
Cast: Patricia Collins, Judith Epstein, Steve Burdett, John Graff, Jim Hayes; later Gary Steffens, Peter Lago, Nancy Williams, James Selis
How Prometheus Got Bound Oct 1968
A clown satire on the Prometheus myth.
Cast: Susan Hanley, Gary Steffens, John Graff, Fern Merle
Iphigenia in Aulis Nov 1968–Feb 1969
Euripides’ anti-war tragedy staged against Vietnam, told as a ritual in which the Greek war leaders carried puppet heads atop long poles.
Cast: Peter Lago, Bill Robinson, Gary Steffens, Margaret Harrington, Linda Arnswalder, Rosaria Sorbello
Any Cow Will Do Feb 1969
An original fantasy with mime, dance, and song.
Cast: Robert Bennett, Karen Golden, Bill Robinson
The feminist peak
Caucasian Chalk Circle Dec 1969–Mar 1970
An epic staging with larger-than-life puppets on wheeled coat racks for the aristocrats and real actors for the “lower classes,” against a hand-painted 70-foot backdrop on rolling spools. The narration was split among the whole cast as they changed scenes. “It was an epic show — and also sold very well. We ran for months to full houses.” (David Klein)
Cast: Maggie Santi Helmer, David Starr Klein, David Baker Jr., Bonnie Beatty, Martha Crawford, and others
Jason-Medea 1971
Drawn from the myth of Jason’s search for the Golden Fleece, staging men and women struggling to overcome their gender roles and live as equals. Abandoned after previews.
Cast: David Starr Klein, David Baker, Barbara MacKenzie-Wood, Jackie Hooker, Pete Kovner, Mark Burnette, Joe Volpe, Maggie Santi Helmer
The Exception and the Rule Feb 1972
Class struggle under capitalism: a servant offers his boss water, the boss kills him assuming a threat, and a judge finds the killer not guilty.
Cast: Aili Singer, Joe Volpe, Stan Edelson, Pete Kovner
Hands Off! Apr 1972
Three short plays on a common theme of freedom and control — Beckett’s Act Without Words II, Mrożek’s Strip-Tease, and Beckett’s Cascando.
Cast: David Starr Klein, Joe Volpe, Kathy Gallucci
Come Closer, You’re Smothering Me June 1972
Serio-comic scenes of two heterosexual couples in crisis — a “traditional” older married pair and a young “enlightened” couple — each caught between intimacy and the need to breathe. Both split, hoping to return whole.
Cast: David Starr Klein, Anne Barclay Priest, Pete Kovner, Barbara MacKenzie-Wood
Waiting for Godot Nov 1972–Mar 1973
Beckett’s classic with a twist: a mixed-gender cast — women played Estragon and Lucky — used to explore male-female dominance and passivity. Revolutionary for its time.
Cast: Peter Kovner, David Starr Klein, Barbara MacKenzie-Wood, Nancy Lovell, Becky
The Jewish Wife & I Came Into the World Mar 1973
Brecht’s monologue of a Jewish woman in 1930s Germany leaving her Aryan husband, paired with Handke’s avant-garde piece in which actors accuse themselves directly to the audience.
Cast: Aili Singer, David Starr Klein, Anne Barclay Priest, Pete Kovner, Barbara MacKenzie-Wood
On the boards
The personal turn
Suppose I Fall 1973–74
Two men and two women crisscross as different characters in dialogues exploring the era’s social and sexual taboos — heterosexual and homosexual — with conflict, humor, and, at the last, hope.
Cast: Pete Kovner, Nancy Lovell, David Martin, Julie Ince; revival: Bob McCarthy, Joanne Ristau, John Watson, Cynthia Whitham
Focus on Me 1974
A female filmmaker examines her childhood, marriage, motherhood, and work as she comes to accept her femininity in a culture that prizes masculine traits. Written on a two-year Radcliffe Institute grant.
