By Kit Simpson ’27

This semester’s black box, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, written by Jane Chambers and Directed by Lillie Shelor ‘25, opened on Friday February 28^th.  

As I walked into the Janet Kinghorn Bernhard Theater for the March 1^st performance, it was clear that queer joy had overtaken the theater’s lobby. This is due in part to the work of dramaturg Ellery Shea ‘25, who created an exhibition of queer magazine and zine art for patrons to examine. Alongside this, Shea also included an art making station where folks could write letters to their future selves, their queer elders, and the Skidmore College community. Using the letter stamps and magazine cutouts that Shea provided, some also used the creative station as an opportunity to share messages with the world: “The play is how love persists,” “Choose Kindness and Stay Freaky,” and “Daily Affirmations: I Love Lesbians and They Love Me (Say it enough and it becomes true!)” were all pieces of art on the glass windows of the JKB for the play’s run.  

I met up with my peers, grabbed our tickets, and made my way into the Black Box. The theater was transformed into a standard Northeastern cottage scene; I made my way past a large coastal rock and found my seat, taking in set designer Adelaide Lance ‘25’s attention to detail on the small cottage in Bluefish Cove. Cher vinyl records, booze, and feminist literature lined the inside of the cabin, allowing the cabin to feel lived in. Bluefish Cove, which the production team styled around lesbian haven Cherry Grove, was going to be some type of lesbian coastal paradise. My mittens and scarf felt out of place alongside the sun and the sand.

Eventually, after much anticipation from myself and my fellow showgoers, the show began. It opened on Lil (Sydney Mann ‘27) excitedly running outside to fish. They stand on a rock, muttering about how frustrated they are to have not caught any fish yet. It is in this moment of silence, wherein the only lines of dialogue are a quiet, spaced out monologue, that I can appreciate the play’s sound design, done by Jordan Zickmann ‘26. Zickmann’s sound design, filled with crashing waves and other typical coastal noises, transported me to the northeastern beaches of my childhood, all the while feeling like a refreshing queer haven. The song choices were also absolutely inspired — the pre-show playlist featured plenty of hits from the 60s and 70s, such as “Don’t Hide Your Love” by Cher and “They Long To Be Close To You” by The Carpenters. These songs all fit the tone of the show excellently and allow for the audience to truly feel integrated into the world of Bluefish Cove.

As Lil continues to fish, Bluefish Cove newcomer Eva Margolis (Nina Renkert ‘25) walks on the scene, wide-eyed, and watches Lil fish for a little while before approaching her. Lil is instantly smitten with Eva, and they carry out a conversation. It is soon revealed that Eva has recently left her husband of over a decade. Moreover, Eva is unaware of the fact that Bluefish Cove is a lesbian-only beachside community. While Chambers writes funny scenes, they are only made funnier by both Renkert and Mann’s skills as actors; their comic timing is refreshing, and they do an excellent job portraying an awkward conversation of mutual misunderstanding.

Before she realizes that Eva is straight, Lil invites her to a start of the summer party with all her closest – and gayest – friends. Eva is excited to attend, but Lil is terrified of the prospects of inviting a straight woman to her party. Mann mutters a gentle “oh dear” before running off stage. 

Inside the cabin, everything is tense. Feminist scholar Dr. Kitty Cochrane (Isadora Zucker ‘25), author of The Female Sexual Imperative, a fictional text inspiring women to take control of their sexual lives, is freaking out over the prospects of a straight woman seeing her at Bluefish Cove. Kitty is a lesbian but is choosing to stay closeted. Her career would suffer should she get outed; Zucker does a great job at playing Kitty as neurotic and over the top without removing sympathy from her character. While her actions seem ridiculous, the audience does still understand where she is coming from. Thankfully, she hatches a plan to keep her identity under wraps: her friend group should feign heterosexuality for the duration of their trip. This is met with…mixed results, if nothing else for the poor logistics of the situation. But the group lightly agrees to Kitty’s request: at the very least, they elect not to tell Eva that they are all lesbians.  

As we watch Kitty’s conniption, we are also introduced to most of the rest of the ensemble: Lil’s best friend Annie (Ken Caron-Quinn ‘27), Annie’s wife Rae (Lily Forbes ‘26), and Kitty’s lover-secretary Rita (Emily Landolfi ‘27). Despite tensions over Kitty’s anality, the group has a sense of camaraderie, united on the common front of keeping Lil happy. It is in this moment that the play’s tragic underbelly is revealed: Lil has been fighting ovarian cancer for a while. While she seems relatively chipper, she is obviously unwell. The group is concerned about how long Lil has left and whether she will make it until the end of the summer.  

While Rita, Rae, and Kitty all prepare for their extravaganza in silent vignettes inside of the party, Annie joins Lil outside, where she has been gutting a fish that she bought at the market. The two reminisce on Lil’s more promiscuous days, most notably when she had a brief love affair with their friends’ partner Donna.  

