Wonder! A Woman Keeps a Secret

This is a comic play by Talene Monahon, adapted from The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret, a 1714 comedy by Susanna Centlivre. Monahon turns the old farce into a cruise-ship caper. The action takes place aboard the Aqua Royale during a sailing that runs from Paris to Portugal, and the story is set in 2027.

Classic Stage Company produces the New York premiere. CSC is an Off-Broadway company founded in 1967, and Jill Rafson is its artistic director. The play closes out the company's 2026-27 season. CSC commissioned the script in partnership with Northern Stage and the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation BOLD Ventures, and it had its world premiere in Vermont before coming to Manhattan.

The setup is a heist on a holiday. A pleasure cruise turns into a caper when a famous painting vanishes from the ship and suspicion falls on one of the passengers. Around that mystery gather the kinds of figures a farce depends on: a money-hungry matriarch, a lonely maid, a lady detective and a captain who is afraid of icebergs.

The tone is broad and comic. Announcements describe it as a loose adaptation of Centlivre's play.

Monahon is the playwright. Her best-known play is Meet the Cartozians, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2026. Her script is a farce that reworks an eighteenth-century play for a cruise ship in 2027.

The production also includes one new, original song by Mark Sonnenblick, an Oscar winner for his work on the animated film KPop Demon Hunters. Announcements mention a single song rather than a full score.

Centlivre's comedy was first staged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London in 1714. Monahon's adaptation had its world premiere at Northern Stage in White River Junction, Vermont, from May 13 to May 31, 2026. Aileen Wen McGroddy directed that production, and Ellen Winter composed for it and played piano. The New York premiere at CSC follows in 2027.