Cast: Joanne Ristau, Joan Trachtman, Cynthia Whitham, with Alair MacLean & Beth Katz
Saint Joan of the Stockyards 1975
Joan, a member of the “Black Straw Hats,” battles meatpacking magnate Pierpont Mauler in a Chicago of strike-breakers and penniless workers. Staged with large masks and puppets.
Cast: Klara Kalden, Raul Huerta, Deirdre Kelly, Mansur, and seven others · puppets by Lynn Bratley
Family 1976
Sketches examining family life, most written or developed by the actors from their own experience — including an adaptation of Tillie Olsen’s I Stand Here Ironing. Caravan was voted “Best Ensemble” of the year in the Boston press.
Cast: V. Olivia Casey, Mary Chalon, Jim Cooke, Linda Donald, Paul Fadoul, Michael Longo
Tell Me a Riddle 1976
A working-class couple’s decades of conflict over poverty, family, and gender, as the wife dies of cancer and recalls her revolutionary past. Named one of The Boston Globe‘s “Ten Best Plays of the Year.”
Cast: Linda Donald, V. Olivia Casey, Michael Longo, Mary Chalon, Paul Fadoul
The Asking Price Oct 1977
A vulnerable woman, drawn with compassion, sells her daughter to give the money to her new boyfriend.
Cast: Olivia Casey, Mary Chalon, Naomi Thornton
One Man’s Journey Apr 1978
A multimedia black comedy about a man facing a mid-life crisis after a car accident — based on Stan’s own experience. His last play with Caravan.
Cast: Peter Kovner, Stan Edelson
Children’s plays
How Nanabozho Brought Fire to His People 1967–68
A children’s play with actors, puppets, and audience participation, depicting Nanabozho’s visit to Thunderbird to bring fire to the people.
Cast: Lynn Bratley, Joe Volpe, John Furlong, with Bobbi Ausubel narrating
Don Quixote in the City Jan 1970
A children’s show based on the classic novel.
Cast: Robert Bridges, David Baker Jr., Barbara “Buzz” Bregstein, Anne Barclay Priest
The Parent Market 1970
A satirical children’s piece.
Myths & Tales of the Maori 1971–72
Maori tales spoken, sung, and danced, with puppets.
Cast: Jon Beam, Carole Gold, Buck Hobbs, Pete Kovner, Eric Levenson, Lynn Bratley, and others
Puppet Caravan Summer 1972
Two families — four adults, four children — toured the country by van, putting on puppet shows.
One Tale Follows Another 1975–76
Five short pieces adapting childhood dreams and fantasies for ages 3 through 12.
Cast: Linda Grznar, Mary Chalon, V. Olivia Casey, Michael Longo, Ira Solet
The Millie Cartoon 1976
A feminist story in movement, music, and comedy: a child narrates her mother’s romance, marriage, and over-devoted motherhood until the mother finds herself and breaks free. Performed at Harvard Epworth and at Jordan Marsh for a Women’s Bicentennial celebration.
Cast: Peter Kovner, Lynn Kosy, Lynn Bratley, Joe Volpe, Mansur Raynor, Joanne Cazden, Barbara Greenberg
“The Maids” — near genius. “Iphigenia in Aulis” — near brilliant.The Boston Globe
Press & reviews
Caravan was covered widely across its run — from raves to red-baiting. A selection of what the papers said:
- The Boston Globe ran a ten-page Sunday Magazine profile of the company (1970) and called The Maids “near genius” and Iphigenia in Aulis “near brilliant.”
- Boston Phoenix — Laura Shapiro on How to Make a Woman (1970): the play’s power “never [fell] into polemics… the truths that [came] tumbling out [were] piercingly immediate.”
- The Boston Herald and Patriot Ledger on Caucasian Chalk Circle (1969–70) — “innovative and rousing.”
- The New York Times covered How to Make a Woman at the Wrocław Festival of Festivals in Poland (1971).
- The Harvard Crimson reviewed How to Make a Woman and Waiting for Godot, among others.
- The Boston Globe named Tell Me a Riddle one of the Ten Best Plays of the Year (1977).
Scanned clippings are being added to this section. Until then, this is a representative summary, not the full archive.