The three female chorus members — Lauren Molina, April Ortiz, and Jen Washington— don mustaches and manspreading poses. We laugh just at the sight of them, as it’s already a habit watching this laugh-a-minute script by Jennifer Blackmer come to life. Here, they are re-enacting a conference room scene when the big shot male manager (Eric Tabac) brings in this gaggle of fools to present their terminally male notions of how to make a home pregnancy test commercially viable. When one of these would-be product designers suggests packaging the test akin to party swag that allows double purpose as a memento, we are in our rights to think it’s an over-the-top burlesque gag to keep us laughing.
Or is it???
Like the Broadway hit Liberation being staged just a half mile away, Blackmer’s script takes us back to the not-so-long-ago ancient history when feminist was first applied as an epithet to keep women in their place. Caitlin Kinnunen plays the real-world graphic designer, Meg Crane, who first came up with the idea of a home pregnancy test, developed commercially viable prototypes for it, and in 1969 was bamboozled to sell off her rights to her employer Organon Pharmaceuticals.
AMT Talk Back Lets Us Meet the Real-World Meg Crane
At this particular performance we might have asked Meg Crane in the flesh if the home-pregnancy-test-as-memento was a real thing. There were miles long fact checks to make of this delightful screwball comedy telling her story. Seeming to walk out of a history book, Crane talked to us about how it was not a game show called Who Made That? but rather a New York Times series that omitted her historical role that got Crane to speak up and out about the real story that brought home pregnancy tests to life.
You too might have been similarly struck by how Crane’s diminutive size, poise and grace certainly would have added to her challenges to be taken seriously in the mansplaining universe that ruled the corporate world at that time.
Or should this be expressed in the present tense???
PREDICTOR is Brought To Life By Talented Ensemble
With unflagging energy, the tight and super-talented ensemble of Predictor brings Crane’s story to life (Director: Alex Keegan). With perfect comic timing the cast recreates educational films about sex, game shows, ads for sanitary napkins and that tampon innovation that was not designed for virginal unmarried women—among other 50’s and 60’s culture captures. With faster-than-a-blink costume changes each actor morphs into the many characters that peopled Crane’s world— her immediate boss at Organon Pharmaceuticals, her father, her strict Catholic mother and even stricter Nun scold ever in her mind’s eye, her long-suffering female colleague who clings to her status beyond the typing pool, the chemist harvesting rabbit blood to determine pregnancies, her eventual love interest and champion, among many others.
Banish the thought that this is a dry tale of corporate shenanigans. Think instead of shtik-heavy Vaudeville that makes you laugh out loud.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
CAST:
MEG CRANE....Caitlin Kinnunen*
CHORUS 1..... Jes Washington*
CHORUS 2 + U/S MEG CRANE... Lauren Molina*
CHORUS 3.....April Ortiz*
CHORUS 4......John Leonard Thompson*
CHORUS 5.....Eric Tabach*
CHORUS 6.....Nick Piacente*
STANDBY........Jose Maria Aguila*
STANDBY......Adrienne Wells*
CREATIVE TEAM:
Written By Jennifer Blackmer
Directed by Alex Keegan
Scenic/Props Design......Cat Raynor
Costume Design......Alicia Austin
Lighting Design.......Zach Blane
Sound Design & Original Music......Uptown Works
Associate Director.......Sarah Shapiro
Production Stage Manager......Hethyr Verhoef*
Assistant Stage Manager........Grace DiNatale
Technical Director.........Jay Janicki
Casting........Eisenberg Casting, Daryl Eisenberg, CSA
General Manager......Mott/Fischer Productions
Company Manager....... Seth Pecore
Marketing........Vanguard XP
PR......Emily Owens PR
Graphic Design.......Regular People
Asst Scenic/Props Designer.......Kim Zhou
Asst Lighting Designer........Lauren Lee
Asst Costume Designer.......Jack Cavanaugh-Giallaretto
Casting Asst........Joey Bermudez
Wardrobe Supervisor........Paul Haesemeyer
Deck Carpenter...........Sophie Delaney
Advertising...........Tarbert Digital
Social Media Manager.........Kendall Browne
Production Manager........Sean McGrath
WHEN:
December 6, 2025 - January 18, 2026
WHERE:
The AMT Theater
354 W 45th St
New York, NY 10036
TICKETS:
$49+
For more information and tickets visit the PREDICTOR website.
Photos courtesy of PREDICTOR, by photographer Valerie Terranova, unless otherwise indicated.
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About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
