the week of june 28 - july 4, 2024

the art of the steal

You’re reading Nothing for the Group, a newsletter where one dramaturg rounds up one week in theatre news, reviews, and takes. If you like this sort of thing:

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I wrote my once-a-year subscription pitch and hopefully-not-boring annual report, now with maps:

nothing for the group is 4!

Thank you so much for all of the kind notes, comments, Venmo tips, and new paid subs. It’s wild that the first edition of this newsletter went out to 120 people, most of whom I knew, and now it reaches eight thousand. A glow-up for the ages!

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world premieres

• Philip W. Chung’s Unbroken Blossoms starts performances June 27th at East West Players in Los Angeles. Jeff Liu directs the “historical reimagining of the making of a boundary-breaking Hollywood classic that shines a light on the collateral damage in the search for ‘authentic’ representation, and asks what price we pay for our art.”

• Kurt Engh’s Only Ugly Guys runs through June 30th at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis. The modern romance “delivering a stark reflection on how affection manifests in a non-committal, algorithm-fueled culture” is directed by Grant Sorenson.

• Good Apples Collective’s production of Sophie McIntosh’s cunnicularii starts performances June 28th at Alchemical Studios in NYC. Nina Goodheart directs the “piercing fable about the wonder and brutality of motherhood that interrogates the crushing pressure new parents face and questions how much of ourselves we can truly give to our offspring.”

productions

• Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! is now in previews on Broadway. Sam Pinkleton directs the deranged comedy “that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mary Todd Lincoln through the lens of an idiot (Cole Escola).”

• George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum starts previews July 3rd at DC’s Studio Theatre. The satiric classic about the “grief, madness, and hope of Black life” is directed by Psalmayene 24.

• John Michael’s Spank Bank Time Machine runs June 28-30 as part of Steppenwolf’s Look Out performance series in Chicago. The solo performance described as “Angels in America meets Snakes on a Plane, but with DRUGS!” is directed by Elizabeth Lovelady and created with Sammy Ziesel.

• Patrick Gabridge, Jasmine Rochelle Goodspeed, and Talya Kingston’s Pulling At The Roots is now running through July 7th at Shepherd Barn in Northampton, MA. Brianna Sloane directs the collection of “three site-specific one-acts moving the audience through three centuries of Northampton history.”

• Glass Half Full Theatre’s La Maleta de Maebelle is now running through June 29th at The Vortex in Austin, TX. Caroline Reck directs the bilingual adaptation of Tricia Tusa’s Maebelle's Suitcase “featuring various styles of puppetry and performance by Stephanie Vasquez Fonseca and Gricelda Silva, environmental themes, and Colombian music by Kiko Villamizar.”

summer festivals & residencies

• Sara Porkalob’s Dragon Mama runs July 2 -14 at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Andrew Russell directs the solo performance that “vividly brings to life the complex tapestry of Porkalob’s mother Maria’s early years and queer identity, affirming the power of family, the importance of self-discovery, and the indomitable spirit of those who dare to dream beyond their circumstances.”

• The Vassar Powerhouse season continues through July 28th. This week’s readings include Savon Bartley’s Holes in the Shape of My Father (directed by Adam Coy), Gloria Majule’s Possessed (or, “the Crazy African Girl” play) (directed by Shariffa Ali), Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin’s Ping Pong Play (directed by Benita de Wit), and Alexandra Neil’s 3 Graces (directed by Valentina Fratti).

• The O’Neill Playwrights Conference continues through July 14th. This week’s public readings include LaDarrion Williams’ Hurt People (June 27 & 29, directed by Eric Ruffin and dramaturged by Zeina Salame) and Rachel Mars’ Blood Play (June 28 & 30, directed by Melia Bensussen and dramaturged by Emily Lathrop).

• National Queer Theater’s Criminal Queerness Festival is now running through June 29th at PAC NYC.¹ This year’s line-up includes Achiro P. Olwoch’s The Survival (directed by Nadia Guevara), Raphaël Amahl Khouri’s She He Me (directed by Dmitri Barcomi), and Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko’s Waafrika 123: A Queerly Scripted Tragic Rise to African Fantasia (directed by é boylan).

• Berkeley Rep announced its 2024 Ground Floor Summer Residency participants. This year’s artists and projects receiving one-to-two week developmental residencies include Adam Chanler-Berat and Julian Hornik’s musical Assisted (directed by Annie Tippe); The Lazours’ one-act musical Bangladesh (directed by Ritesh Batra); The Bengsons’ The Broken Ear Trilogy (directed by Anne Kauffman and Caitlin Sullivan); Sanaz Toossi’s The Bygones (co-created with Tala Ashe); Annalisa Dias and Ronee Penoi’s The Carlisle Project; John Carrafa’s Chosin (creative consultation/dramaturgy by Carey Perloff); Eisa Davis, Walter Mosley and Jerome Hairston’s Devil In A Blue Dress: The Musical; Shannon Burkett and Heather Christian’s The Female Pope; Mikaal Sulaiman’s Fork; Andrew Saito’s Harlem Canary / Tokyo Crow (directed by Steven Sapp); Nikki Massoud’s He Who Has Ten Thousand Horses (directed by Sivan Battat); Milo Cramer and Morgan Green’s Jury Duty; Jen Anaya, Dean Linnard, Caterina Nonis, Andy Peterson’s Least of My Children; KJ Sanchez’s The Making of a Saint; Linda Amayo-Hassan’s The Missing Songs; Ngozi Anyanwu’s The Monsters; Christopher Sears’ Moonchildren: The Opera; Jaclyn Backhaus’ The Orchards; Lucy Thurber’s Port Isabel, Texas; Marvin González De León’s Real. American. Cowboy.; Margot Bordelon’s Scrub; Phil Wong’s Sic, Heung, Mei; and Rehana Mirza and Ari Afsar’s That Girl.

