New Rep Theatre Presents "Collected Stories" at the Arsenal Center in Watertown

"Collected Stories," by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies, will be playing at the Arsenal Center throughout October. The show is directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary and features actors Liz Hayes and Bobbie Steinbach.

The play deals with whether a person has the right to tell the story of someone else's life. Steinbach plays Ruth Steiner, a published short-story writer who lives and teaches in New York City. She meets up with Lisa, a creative writing graduate portrayed by Hayes who starts to make a life for herself under Ruth's tutelage. 

"It's a relationship that develops between two people, a mother-daughter relationship," says Steinbach in an interview on the New Repertory's website. 

That relationship becomes strained, however, after Lisa uses Ruth's secretive life story in a novel.

Hayes has enjoyed the process of making these characters come to life.

"That is, I think, what’s so fun as an actor, getting to really work at the creation of who these two women are to and for one another," Hayes said.

"Collected Stories" runs from Oct. 9 through Oct. 30 in the Charles Mosesian Theater. For show times and ticket prices, visit the New Rep's website.