About the Show

Vineyard Theatre presents a new play staging the verbatim transcript of the FBI interrogation of Russian election hacking whistleblower Reality Winner.

From the show:

A true story, still unfolding. June 3, 2017. A 25-year-old former Air Force linguist named Reality Winner is surprised at her home by the FBI, interrogated, and then charged with leaking evidence of Russian interference in U.S elections. Reality remains in jail with a record-breaking sentence. The FBI transcript of her interrogation is the heart of IS THIS A ROOM, conceived as a play and directed by Obie Award-winner Tina Satter, in which an extraordinary human drama unfolds between the complex and witty Reality (Emily Davis), and the agents who question her. As Reality’s autonomy shrinks before her eyes, a simmering real-life thriller emerges, asking what it is to have honor in this American moment, and how the personal can reverberate globally.

Critic Reviews (13)

For a previous production

CRITIC’S PICK "Why’d She Blow the Whistle?: Tina Satter’s remarkable docudrama recreates the bizarrely banal interrogation that led to the arrest of the intelligence contractor Reality Winner."
Read more

For a previous production

4/5 Stars "The production smartly balances vérité and stylization, offering its own interrogation of the event…But 'Is This A Room' has a movingly human presence at its core. Davis gives a performance of heart-wrenching rawness and lucidity."
Read more

For a previous production

"When I learned that the show would move to the Vineyard for a longer engagement, I was thrilled to see it again—it contains one of my favorite pieces of performance ever. Pencils down, voting over."
Read more

For a previous production

"Is This a Room Dramatizes the Interrogation of NSA Leaker Reality Winner: Tina Satter's new play exposes the weight of body language in exercises of power."
Read more

For a previous production

"Real Life Provides The Intriguing Script For Tina Satter's Tense Drama 'IS THIS A ROOM'"
Read more

For a previous production

"Seeing Winner -- an achingly vulnerable Emily Davis -- struggle to make small talk with these strangers, who shuttle between chatty repartee and veiled threats -- is an authentic white-knuckle experience."
Read more

For a previous production

4/5 Stars "A stark and striking new work of documentary theater, a sharp slice of real life that gives audiences something current and substantial to chew over afterwards."
Read more

For a previous production

"The second problem is that since it is a transcript it is not very dramatic, going back over the same material again and again, trying to catch Winner out or be careful to cover all legal bases. The dialogue remains mundane for most of the performance."
Read more