Script Club - Like Flies

Join us for a Book Club-style Script Club with the Portland Stage. Check out your copy of the script* and join us two weeks before previews of each Mainstage Production. Scripts are available at the reference desk at the Downtown Library. This year Portland Stage celebrates its 52nd season and we invite you to chat about the plays with Literary Manager Todd Brian Backus, his Directing and Dramaturgy Apprentices, and special guests.

When a mysterious new midwife comes to town, a group of women think she might have solutions for more than just childbirth. She might also have something to remedy an epidemic of cruel men. New alliances are formed and each woman wonders who she can trust in this thrilling play.

As Edna, the new midwife, and Meg, the old midwife, form a shaky partnership the women in town start coming to them for aches, pains, cramps, and more. But when men in town start dropping like flies the gossip begins to swirl and people wonder, what do the midwives have in those little bottles? Loosely based on The Angel Makers of Nagyrév, Like Flies, a rage play by Maggie Kearnan follows a group of women who decide to take matters into their own hands regarding violent, despicable men. Like Flies asks big questions about what it means to use violence for our own gains, and who, and what we become when we do. Like Flies, a rage play was workshopped as part of the 2025 Little Festival of the Unexpected at Portland Stage Company. This production will be its world premiere.

*Script copies are available at the Downtown Branch Reference Desk.