Calf Scramble

Calf Scramble

December 4 – 7, 2025

Studio ONE

By Libby Carr
Directed by Shalee Cole Mauleón

In a barn outside Huntsville, Texas, five Future Farmers of America raise and ruin their prize-winning calves. CALF SCRAMBLE is a raucous rodeo of girls playing God, clambering for power over their animals, their bodies, and each other. (New Play Exchange)

Calf Scramble was presented as part of BU College of Fine Arts’ 2025 Fringe Festival. The Boston University Fringe Festival, is a collaboration between the College of Fine Arts School of Music: Opera Institute and School of Theatre. The festival’s mission is to produce new or rarely performed significant works in the opera and theatre repertoire, bringing performances and audiences together in unique theatrical settings. For almost three decades, Fringe Festival at Boston University has celebrated and amplified new work, shown in spare and minimal productions.

Cast

EVA LUNA CIRILO
AMANDA MILLER
LUCY LEAHY
ROWAN BENZ
SAMANTHA BOUTUREIRA
MICHAEL KAYE

Creative Team

Scene Designer • TOMMASO ROTELLA
Costume Designer • JOICE CALDEIRA SIMAO
Lighting Designer • RACHAEL HARNED
Sound Designer • SAM HALEY
Stage Manager • CARLY STEGALL
Production Manager • SAM NOTO

Director’s Note

Shalee Cole Mauleón, Director

Libby has developed Calf Scramble at Invulnerable Nothings’ Barn Lab Residency, Playwrights Horizons New Works Lab, Workshop Theatre Lab, Ojai Playwrights Conference (where I first heard about the play). In addition to being a 2024 O’Neill National Playwriting Conference finalist, on November 18, Libby and their play was put on the 2025 Kilroy’s Web spotlighting new work artists and plays by women, trans and non-binary playwrights.

This workshop production of Libby Carr’s Calf Scramble, is coming at a very exciting time in the play’s development. Our design team met over the summer to hear the play aloud and discuss design approaches to this new, unproduced play. In our first week of rehearsal, Libby traveled from New York to join the cast and designers in person to discuss and develop a new draft. Then our team went into rehearsal and production where we stayed in contact with Libby as we incorporated the changes and asked new questions which led to new discoveries and edits.

What you are seeing is an experiment, a play still in development. That means Libby can muse this workshop production to learn new things and make adjustments to the script before its official Off-Broadway world premiere at Primary Stages in February. This work represents a unique relationship between playwright and university. Boston University and our community gets early access to an exciting new play, and Libby gets to both be in process and see their play on its feet. Boston University’s workshop production of Calf Scramble can serve as an example of how resource-backed collaborations between playwrights and universities are not only mutually beneficial, but radiate outward to positively impact professional theatres, like Primary Stages, theatre makers, and the overall American theatre. On a personal note, thank you to Wendy Goldberg, Kirsten Greenidge, and Kristin Leahey who supported me in bringing this project to the School of Theater. Thank you
Libby. Thank you for trusting me. With your play and with your process. It has been a
labor of joy, honesty, and gratitude. A true, true honor.

Program Book

29th Annual CFA Fringe Festival Puts Women in the Spotlight

Calf Scramble is a darkly humorous, visceral examination of girlhood that has five Texas teenagers wrestling with notions of God, expectation, and exploitation while raising their prize-winning cattle. Developed in 2023 and awarded the 2024 Dr. Kerry English Artist Award at the Ojai Playwrights Conference, it will debut off-Broadway in 2026.

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