Semaja Murphy and Rayne, photo by Robert Hakalski
(PHILADELPHIA, PA) -- South Philadelphia's Theatre Exile closes its season with the Philly premiere of The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar), a powerful and darkly comic play by Nia Akilah Robinson. The production, directed by Ontaria Kim Wilson, runs May 28 through June 14, 2026. The play confronts a troubling chapter of American history while exploring the ways the past continues to echo across generations.
In 1832, a mother (Rayne, they/them), and her daughter, Charity (Semaja Murphy, she/her) keep vigil beside a grave in the burial ground of the African Baptist Church in South Philadelphia. They are there guarding their loved one’s resting place from a grave robber (Aidan McDonald), also known as a resurrectionist, who steals bodies for medical dissection. Nearly two centuries later, on the same ground, a mother (Rayne) and daughter (Murphy) navigate the challenges of a modern summer camp, singing camp songs as the mother tries to keep her daughter from getting expelled. As both matriarchs struggle to protect their families, both the living and the dead, timelines collide, and long-buried secrets rise to the surface.
Blending humor with unsettling history, The Great Privation examines a disturbing chapter of America’s past with wit and sharp insight. As The New York Times noted, the play “rummages around in the tainted soil of the United States and pulls up some shameful old skeletons for inspection,” while still allowing “a defiant light” to shine through as comedy and unease coexist onstage.
The U.S. premiere, a Soho Rep production, became a NYT Critic's Pick in 2025 and was extended twice.
Tickets are available now at www.theatreexile.org. Theatre Exile is located at 1340 S. 13th Street in Philadelphia, PA.
TICKET & SPECIAL PROMOTION INFORMATION - Audiences can choose from various three-show Flex Pass Subscriptions for Theatre Exile’s season. Single tickets for Theatre Exile’s upcoming productions are available. Subscription sales are available online, with packages starting at just $45—purchase tickets online or by calling the Theatre Exile box office at 215-218-4022.
For playwright Nia Akilah Robinson, that balance between confronting history and finding moments of levity was intentional. The idea for the play began with a conversation at her family’s dinner table. “I remember being horrified and intrigued when the topic of grave robbing came up,” said Robinson. “...I wanted to create a story that explores this history while still allowing room for humor and joy.”
Robinson’s play is rooted in a troubling chapter of Philadelphia’s past. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the city’s rapidly expanding medical schools created a demand for cadavers that far exceeded the legal supply. Until Pennsylvania’s Anatomy Act of 1883 curtailed the practice, so-called “resurrectionists” were paid to rob graves and sell freshly buried bodies to anatomical halls for dissection. Poor and Black Philadelphians were particularly vulnerable to these crimes, leading many families to guard burial sites through the night to protect loved ones from being taken.
“The production brings into sharp focus how far a mother will go to protect her child, and how those instincts echo across generations,” said Deborah Block, Producing Artistic Director of Theatre Exile.
Semaja Murphy and Rayne, photo by Robert Hakalski
Hailed by critics as both powerful and provocative, the play has drawn national praise for its fearless storytelling. The Boston Globe called the work “packs a powerful punch,” while The Washington Post described it as “audacious...an intriguing and often funny reflection on the weight of history, the joy and burden of responsibility, and the possibility of finding happiness in the now.”
Rayne (they/them) Rayne is an artist from Southwest Philadelphia and the founder of Upstream Performance Collaborative, a Barrymore Award–winning, scrappy theatre collective dedicated to new works by emerging and underrepresented artists. Rayne is a member of Ring of Keys, New Pages, The Foundry, and The WEB Du Bois Movement School for Abolition & Reconstruction’s Spring Cohort. Rayne is an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts recipient, F. Otto Haas Award finalist, Leeway Art & Change grant recipient, Wayne F. Milward '57 Prize winner, six-time Barrymore Award nominee, Barrymore-Award winner (Upstream Performance Collaborative; “Outstanding Original Production” for COMET), Leeway Foundation Art & Change Award recipient, and featured as "one of 18 young Philadelphians shaping the future of the city's creative class," by PhillyVoice. Additional credits include Private History Tour (Ministry of Awe), and On Buried Ground (Christ Church Preservation Trust & Pew Center for Arts and Heritage; Fringies Honorable Mention). Rayne is also known as Angela Bey.
Andre G. Brown (he/him) is a singer/actor and educator whose credits include: Griswold (Bridge Street Theatre) Midsummer (Pittsburgh Public), Choir Boy (Dezart Performs), Blues for an Alabama Sky (Playmakers), Afterwords (5th Avenue Theatre), The Mountaintop (AAPAC Albuquerque, Garry Marshall), Wine in the Wilderness (EgoPo), Milk Like Sugar (ArtsWest), And In This Corner Cassius Clay (Seattle Children’s Theatre), Hooded: Or Being Black for Dummies (Theatre Battery), F*cking A (UW), Hoodoo Love (Sound Theatre). Brown currently teaches theater and performance at CSU Channel Islands, Long Beach City College, and the Debbie Allen Dance Academy.
Aidan McDonald (they/he) is based in West Philadelphia, holds a B.A. in Theatre from Rowan University, attended the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, and has studied with Broken Mirror Studio. They have previously been seen in The Weir; Duffy’s Cut (Irish Heritage Theatre), Ragtime (Candlelight Dinner Theatre), Flight Night Vegas (People’s Light), Hamlet (Arden Shakespeare Gild), Dancing at Lughnasa; Assassins; Once (City Theater Company), and The AV Club.
Semaja Murphy (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based actor, singer, and storyteller, and a proud graduate of Temple University. Murphy won the 2024 BroadwayWorld Philadelphia Award for Best Supporting Performer in a Play (One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show, Theatre in the X). This production marks Semaja’s debut with Theater Exile.
The production features support from Honorary Producers Susan and Ed Hoffman, Gayle and David Smith, and Dirk Allen and Glenn Sykes. The Community Partner is Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Theatre Exile is an award-winning nonprofit theater company dedicated to enhancing Philadelphia’s cultural fabric through the development and staging of bold, thought-provoking plays. Since 1996, the company has sparked dialogue and explored the human condition with a distinct sense of Philadelphia grit and passion.
Through new works and reimagined productions, Theatre Exile champions artistic risk and freedom of expression while fostering a supportive environment where artists and audiences can grow and find their voices.
