BY ERIN LAYTON & JULIE KLINE
FEBRUARY 21, 2026 @ 7PM
Magdalen is a layered, one-woman play inspired by the true stories of the women and girls who labored in one of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries in the mid-twentieth century. A narrator invites us into an abandoned building in present-day Dublin — once operated by the Good Shepherd Sisters — where the voices of the past echo through its walls.
Through the ghosts of young “penitent” washer-women, a parish priest, and a Reverend Mother, Erin Layton brings to life a haunting, multi-character performance that bears witness to a hidden chapter of Irish history — one of silence, endurance, and the search for redemption.
TEAM
Co-Creator & Writer
Julie Kline
Co-Writer & Performer
Erin Layton
ERIN LAYTON
Erin Layton (Writer & Performer) is a Queens-based theatre artist. Her one-woman play, MAGDALEN, co-developed and directed by Julie Kline, has toured the festival circuit in cities across the United States; Off-Broadway: SoHo Playhouse, 59E59 Theaters; internationally as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe; and through invited performances for Irish community centers and venues across the New York tri-state area, recently upstate at Franklin Stage Company, and as a guest artist/lecturer for university acting programs across the country. She has appeared onstage in several regional and NYC productions (Off-Broadway; Actors Theatre of Louisville; La MaMa ETC; Vineyard Theatre; Secret Theatre). Other writing credits include THE IMMIGRANTS, developed in residency at Lyth Arts Centre in Scotland, and WOKE: an evangelical reckoning, in residency at Phantom Theatre in Vermont, both in collaboration with Julie Kline. Solo show directing credits include CRACKPOT SHAKESPEARE THEORIES, VOLUME 1 and CROOKED SHADOWS, both with City Gate Productions, where she proudly serves on their board and as Director of New Play Development. DG member. @erin_rose2017
JULIE KLINE
Julie Kline (Co-creator & Director) is a New York–based director, actor, and writer whose work spans internationally touring world premieres and community-based performances that theatricalize personal stories. She has collaborated extensively with Erin Layton on MAGDALEN (Edinburgh Festival Fringe and theaters across the U.S.) and THE IMMIGRANTS (Lyth Arts Centre, Scotland). Other directing credits include DOUBT (Franklin Stage Company), RAISING JO (Theater Row), BOMBSHELL OF RHYTHM (SoHo Playhouse), and JANE (benefit reading at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater featuring Cynthia Nixon, Ana Gasteyer, Monique Coleman, and Kathy Najimy), as well as guest directing at Long Island University Brooklyn, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and DePaul University’s Theater School. Julie is also a practitioner and national trainer in creative aging (arts education for older adults) and creator of SENIORS AND THE CITY, an oral history theater project supported by New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Department for the Aging. She was an inaugural recipient of the Victor/Weiss Cultural Entrepreneur Fund, awarded by the Brooklyn Arts Council in recognition of outstanding women arts leaders, and is an alumna of The Theater School at DePaul University in Chicago. www.juliekline.com @juliejulzkline