‘The Does’ Uses Epstein Survivors’ Words in Miami Play Reading

Actors read Sheri Wilner-Deering’s “The Does”  in June of 2026 presented at the Donald J. Trump–Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room in Washington, D.C., a temporary installation of bound volumes of Epstein-related records. A Miami cast will present a staged reading at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami on Sunday, Oct. 4. (Photo by Gregg Deering)

Playwright Sheri Wilner-Deering was doing research for her next play. It was the Fall of 2025 and she wanted to write about women who stood up to powerful men.

“I began researching trials of largely unknown women throughout American history who outperformed their male prosecutors. I wanted to find women from every century,” the New York-based playwright said. She wanted to find words that might speak to what she saw as a loss of women’s rights under the Trump administration.

But there was something that kept interrupting the research. “Every single day there were like 25 Epstein headlines,” she said. And I thought, ‘Why am I going back to the past when there were women fighting to be heard right now—the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein?’”

Wilner-Deering started searching and found material in court records, all in the public record, including a 2006 Palm Beach grand jury proceeding, where two survivors testified, and a New York hearing after Epstein’s death in 2019, where 23 survivors gave statements. Those accounts became the basis for “The Does,” which will be presented in a staged reading in Miami on Sunday, Oct. 4.

Rather than recount the case through news reports, “The Does” lets the women describe, in their own words, how Epstein drew them in and abused them, Wilner-Deering said.

New York-based playwright Sheri Wilner-Deering created “The Does” from Epstein survivors’ words in court records. The play will have a staged reading in Miami on Oct. 4. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“There’s not a word in the script that doesn’t come from an official court document.” Her work, she said, was to select and arrange the material, and to edit out repetition and filler words so it could be heard as theater.

She writes in the opening of the script: “Every word in this piece was spoken by a Jeffrey Epstein survivor, except for interrogatory questions by lawyers and jurors.”

The title comes from the name many survivors used in legal proceedings: Jane Doe. Wilner-Deering keeps that anonymity in the script, even when a woman identified herself publicly in court.

For South Florida audiences, that history has a particular connection. The Palm Beach investigation is part of the material in the play, and Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown’s 2018 “Perversion of Justice” investigation brought renewed scrutiny to Epstein’s treatment by prosecutors and the accounts of women who said he abused them.

Miami became the next stop because Wilner-Deering was already coming to town to lead workshops for the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs’ Playwright Development Program. She has mentored local playwrights through the program before. When she realized the workshop weekend coincided with the national Fall of Freedom arts event, she arranged the reading with help from South Florida Theatre League leader Andie Arthur and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami.

Kate Pawlowski and Noa Harris rehearse with University of Miami theater faculty member Jessica Bashline who is directing the Miami reading. (Photo courtesy of Sheri Wilner-Deering)

University of Miami theater faculty member Jessica Bashline directs the Miami cast: Therese Adelina, Melissa Almaguer, Vanessa Elise, Noa Harris and Kate Pawlowski. Two of the actors are University of Miami students. Wilner-Deering said their youth makes the age of the girls described in the testimony harder to overlook.

“The Does” has already been presented at the Donald J. Trump–Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room in Washington, D.C., a temporary installation of bound volumes of Epstein-related records. Wilner-Deering said survivors there discussed their advocacy at one event, and the play was read the following day. To her, the two events worked together: the reading showed audiences what the women had endured, while the survivors spoke about what they are trying to change now.

For Wilner-Deering, sharing the testimony matters partly because repeatedly recounting trauma can exact a heavy toll. Survivors, she said, have already told their stories; the responsibility should not fall to them to keep repeating them. “I don’t feel like it’s beholden on them to keep repeating, you know, what happened to them,” she said.

She also sees the play as a way to draw attention beyond the well-known names associated with the case. “People are so obsessed with who was in that circle, who did what, and just trading these names like they’re trading cards,” she said. Wilner-Deering worries that the attention paid to Epstein’s associates has crowded out what survivors have said happened to them.

She hopes “The Does” may accomplish for Epstein survivors something like what “The Laramie Project” did after Matthew Shepard’s murder: bring people’s own words to the stage and keep audiences listening.

From left, Gabby Rene Wolfe, Julia Link, Gigi Cammaroto, Jenna Rossman, and Robyn Cohen in the Washington, D.c. reading of “The Does.” (Photo by Gregg Deering)

Her ambitions for the work extend beyond readings. She is revising the script to make its shifts among courtrooms and depositions easier to follow and would like to see it fully staged.

Wilner-Deering said her plays often emerge from news stories.

“I’ll read something and get really enraged by it, and that becomes the topic of my next play,” she said. In this case, she said, the urgency of events and her interest in verbatim theater came together: “There are so many stories that are absolutely crucial to be told right now.”

Following the reading, a panel will include Epstein survivor Jena-Lisa Jones and counselors from two South Miami-Dade organizations: M.U.J.E.R. Inc., which supports survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and Start Off Smart, whose STOP program provides advocates for survivors. Fort Lauderdale attorneys Brad Edwards and Brittany Henderson, who have represented Epstein survivors, will attend.

WHAT: “The Does,” a staged play reading by Sheri Wilner-Deering

WHEN: Sunday, Oct. 4, 7 p.m.

WHERE: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami, 7701 SW 76th Ave., Miami

COST: Free; reservations required

INFORMATION: Reserve through Eventbrite. Recommended for ages 16 and older.

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