Eva Kaminsky (CFA’95) in a scene from We Had a World, a dramatic comedy by Josh Harmon about three generations of a family, produced by the Huntington Theatre Company. The show is running at the Calderwood Pavilion through March 15. Photo by Annielly Camargo

Theatre

Huntington Theatre Company’s We Had a World Is a Homecoming for Two CFA Alums

Actor Eva Kaminsky and director Keira Fromm return to the place where they began their careers

When actor Eva Kaminsky began rehearsals last month for the Huntington Theatre Company’s latest production, We Had a World, she was fulfilling a long-held ambition.

“I’ve been wanting to work at the Huntington since I graduated, but until now, I’d never had the chance,” says Kaminsky (CFA’95). “This is very full circle for me.”

In fact, she and the rest of the cast have been rehearsing in the same space where Kaminsky got her start as an undergraduate acting major: Studio 210, now known as the Michael Maso Studio. (Boston University owned the Huntington Theatre, home to the company’s main stage, until 2016, when the University sold the building.)

“I did a couple of productions in Studio 210, including Brian Friel’s Translations and Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending, where I was Lady, one of the main characters,” Kaminsky says. “I remember lying on the floor after my character had been shot at the end of Orpheus Descending and I saw a cockroach crawl across the floor right next to me. The space has changed a lot since then.” 

We Had a World, by Tony Award–nominated playwright Joshua Harmon, features three members of a family—son, mother, and grandmother—confronting a long-kept family secret that comes to light. Kaminsky plays the mother, Ellen, who had to learn how to be a parent and take care of herself, because her own mother was often out of control.

She was thrilled with the chance to appear in a work by Harmon (Prayer for the French Republic), a playwright she has long admired. “Each of his plays is very different,” she says, “and I love that about his writing.”

We Had a World is a memory play based on Harmon’s own family. As it begins, a dying grandmother asks her grandson, Josh, to write a play about their family and to make it “as bitter and vitriolic as possible.” What ensues is a play that is by turns dramatic and funny, with the character Josh occasionally addressing the audience directly, filling them in on moments from his childhood and adult life with his mother and grandmother. 

Kaminsky, who has appeared in regional theaters across the country, has had small parts in film and television. She played Lady Mildmay in season three of HBO’s The Gilded Age and has a cameo in the Oscar-nominated film Song Sung Blue. When she learned about the Huntington’s production of We Had a World, she contacted the director, Keira Fromm (CFA’98). The two had known one another as CFA students and had stayed loosely in touch on social media. 

“When I saw that the show was happening, I wound up writing Keira on Instagram and saying, ‘This is so exciting that you’re doing this show at the Huntington, and if and when you come to New York, I’d love to read for you,’” Kaminsky says. “She wrote me right back and said, ‘I’d love to see you,’ and that’s how it got started.”

Fromm recalls seeing Kaminsky in Orpheus Descending as an undergrad. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, she’s truly a special actor.’ That was my 18-year-old self, and I’m glad to say that I still think that’s true. I was excited to see Eva in the audition room. And what she captured in that room was truly special. The character she’s playing—the mother, Ellen—is a woman of great complexity. She has this tremendous warmth for her son, and at the same time, has a lot of rage towards her mother. And Eva is bringing out the many conflicting emotions that our families bring out in all of us.” 

For Fromm, a Chicago-based director, We Had a World fulfilled her own desire to return to the Huntington to direct a play. As an undergrad, she was “an assistant to an assistant to an assistant” on a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s acclaimed musical Company. “It was fantastic,” she says.

“I think it’s every theater kid’s dream to work at the theater that their school was affiliated with,” Fromm says. “The rehearsal space we’re working in is the same room where I worked on productions as a student. It’s been a kind of wild, out-of-body experience to be back in the space, but in a good way.” 

Fromm befriended Harmon when she directed another of his plays, Significant Other, in Chicago. 

“I’m a superfan of Josh’s writing,” she says. “He’s one of the best playwrights writing for the American theater. He’s always completely fearless about using his plays to ask impossible questions, and he does so with tremendous care and compassion. I don’t think you could watch this play and not see the experiences you have with your own family or the stories you’ve been told from your best friend about their family experiences. It really captures the complex, complicated experience of family life.”

Kaminsky and Fromm each say they’re excited to return to the Huntington—and thrilled to work together. 

“We’ve both been in this business a long time and persevered,” Kaminsky says. “And now we get to work together. Working with people you know and trust—I can’t stress enough what a gift that is.” 

The Huntington Theatre Company’s production of We Had a World is at the Calderwood Pavilion (527 Tremont St., Boston) through March 15. Tickets start at $29 and can be purchased online or by calling 617-266-0800; $25 tickets are available for full-time students for all performances. Use promo code DISCOUNT to access student pricing. Valid ID required.