The Ghostlight Stage Company delivers a rare Ruhl gem with grace and grit.
By all accounts, Late, a Cowboy Song is Sarah Ruhl’s most elusive script — a tender, underproduced meditation on identity, long-term love, and the fences we build around gender roles and personal freedom. But under the direction of Aiden Dalton, Performing Arts Director, this rarely-seen work comes to life with poignant clarity and quiet defiance. The production runs May 22–25 at the Falcon Theatre in Newport, KY, and it is, quite frankly, not to be missed.
The Plot
The story centers on Mary, played with aching sincerity by Kate Stark, a woman perpetually late — late for appointments, late for clarity, late for her own becoming. Stark’s performance is a gentle unraveling; she draws the audience into Mary’s private tangle of doubt and longing as the holidays — and years — whirl by. Opposite her is Michael Sanchez as Crick, Mary’s partner since grade school, whose emotional volatility and need for control teeter between suffocating and heartbreakingly misguided. Sanchez plays him with a dangerous charm — one minute lovebombing, the next belittling — painting a painfully accurate portrait of toxic codependency that feels all too familiar.
Enter Red — the cowboy, the outlier, the breath of open air. Making her Ghostlight debut, Jarrett McCormick is the most perfect Red. From the moment she saunters in, Red is a walking contradiction: soft-spoken but unshakable, romantic yet free. McCormick’s presence is magnetic, and her performance — particularly her delivery of Ruhl’s haunting cowboy songs, composed by McCormick herself — is nothing short of spellbinding. Her voice, plaintive and earthy, lingers in the room long after the lights dim.
The Design Team
The production’s design team matches the script’s lyrical subtlety. Chad Brinkman’s lighting and set design transition between the claustrophobic clutter of Mary and Crick’s home to the liberating openness of the stables where Mary finds solace. Eliana Batsakis’s costumes are quietly brilliant: Mary is nondescript, caught in the in-between; Crick, buttoned-up and repressed; and Red — part marlboro man, part modern woman — looks every bit the timeless cowboy while nodding to femininity and freedom.
If you go, and you should, do yourself a favor and sit near the front. While the Falcon’s intimate space lends itself beautifully to this piece, some of the most touching moments — particularly those on the floor or including music can be lost to audience members sitting further back.
Overall
Late, a Cowboy Song may not be Ruhl’s most celebrated play, but in the hands of the Ghostlight Stage Company, it’s a profound, resonant evening of theatre.This production reminds us that freedom — in identity, in love, in life — is always worth being late for.
Get tickets and find out what’s next for Ghostlight Stage Company HERE.