readings & workshops

• Elizabeth Dinkova’s adaptation of Coriolanus will have a benefit staged reading for Shakespeare in the Woods on July 2nd in NYC. Dinkova also directs her “radical, explosive adaptation set in the here and now conceptualized as a retelling of the story about the fall of a controversial Roman hero through the eyes of his wife Virgilia in the context of an asylum interview.”

digital

• Lydia R. Diamond’s Toni Stone is now available to stream on demand through July 14th from The Huntington in Boston. Diamond also directs the “beautiful, rich portrait of the first woman to play professional baseball on a man’s team in the Negro Leagues.”

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the regional theatre game of thrones

• Evan Cabnet is the next artistic director of Second Stage Theatre. Cabnet is currently the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3. He succeeds founding artistic director Carole Rothman, who is stepping down after 45 years.

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2024-25 season updates

• Second Stage announced its fall season. The line-up includes a Broadway production of Leslye Headland’s Cult of Love (directed by Trip Cullman) and the Off Broadway premiere of Donald Margulies’ Lunar Eclipse (directed by Kate Whoriskey). (This slate was selected by interim AD Bennett Leak; incoming artistic director Evan Cabnet will program the 2025-26 season.)

• Classic Stage Company announced its 2024-25 season. The NYC theatre will produce Alice Childress’ Wine in the Wilderness (directed by LaChanze), William Inge’s Bus Stop (directed by Jack Cummings III, co-pro with NAATCO and Transport Group), Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s Our Class (directed by Igor Golyak), Igor Golyak’s adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, and the Rediscovery Reading Series.

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assorted

• Playwrights Horizons laid off five full-time staffers, among other cost reductions. The immediately eliminated positions were the assistant company manager/head house manager, literary and community engagement assistant, and assistant to the artistic director. PH is also cutting its two-person in-house casting department at the end of the 2024-25 season. It was also reported that “department heads will take week-long furloughs later this year and artistic director Adam Greenfield has also taken a voluntary pay cut.”

• Groundwater Arts announced its new mission and programming. The organization, led by Annalisa Dias and Tara Moses, will “offer fresh workshops, their first arts publication focused on decolonization, and a translocal creative meetup series in Baltimore, MD and Providence, RI. Groundwater Arts has also begun offering specialized partnerships with arts organizations seeking to decompose and transform their relationships with artists, communities, and the lands they inhabit.” Their virtual workshops are now open for registration:

  • Decolonizing Theater Basics (July 8 & 11)

  • Decolonizing Theater in Practice (July 15 & 18)

  • Consensus Decision Making (July 13 & August 24)

  • Decolonizing Theater Futures (August 19 & 22)

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what i read this week when i wasn’t finishing rachel khong’s real americans*

*I have been in a reading slump for two months — and it’s summer, so I am rotting my brain with Love Island UK every night — but I was riveted by Real Americans. Nothing I love more than a sweeping, intercontinental, generations-spanning family drama.

• I heartily recommend Natasha Tripney’s Café Europa, a weekly newsletter about European theatre. I’ve loved reading about Slovenian artists exploring national identity, a radical reworking of The Winter's Tale in Latvia, and Danish theatre company Fix + Foxy’s production of Tue Biering’s Dark Noon, which is currently playing through July 7th at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.

• Helen Shaw’s New Yorker interview with Annie Baker on her debut film Janet Planet, which expands to a nationwide release this weekend. (I also liked Jackson McHenry’s Vulture piece on the genesis of the project and its relationship to Annie’s theatrical work.)

• Robbie Saenz de Viteri’s essay “Is Imitation A Form of Flattery?” which details how The Louvre recently debuted a project bearing striking similarities to Monica Bill Barnes and Company’s The Museum Workout, a participatory dance piece commissioned and performed at The Met in 2017. (The likenesses extend beyond concept to specific design, music, and performance details.) What’s even more astonishing is that the Louvre’s director of performing arts admitted they were inspired by the company’s piece, but decided it was more financially and environmentally practical to recreate it with Paris-based designers (with no public credit to the original artists). It’s infuriating, but Robbie writes a smart and remarkably generous exploration of erasure and reproduction and the relationship between institutions and artists:

  It’s an incredibly hard time for the arts. But I’m worried that story is overly focused on the institutions. As budgets are slashed, programs cut, staffs downsized, our arts institutions look like ships with slack sails, becalmed and desperate to catch some wind. We are a microscopic performing arts company with about 0.15 of a percent of The Louvre’s operating budget. We can’t downsize, if we did, we’d disappear. And yet, artists, the people who make things, are the ones who give the big ships their wind.  

1. I accidentally linked to Criminal Queerness Festival’s 2023 line-up last week — thank you to A+ reader Sarah who alerted me — and I regret the error!