Finally, the party begins, and with it comes a comedy of errors; the motley of lesbians struggles to talk around their homosexuality. Kitty tries to remain unrecognized at the party, introducing herself as Katherine, before discovering that Eva is a Female Sexual Imperative superfan. Kitty, excited to meet a fan, promptly drops the nervous hiding and introduces herself to Eva. Here, all of the actors’ comic acting chops come out to play; there is a particularly charming moment between Annie and Lil as they watch the notoriously self-important Kitty listen to endless compliments of her work. Caron-Quinn and Mann’s chemistry in this moment is off the charts: for a moment, I believed that they actually had known each other since college. 

Eva also stays clueless, unfortunately; so much so that she makes an offhand comment where she calls Sue Donna’s mother. This moment sends the party awry; Eva and Lil storm outside, while Donna insists that the group needs to “do something” about Eva’s presence on the cove. While the women inside of the cabin spar, Eva and Lil act out a silent scene on the beach. Shelor has a skill for directing these silent scenes – they appear a few more times over the course of the text. These moments allow the audience to further understand the characters: how they act when they’re not the center of attention reveals much about their relationships with one another. Eventually, the scene shifts its attention to Lil and Eva, and we watch Lil explain Bluefish Cove’s status as a lesbian haven to Eva while the partygoers silently clean up in the background. While Eva is okay with staying on the cove, Lil is worried about the prospects of having a straight woman on Bluefish Cove all summer and suggests that she should leave. (Figure out how to end). 

The party ends, and Lil remains restless. Eventually, an upset Eva shows herself at Lil’s door, and the two share a moment of tenderness wherein Eva confesses that she is feeling attraction to a woman for the first time. We also learn that Eva has a son who died a few years back, allowing for her ex-husband George to gain some sympathy points, as Eva makes it clear that he at least partially blames himself for his son’s death. Lil and Eva both attempt to seduce one another, but Lil turns her away, saying that it is improper to kiss on the first date. This makes it clear to the audience that Lil, who we understand to be promiscuous in nature, holds a level of respect for Eva. The act ends with the two parting ways, equally giddy in their schoolgirl crushes.  

Lights come up, and I look at the two women on other side of me. We bond over the shared giddiness of the act’s end. Something about watching two women fall in love brings all of us into a state of wonder. And yet, this wonder as we remember Lil’s cancer diagnosis; if everyone on the cove is worried about Lil’s wellbeing, surely, I should be too, especially as she enters a relationship with a woman that seems to be serious.  

I set aside my emotions about act two’s potential tragic end as the lights come down and Sue and Donna come out to Blondie’s “Call Me,” with Kitty, Rita, Annie, and Rae quickly following suit. Positioned in the background is Eva, swinging her legs dreamily on Lil’s bed. It is here, through mindless gossip, that we discover that Lil has spent much of the summer indoors with Eva. We also learn that Lil has elected to not tell Eva about her cancer diagnosis, a decision that splits the women; Kitty for instance, is able to understand why Lil is not telling her but does not totally support it. Annie, on the other hand, understands that Lil probably does not want to taint her summer. Donna, ever the romantic, agrees with her, but is focused mostly on the idea of how romantic dying while in love would be. (Estrada does an excellent job with this moment; Donna is written mostly to be unlikable, and yet the valley girl charm that Estrada inserts into everything she says makes me incapable of being totally against her.) Donna’s opinion is rebuked, she storms off, and the scene ends with Sue admitting that she is responsible for much of Donna’s shallowness before the women all lay on the ground for a beachside nap.  

The scene recenters on Eva, as she continues to jot down notes. She calls to Lil from the bathroom. They bicker over whether Eva’s furniture will fit in Lil’s studio apartment; Lil and Eva have fallen into the “lesbians move too fast” stereotype. Typically, this trope is played for laughs, and in a way, it is here, mostly through Eva’s insistence that she should be able to bring all her furniture to Lil’s apartment. However, as the women continue to plan their life together, complete with an Amsterdam marriage and trips to New England in the fall, the dramatically ironic undercurrent of Lil’s cancer diagnosis almost pollutes the scene. Renkert’s hopefulness in her delivery only makes this scene all the more quietly heartbreaking; it easy to get swept away in her joy as she realizes that she could legitimately have a life together, and yet, when I remember that I am aware of Lil’s condition, I find myself getting choked up.  

Eventually, Eva frets that Lil is secretly afraid of her. Lil refutes, stating that she simply would “rather be alone with [Eva]”. Yet another moment of borderline tragic irony; Eva is convinced that she’s done something wrong, meanwhile Lil just wants to spend as much time with the so-called love of her life as possible before any tragedy strikes. Eventually, though, they decide to hold a one-month anniversary party for themselves, inviting all of their friends for the ride.  

The scene changes. Before the party, Annie and Lil are sat on the largest rock outside of Lil’s cabin. Lil is insistent that she feels the best that she ever has, and that she was given something to live for because of her romance with Eva. Annie seems skeptical, but also hopeful that her friend will be okay. Caron-Quinn’s skill as an actor is highlighted well in this scene, and it is heart-tugging to watch them try and balance supporting their friend while also fearing for their lives.  

