PHYL is named for its protagonist Phyllis Chester, a young woman working as a governess, and therefore sentenced to life as a hermit, “not good enough for the dining room, a little too superior for the kitchen,” as one critic put it. PHYL was never published and has barely been read, much less produced. It played for a week in Manchester in 1913, with a few other productions over the next five years, and then never again.

PHYL is by Cicely Hamilton, author of DIANA OF DOBSON’S, which Mint produced in the spring of 2001, “an exciting discovery of the Mint, beautifully acted and remarkably moving,” said the New York Post. Britt Berke will direct PHYL, with performances at Theater Row beginning on October 3, 2026