Posted August 6, 2025
By Peter Aaron
Let’s face it: As much as we don’t like its invasive pervasiveness, life in the 21st century is essentially impossible without the internet. With the worldwide web, the secret to maintaining one’s health and sanity is all in how one mitigates, or at least tries to mitigate, its usage. Which, of course, feels like it’s getting harder and harder to do, thanks to the net’s inherently addictive nature. In playwright Dave Malloy’s (“Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812”) surreal 2019 a capella musical “Octet,” a cast of eight admitted internet addicts gathers for a 12-step-/NA-style meeting to each speak and sing their piece—making for one of the most thought-provoking new theatrical works in years. Hudson Valley Shakespeare in Garrison will present a new production of “Octet” August 11 through September 4. Director Amanda Dehnert answered the following questions by email.
—Peter Aaron
Peter Aaron: “Octet” is known for being an intense work; the New York Times called it “beautiful, absorbing, [and] disturbing.” What was it about the musical that made you want to direct a production of it?
Amanda Dehnert: Everything about it, really—the topic is incredibly relevant, the compositional form is brilliant, the characters are deeply compelling, and the music is just out-of-this-world amazing. I felt like the most fortunate director in the world when Davis McCallum [artistic director at Hudson Valley Shakespeare] asked me to direct it.
One of the most interesting aspects of “Octet” is how it uses an age-old format and medium—basic human storytelling and song on a minimal stage with no big, flashy sets or props—to subvert, or at least push back against, the inescapable ultramodern technology that now engulfs us all. You’re known for your highly successful revisionist approach to “St. Joan,” “Annie,” “West Side Story,” “Othello,” and other classics. How did those productions prepare you to take Octet’s themes on, and how would you say your take on the play differs from that of the original director, Annie Tippe?
I see all stories through a lens that’s about survival. How do we survive all the various challenges that life puts in our path? Anything I’ve directed that could be called a “new” approach to a classic work has been rooted in what the characters are surviving, and how they go about it. I see all characters with empathy, and I want audiences to experience that empathy when they come to the theatre. I think “Octet” is very much a story of survival, and watching these characters struggle with their addictions allows the audience the space to perhaps see themselves within the story, and to care about the ways technology is harming our humanity, our society. I think the original production of “Octet” is brilliant and also, I’m not looking to find ways to do it differently; I’m just responding to the piece as it is and working with the acting company and all the creative team to put this great piece of work onstage.
Recently there’s been an increasing awareness of the mounting machinations of the tech oligarchy being propagated by the likes of Elon Musk et al. “Octet” premiered in 2019, a few years before the details came out and we started to get a clearer idea of just how pervasive and premeditated those machinations are. Are there any moments in the play that speak specifically to rise of the tech bros and/or that surprised you as being particularly prescient? Have you adapted any elements of the play to be more “current”?
No adaptation needed. Dave Malloy already took care of a small bit that sets the piece as post-pandemic. And everything else could have been written yesterday. It’s frighteningly prescient, all of it. It’s gorgeous and terrifying and true and—ultimately—hopeful: all the things anyone could want out of an evening in the theater.
Despite the seriousness of the topic, “Octet” is also known for having moving moments of emotional, very human beauty. Do you have a favorite scene that speaks to those qualities?
So many, but today my answer is the extended dialogue scene at the center of the piece; it’s so beautifully written, so funny, and so very authentic in the way it lets us spend time with a character who is coming to this support group for the first time.
Some theatergoers may be uncertain about going to see a chamber opera about internet addiction. For those potential audience members, as a theater lover yourself, why would you recommend they attend a performance? What do you think and most hope they get from the play?
First, I’d probably ask, “Why not a chamber opera about addiction?” Could you ever imagine such a thing? No? Well, that’s why you should go—because the theater should always surprise us and give us the thing we didn’t know we needed. And after that, I’d just beg them to come, because there is absolutely no way they should miss it. This piece is extremely special, and the cast assembled at Hudson Valley Shakespeare is doing an incredible job. Great acting, great story, great music—along with being relevant, “Octet” is extremely entertaining. That’s the evening I’d like them to have.