The Shot: Featuring Sharon Lawrence

The Shot is a work of fiction drawn from the story of former Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham and the part of her life that is hard to look at and understand.

The Shot will star Emmy nominee and Broadway alum Sharon Lawrence (Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof). Written by Robin Gerber, Michelle Joyner will direct the production.

Inspired by the story of former Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, this fictional work looks at her life, including her experiences of domestic abuse at the hands of her cruel husband who inherited the newspaper from Katharine’s father. Graham became a force in politics, winning a Pulitzer Prize for revealing the Pentagon Papers, uncovering Nixon’s abuse of power and crimes in the Watergate scandal, as well as becoming the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

“The Shot is a story for this moment,” said Gerber in a statement. “If women can be abused with impunity, we can be paid less, denied opportunity and autonomy over our bodies. I hope The Shot empowers women who suffer intimate partner violence, and gives the rest of us a window into an abused woman’s soul.”

Gerber herself worked in politics in Washington, D.C., and brings that to bear on her writing. The Shot was first presented to the public via a reading in Los Angeles in March 2020, which was shut down due to COVID-19. Since then, the script has been produced as a digital reading, received a developmental workshop in October 2021, premiered at Great Barrington Public Theatre and was part of the 2022 United Solo Festival.

Robin Gerber’s play The Shot, directed by Michelle Joyner, was the hot ticket as part of the 2022 United Solo Festival in New York City; winning the Audience Choice award.  The Shot, starring multi-award-winning actress Sharon Lawrence begins performances on July 7th at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts (565 Camano Avenue, Langley, WA 98260), and will have audience talkbacks after every performance.

ARTIST BIOS

ROBIN GERBER

(Playwright) The Shot, Robin’s first play, was selected for the 2017 Ojai Playwrights Conference. After a well-spent youth involving drugs, sex and feminist activism, Robin took the next logical step and became a Washington, D.C. lawyer. She worked on Capitol Hill for a legendary leader of the House of Representatives, before leaving to be a union lobbyist during the Clinton years. Robin’s post-politics writing life includes: The bestselling advice book, Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way (Penguin), Katharine Graham (Penguin), Barbie and Ruth, about the founder of Mattel (HarperCollins), and the novel Eleanor vs. Ike, which imagines Eleanor Roosevelt running for President in 1952 (HarperAvon). Robin has toured the professional speaking circuit, motivating audiences at many Fortune 500 companies with stories from the lives of great women leaders. She has also appeared as a guest historian for the Biography and History channels and as a featured historian on the CNN documentary series “First Ladies” speaking about Eleanor Roosevelt. robingerber.com

SHARON LAWRENCE

(Katharine) After earning a degree in journalism from the UNC-Chapel Hill, Sharon has gone on to be prominently featured on stage and screen over the last 25 years. Her television work includes her multiple EMMY nominated and SAG award-winning run on “NYPD Blue,” as well as notable stints on hit shows such as “Queen Sugar,” “Shameless,” “Dynasty,” “On Becoming A God In Central Florida,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Rizzoli & Iles” and “Grey’s Anatomy” earning her another EMMY nomination. Film work includes the indie hits Middle Of Nowhere from Ava DuVernay and The Lost Husband, both on Netflix. Sharon spent 10 years on Broadway in Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof and as Velma in Chicago and since in LA at The Mark Taper Forum, in Poor Behavior and The Mystery Of Love and Sex, the cabaret, Love, Noel, at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, in several roles at The Geffen Playhouse and at The Pasadena Playhouse in A Song At Twilight, A Kid Like Jake and Orson’s Shadow, for which she was nominated for an Ovation Award and won the LA Drama Critics Circle Award. In 2021 work in The Gaze on YouTube garnered her a 5th Emmy nod and a recurring role in “Rebel” for ABC. Upcoming is “Joe Pickett” on Spectrum premiering on Dec 6th and a sequel to the groundbreaking “The Christmas House” on Hallmark Dec 18. Non-profit service has played a major role in Sharon’s life as former Chair of the Women in Film Foundation, current Chair the BoD of Heal The Bay, and as a Trustee of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. IG @sharonelawrence

MICHELLE JOYNER

(Director/Dramaturg) Michelle has been at the helm of THE SHOT from its earliest development phase at the Ojai Playwrights Conference. She currently lives in The Berkshires in Western Massachusetts, and has helmed plays there with Shakespeare and Co., Berkshire Playwrights Lab, Great Barrington Public Theatre and Theatre Fest. West coast: Center Stage, Santa Monica Rep, Greenlight Productions, and LA Women’s Shakespeare Co. Internationally: The EdinburghFringe Festival. She has also directed a short film and leads The Long Table, a women’s writing group. She is an accomplished stage and screen actor with a long career and has written ten studio screenplays. She is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, AEA, WGA, and DG. Her first full-length play Iodine will have a reading later this year in the Berkshires. www.michellejoyner.com