Playwright directs reading of ‘Mauritius’ at Westport Country Playhouse

Theresa Rebeck is an accomplished writer and novelist, who has written for TV, film and the stage.

As a playwright, Rebeck is the most Broadway-produced female playwright of our time, known throughout the theater world for shows such as “Bernhardt/Hamlet,” “Seminar” and “Mauritius,” with the latter having premiered in 2007 starring F. Murray Abraham, Bobby Cannavale and Katie Finneran.

On March 13, Rebeck is directing a special Scriptin-Hand reading of “Mauritius” at the Westport Country Playhouse.

“This is a play I wrote about 20 years ago and it’s a romantic thriller,” Rebeck said.

The title of the play refers to the popular Indian Ocean island, which serves as the country of two rare and valuable stamps at the center of the story.

When two estranged half-sisters discover their recently deceased mom’s stamp collection, one that may include these crown jewels for stamp collectors, a battle breaks out over what to do with them. Add in some dangerous collectors who would do anything to have these stamps and you get a thriller that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats.

“It’s about the desperation of collecting,” Rebeck said. “It’s a little bit like an episode of ‘Antiques Roadshow’ where you find out these things that someone has are very valuable and it brings out different behavior in all the people who want them.”

The idea to revolve a story around stamps came when Rebeck was thinking about doing a similar show about valuable wine.

“That’s something that always perplexes me; why would you spend $2,000 on a bottle of wine you’re just going to drink? I was trolling the internet looking for information on that and found this beautiful case that had these really beautiful stamps on them,” she said.

Aside from having a small number of stamps and a book as a little kid, Rebeck never had any real interest or knowledge about stamp collecting. The more Rebeck went down the rabbit hole of stamp collecting on the internet, the more intrigued she was.

“I think stamps are really pretty, and I found myself on this page and I learned a lot very quickly,” she said. “On one page, I found someone selling a pair of 1-cent and 2-cent Spanish postage stamps at an auction and they were trying to get $7 million for the pair.”

That was enough for her to change the direction of her story from wine to stamps and she created the thriller.

“Audiences really like it; it’s a mysterious play but it’s funny and has a bit of broken heart,” Rebeck said. “The show has been done all over the world. It’s a crowd pleaser and has great parts for actors.”

The cast for this special one-night performance includes Alyssa May Gold, Elan Zafir, Geneva Carr and Richard R. Henry.

“I’m really excited to revisit it,” Rebeck said. “I tend to go from one project to the next and I don’t look back a lot. But I saw this as a great opportunity. We’re at a time when we’re trying to get people to come back and remember how much fun theater is and this is a play that does that.”

Rebeck’s latest play, “Mad House,” had a critically acclaimed world premiere last summer on London’s West End, starring David Harbour and Bill Pullman. While she was in London, she visited the British Library, where rare stamps are actually on display.

“I had never seen them in person before; I was flipping out, it was exciting,” Rebeck said. “These stamps are so tiny, but they are worth a fortune.”

Up next for Rebeck is a play for Primary Stages in New York called “Dig” and she’s working on a musical adaptation of Melanie Griffith’s 1988 hit movie, “Working Girl,” collaborating with former Stamford resident Cyndi Lauper, who is writing the music.

“We’re having so much fun; it’s really such a great project,” Rebeck said. “Cyndi’s music is amazing and she’s a genius. We’ve managed to tune up the comedy so it’s absolutely delightful. I can’t wait for this to get to the next step.”

Rebeck