110 COLUMBIA HEIGHTS

by Germaine Shames

In the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, three extraordinary individuals, living and dead, probe the sprawling steel colossus in search of the American soul.

In the 1870s, Emily Warren Roebling, wife of the bridge’s paralyzed chief engineer, moved to 110 Columbia Heights to take over the day-to-day supervision and diplomacy needed to complete the project. A half century later, Jazz Age poet, Hart Crane, occupied...

In the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, three extraordinary individuals, living and dead, probe the sprawling steel colossus in search of the American soul.

In the 1870s, Emily Warren Roebling, wife of the bridge’s paralyzed chief engineer, moved to 110 Columbia Heights to take over the day-to-day supervision and diplomacy needed to complete the project. A half century later, Jazz Age poet, Hart Crane, occupied this same apartment as he labored on his seminal poem, The Bridge. Peggy Baird Cowley, a free-spirited painter and Hart’s one heterosexual lover, often visited the poet there. In 110 COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, a comi-tragic marriage of fact and fantasy, their lives intersect as they grapple for a toehold in an age of frayed morals and accelerating flux.

Part love letter, part indictment, 110 COLUMBIA HEIGHTS plumbs the dark recesses and soaring heights of a country still struggling to live up to its own rhetoric, and whose future, now as then, hangs in the balance.

View a video teaser: https://youtu.be/oI1GhbZLGSU

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110 COLUMBIA HEIGHTS

Recommended by

  • Greg Jones Ellis: 110 COLUMBIA HEIGHTS by Germaine Shames
    “

    This play manages to combine the lyricism of Hart Crane’s poetry with the harsh realities of his troubled life. By juxtaposing the rhythms of the Jazz Age with the Gilded Age gentility of Crane’s ghostly visitor, the author provides the audience with a vivid and compelling look at the price of American ambition.

    This play manages to combine the lyricism of Hart Crane’s poetry with the harsh realities of his troubled life. By juxtaposing the rhythms of the Jazz Age with the Gilded Age gentility of Crane’s ghostly visitor, the author provides the audience with a vivid and compelling look at the price of American ambition.

    ”
  • Rachael Powles: 110 COLUMBIA HEIGHTS by Germaine Shames
    “

    What an incredible play! Rich in history, vibrant characters, and a heartfelt yet funny story. It inspired me to immediately go read more about Roebling and Crane. High recommended.

    What an incredible play! Rich in history, vibrant characters, and a heartfelt yet funny story. It inspired me to immediately go read more about Roebling and Crane. High recommended.

    ”
  • The Depot for New Play Readings: 110 COLUMBIA HEIGHTS by Germaine Shames
    “

    In Germaine Shames’ rich imagination, 110 Columbia Heights is both an historical address and an otherworldly theatrical space where the ghost of Emily Warren Roebling (1843-1903) meets the Modernist painter Peggy Baird Cowley (1890-1970), and together they help the poet Hart Crane (1899-1932) suppress his demons so he can finish his masterpiece “The Bridge.” Playful, affecting, and haunting, with characters who rhyme with our lives today, “110 Columbia Heights,” like the Brooklyn Bridge outside the apartment’s window, memorably connects characters and audience through time and space. Strong...

    In Germaine Shames’ rich imagination, 110 Columbia Heights is both an historical address and an otherworldly theatrical space where the ghost of Emily Warren Roebling (1843-1903) meets the Modernist painter Peggy Baird Cowley (1890-1970), and together they help the poet Hart Crane (1899-1932) suppress his demons so he can finish his masterpiece “The Bridge.” Playful, affecting, and haunting, with characters who rhyme with our lives today, “110 Columbia Heights,” like the Brooklyn Bridge outside the apartment’s window, memorably connects characters and audience through time and space. Strong roles for women and LGBTQI actors. Highly recommended.

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    ”

Development History

  • Reading, Classic Theatre of Maryland, 2024
  • Reading, The New Works Playhouse, 2021