Right now, the base act of bringing people together, away from the isolation of their devices to watch live theater, is starting to feel more and more radical,” posits playwright Max Wolf Friedlich, whose “The Holes” will be presented by Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College with readings on July 19 and 20 as part of the company’s 39th season. “I think it’s a spiritual act, too. I feel the same way when I’m watching theater as I do when I’m at synagogue.”
Friedlich, who was born and raised in New York, became the latest enfant terrible of the Gotham theater world thanks to his psychological thriller “Job,” which premiered Off-Broadway in 2023 and moved to Broadway the following year. Confronting the toxic realities of the internet that the 30-year-old writer grew up with and mental illness, “Job’s” online themes were rooted in his experience as an aspiring screenwriter in Hollywood, where he worked at the startup that created the computer-generated influencer Lil Miquela. Compared favorably to the tense, dystopian feel of TV’s “Black Mirror,” the production earned a New York Times critic’s pick and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, among other accolades.
In tandem with his New York background, Friedlich also spent chunks of his youth in the Hudson Valley, including Vassar in Poughkeepsie (he apprenticed and did a post-graduate residence at Powerhouse), and Kingston, where he was enrolled at the Wayfinder Experience LARP (live action role playing) camp, where these days he teaches part-time. It’s in the latter town that “The Holes” is set, with much of its action taking place at a fictitious bar in the “rapidly gentrifying city” where illicit sex acts take place in the back room. The writer describes the tale as “a story about shame, fathers and sons, legacy versus progress, and the relationship between spirituality and capitalism in the 21st century.”
But, of course, “The Holes,” directed by Michael Herwitz with dramaturgy by producer Hannah Getts, isn’t all that Powerhouse has planned for 2025. Also on the menu are readings of Andy Boyd and Zinc Tong’s “It Is Right to Rebel!” (June 20) and Amalia Oliva Rojas’s “In the Bronx Brown Girls Can See Stars Too” (June 28), while the Powerhouse Theater Training Company will present Max Reuben’s “Biography” (July 3, 10, 17, and 24), Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” (July 11-13), Chekov’s “The Seagull” (July 18-20), Aeschylus’s “Orestia” (July 20-21), and the New Works Play Festival (July 26). Workshops include the musical “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” (July 18-19) and the award-winning “A Simple Herstory” (July 5-6). The main stage has “A Trojan Woman,” Sara Farrington’s adaptation of Euripides’s “The Trojan Woman” (July 25-27).
“Naturally, I hope [attendees] enjoy what they see and are entertained by it,” says Friedlich. “That the act of experiencing a good play with other people, communally, stays with them. And that what [the company does] gets into their head, hopefully in a positive way. I welcome all reactions—as long as people engage and are moved in some way, that’s great.”
Max Wolf Friedlich’s “The Holes” will be presented at Powerhouse Theater on the campus of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie on July 19 and 20. The 2025 Powerhouse Theater season will run June 20-July 27.
Powerhouse Theater
This article appears in June 2025.