During preparations for the party, we have the privilege of watching Rae, Eva, and Sue talk as they prepare for the party. Eva laments about how lucky she is that she was married, so that she can reclaim some of her possessions in her marriage. Rae is the one to burst her bubble; being a lesbian divorcee herself, Rae can confirm that she got next to nothing from her divorce and is in fact deeply lucky to have the privilege of seeing her children. (Forbes does an excellent job with Rae here, allowing for Rae’s character as a mother to shine through). It is here that we see some of Chamber’s politics come to the foreground; most of her time is spent (seemingly light-heartedly) making fun of feminists focused on “equal rights and the clitoral orgasm,” but she is also deeply concerned with issues such as these.  

Eventually, the campfire fire is lit, and the party begins. The celebration is a brief one. Lil runs inside to get beer, despite everyone around her insisting that it is too heavy for her. Lil comes out, beer cooler above her head, and celebrates her own strength. This is another moment of great direction on Shelor’s part; she positions Lil physically above everyone else, on the stairs, giving Lil a brief moment of godlike prowess before she collapses on the ground, very suddenly overtaken by ailment. Eva is panicked by all of this, as she is unaware that there was ever anything wrong with Lil. The scene quickly goes dark, leaving the audience – and the women of Bluefish Cove – unaware of Lil’s physical wellbeing. 

We return to see Annie unpacking clothes while Kitty comes out of the bathroom, fighting with Lil. Lil, as Kitty’s patient, seems to be testing her bedside manner. The two argue about Lil’s lack of care for herself; in her final days, she clearly intends on smoking American Spirits and drinking liquor. However, the scene takes a particularly depressing turn when Lil and Annie beg to know how long Lil has left. The silence before Kitty makes it clear that Lil has around ninety days to live. Lil suggests that she fish with Annie and play poker with Kitty; the two entertain her, but their engagement with her seems to be more out of pity than genuine interest. Eventually, Rae, Rita, and Eva show up with a pot of soup, which quickly goes ignored by Lil for the sake of Eva. This scene really highlights the actor’s chemistry with one another – while it is present in their more comedic moments, when the scene gets heartfelt, emotions are high from an audience standpoint. Eventually, all of the women, save for Eva, leave to give the women their alone time. 

The final scene between Eva and Lil is a tense one. Eva is, for lack of better terminology, in denial. She seems insistent that the two can still travel, despite the fact that Lil’s cancer has clearly reached a point of terminality that there is no coming back from. The two argue for a little while, with Lil on the defense. Eventually, Lil starts to storm out, insisting that it is unfair of Eva to tie her down with so little life left to live. The truth comes out though; it’s not that Lil does not want Eva in her life, it is that Eva does not want to have to say goodbye to her. In fact, these are some of the last words we hear out of Lil’s mouth in the show: “How can I say goodbye to you?”  

The lights come up on an empty cabin, with Lil nowhere to be seen. I hear sniffles on either side of me. The Bluefish Cove women start to parade out in coats and scarves, a representation that time has passed, as well as a confirmation of an unspoken truth to the silent scene before: Lil has succumbed to Ovarian Cancer. Her friends pack up her things, emotional. Things are changing for the Bluefish Cove crew; Kitty is reopening her gynecological practice, Eva is trying to find work, Sue and Donna have broken up, which seems to be for the better. But there is still something in the air that implies that this summer will be one of their last “regular” ones. The only woman who is confident that she will return come June is Sue, who claims that a summer at Bluefish Cove “puts [her] whole year into perspective.”  

Given it ends with its main character dying of cancer, it may seem impossible to label Last Summer at Bluefish Cove as a true “queer joy” play. What could possibly be joyous about watching a Lesbian die of cancer? 

And yet, seeing this group of queer women come together, even in the deep sadness of mourning the center of their friend group, did fill me with a kind of joy. We are living in a time of great division, within the greater world as well as within the queer community. In watching women with aggressively different lifestyles – a fiercely feminist doctor, a recent divorcee, a sculptor, and an old money woman seemingly have very little in common, and yet, when it came to Lil, they were all able to put aside their differences. That type of connection that is something that I hope to see in the next few years as queer people navigate tumultuous times as these.  

I left the black box, arm-in-arm with the women that I came to the show with. As we lingered in the lobby, we took in the new additions to Shea’s artmaking station; sometime during intermission, “lesbians in love!” and “trans literature will save us” had been added to the glass window showcase. After the show’s closure on Wednesday, March 5^th, all the art created at Shea’s station – the meaningful, the ridiculous, and those that exist outside of the meaningful-ridiculous binary – will be added to the Lucy Scribner Library Special Collections to further the amount of queer art in the archive. It is fitting that a show, which celebrates queer livelihood, even in the face of tragedy, gets to contribute to queer archiving in such a way.  

Photos by Sue Kessler

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Kit Simpson ’27 is the Editor-in-Chief of the Skidmore Theater Living Newsletter