Class of '29

Harvard promised them everything. The Depression gave them a basement apartment. Class of '29 follows three Harvard graduates as they tumble from privilege into poverty, sharing a cramped cellar flat while sending out resumes that never return. Ken Holden dreams of building things but can only watch his architectural ambitions crumble. His friends Ted and Tippy bounce between desperate optimism and quiet despair, each grappling with the humiliating gap between what they were promised and what the economy has delivered. When Laura Stevens arrives, she forces Ken to confront not just his unemployment but his pride, his assumptions about who deserves help, and what he's willing to sacrifice to maintain the appearance of success. The play crackles with the dark humor of young men trying to laugh their way through ruin. There's Ted, kept afloat by the woman who loves him, his pride slowly eroding. There's the specific cruelty of being educated for a world that no longer exists. This is a portrait of a generation told they could be anything, watching that promise curdle in real time. It endures because its characters refuse to become Statistics, even as the world tries to reduce them to ones.