Melancholics Anonymous
Weekend 1: April 16-18, 2027
About Melancholics Anonymous
Founded in 2019, Melancholics Anonymous is an award-winning Minneapolis-based theater company that creates wildly original works and champions new play development (as seen in MPR, Star Tribune, and Broadway World). Created by Artistic Director Rachel Ropella and Managing Director Timothy Kelly at St. Olaf College with a passion for independent producing, Melancholics has grown into a collective of 10 multi-hyphenate Gen Z artists who present an annual two-show season including a series of 5 developmental workshops in their New Play Series. Past original works of Melancholics include Joan of Arc for Miss Teen Queen USA, Beanie Baby Divorce Play, A Girl Scout's Guide to Exorcism, and most recently, a folk musical adoption of Watership Down. Learn more about Melancholics Anonymous and their upcoming programming at https://melancholicsanonymous.org.
Artistic Director Rachel Ropella serves as the current Education and Engagement Manager at the Guthrie Theater and outside of developing new plays with Melancholics, has worked at Milwaukee Rep, Hartford Stage, Portland Stage, Dorset Theatre Festival, and History Theater.
About Let's Play Virginia Woolf Drinking Game!!
Melancholics Anonymous as a company is excited about devising an interactive exploration of Virginia Woolf’s seminal essay, A Room of One's Own, which entered the public domain in 2025. This semi-scripted, semi-improvised project, currently titled ‘Let's Play Virginia Woolf Drinking Game!!’, will blend Woolf's original text and memoir theater with the kitschy internet gameshows that became popular in the 2010s, such as Game Changer and Buzzfeed Challenges.
A group of local theater artists are contestants on the hottest new gameshow (spoiler alert: a gamified version of A Room of One's Own). But how do you keep the #goodvibes going when all the questions (and mini challenges!) are high key depressing and lead you into an artistic existential crisis? With a nightly special guest star and opportunities for audience participation, Melancholics Anonymous is excited to investigate in their devised work how Woolf’s ideas about artistic and financial freedom for women can still universally resonate with artists today.
