The Toledo Repertoire Theatre wraps up the second season of its Toledo Voices series Saturday evening with Charmed Like a Snake, I’m Sure, by Deborah Coulter-Harris.

Toledo Voices premieres previously unproduced plays by local writers in a series of staged readings at the theater. Another of Coulter-Harris’s plays, Sheba Rules, was among the works chosen for the series’ inaugural season in 2017.

Coulter-Harris describes Charmed Like a Snake, I’m Sure as “a mysterious and farcical tragedy/black comedy set during the chaos surrounding 9/11; it involves several fictional characters and events at the Central Intelligence Agency.” Coulter-Harris once worked for the CIA as a Middle East political analyst.

The play, an entirely fictional work, centers on Dr. M., a world-famous linguist, translator, and analyst brought to the CIA to look at troubling intelligence and project what is likely happen in the near future regarding terrorist threats, the playwright said.

Dr. M. predicts the 9/11 attack but is off by four days. When her prediction goes by without incident, the other analysts say she’s a fake. They’re threatened by her aristocratic breeding, her abilities, and the chance that she will challenge their office politics and status quo. She then tries to determine why her superiors are redacting Osama bin Laden’s location from her reports.

VIDEO: Playwright Deborah Coulter-Harris

“As the story unfolds, the audience gradually becomes aware of the duplicity and deception within a government office that is tasked with national security,” Coulter-Harris said. “This play is not so much about the CIA as it is concerned with human nature’s Nietzschean impulse for power and authority over others, and to highlight current universal political themes of instability, mendacity, and untrustworthiness.”

Dave DeChristopher, artistic director of the Toledo Repertoire Theatre and a playwright himself, initiated the Toledo Voices series and selects its plays. When asked to comment on Charmed Like a Snake, I’m Sure, he said: “This selection was slightly unusual, since the play is already published, but has never been produced or read aloud for an audience. And it's quite provocative.

“The MacGuffin for the action is the events of 9/11, but the focus of the play is the delicate balance of international diplomacy and, more specifically, the activities of the CIA. The tone of the play is interesting, as the characters at first appear larger than life, and the first half of the play reads to my eye like satire. When the tragedy occurs, there is a shift in tone.

“Originally my biggest question was how this shift in tone would be received by an audience. But in the last year, life has imitated art in the larger-than-life happenings both here in the United States and on the world stage. So, now I’m very curious if they will see it as a satire or a documentary ... just kidding ... OK, half kidding.”

Coulter-Harris is the author of six published books; Stone Keeper: A Collection of Poetry and Plays (2008), includes both Sheba Rules and Charmed Like a Snake, I’m Sure.

In the 1970s, she studied acting at the Abbey Theatre and Gate Theatre schools in Dublin and performed in classical plays overseas and in California and New England. While in Ireland, she published her first collection of poetry, wrote and performed a weekly radio show for RTE, Ireland’s national radio, and appeared on a weekly sitcom for RTE television.

Coulter-Harris, who holds a Ph.D. in English and linguistics, is a senior Lecturer in the department of english language and literature at the University of Toledo. She is a member of the Toledo Repertoire Theatre’s board of directors and teaches acting classes for adults at the Rep.

The cast of 14 actors for Charmed Like a Snake, I’m Sure features UT staff,  students, and alumni. They include Hallie Dolin, John Adams, Teresa Boyer, Sherris Anne Schwind, and Ricardo Urista. UT faculty member Elliot Adams is providing the sound for the performance.

Also among the cast are Improv performer Jeremy Natter; Michael Schmitz and Jordan Borowski, who have appeared in productions at the Rep; and Dayna Triplett, who studied acting with Coulter-Harris when she ran a program at Rosary Cathedral several years ago. The play features members of Coulter-Harris’s 2017 craft of acting course, John Mensing, Karen Long, Brad Riker, Jose Melger, and Paul Sepeda.

Charmed Like a Snake, I’m Sure will be presented at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Toledo Repertoire Theatre’s 10th Street Stage, 16 Tenth St. Tickets are  $7 general admission and $5 students from toledorep.org and 419-243-9277.

Contact Sue Brickey at: sbrickey@theblade.com.

First Published April 26, 2018, 11:58 p.m.