Coney Island Nursery Rhyme, a fascinating new historical drama about the unofficial father of Neonatology, Martin A. Couney, is set for a strictly limited engagement run Off Broadway. Written and directed by Lubomir Rzepka, the production will run July 12th– 20th in the John DeSotelle Studio at the NuBox Theatre, 754 Ninth Ave., 4th floor.
Nursery Rhyme is a historical fiction set in Connecticut and New York in the 1930’s. Based on a true story, it follows the esteemed incubator-doctor, showman, and unofficial father of Neonatology, Martin A. Couney. In a time where a eugenics-focused medical culture refused to employ incubator technology, Couney took it upon himself to save premature babies in his own incubators at a sideshow at Coney Island where funds were used to hire nurses and essentially create an unofficial hospital. We focus on Beatrice Winthrop, a woman from the American gentry who seeks Couney’s assistance after giving birth prematurely.
The story is an homage to an important, peculiar, and nearly forgotten part of history.
