THE MONROE DOCTRINE, is a world premier play by award-winning Baltimore playwright Mark Scharf, at the Baltimore Theatre Project.

This new play asks what does success mean in America? What does it mean when you don’t make it? In THE MONROE DOCTRINE, poet and adjunct professor Real Monroe tries to hold his world together from his trailer on Hog Island on Maryland’s eastern shore.

Poignant, personal, powerful and, at times funny, the play examines intergenerational bonds and their resilience in the face of 21st century challenges. It’s Memorial Day weekend and the men of the Monroe family, counterbalanced by the influence of three strong and grounded women, gather for what may be the last time to meet the wishes of Real’s Korean War veteran father, a VA nursing home refugee.

When Real’s estranged sons arrive, expectations and reality collide and even the students he has tried to help leave him scrambling for solid ground in a shifting landscape of obligations and power. The play can be thought of as an elegy to the lost place of the artist in the world and to twentieth century versions of masculinity, the ideal now which is ever changing like a shapeshifter with amnesia.

Directed by the collaborative and inventive Baltimore-based theatre artist, Ann Turiano (who is also the co-artistic director of Sisters Freehold). The production features a veteran ensemble cast: Nick Cherone, John Covaleskie, Griffin DeLisle, Makeima Elise Freeland, Anne Hammontree, Michael Sullivan, and Yodelle Tan.

There will be a pay what you can preview on 8/15 at 8:00 pm