My 2023-24 DC Theatre Season Preview
highlights from the upcoming theatrical year in the future 51st state
On October 2nd, I moderated a DC Theatre Week panel discussion at the Smithsonian with local critics previewing the upcoming season. One of the reasons I love living here is that there's a real ecosystem of theatres. If I didn't have a day job that starts at an unholy hour I would see a different play every night of the week. The core value of this newsletter is amplifying artistry, so I wrote up my personal highlights that I shared during the conversation.
Please note that this round-up is 100% driven by my admittedly stellar personal taste, but it’s not a comprehensive recommendation. Go see whatever you want! (And if you don't live in DC, I've written an overview of the entire 2023-24 regional theatre season for another publication, which I think will be coming out next week.)
This bonus content would normally be subscriber-only, but a paywall feels antithetical to the spirit of signal-boosting, especially given the influx of gloom-and-doom reporting on the American theatre. Thank you to Nothing for the Group's paid subscribers for supporting my writing and this platform.
Psalmayene 24
Metro Weekly christened this year "The Season of Psalm", as the ubiquitous writer-director-actor is working on a dizzying array of projects across town. It's barely October and he's already premiered two new plays! Joe's Movement Emporium produced Out of the Vineyard, a performance piece directed and choreographed by Psalm's frequent collaborator Tony Thomas based on interviews with former enslaved families in Prince George's County. Monumental Travesties, his new comedy about the absurdist hijinks unleashed after a Black performance artist's radical action at Lincoln Park's Emancipation Memorial, enjoyed an extended run at Mosaic, where Psalm is the Mellon Playwright-in-Residence and spearheads the company's H Street Oral History Project. (More on that in a minute.) He's also directing at three major theatres: the world premiere of Kia Corthron's Tempestuous Elements at Arena Stage, Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses at Folger Theatre, and George C. Wolfe's The Colored Museum at Studio Theatre. Aside from the quantity, I'm so jazzed about the formal and topical range of projects. World premieres! Adaptations! Revivals! Interview-based art! Psalm can do it all and he deserves every bit of hype.
Tempestuous Elements: February 16 - March 17, 2024 at Arena Stage
Metamorphoses: May 7 - June 16, 2024 at Folger Theatre
The Colored Museum: Performances start July 3, 2024 at Studio Theatre
Solo Performances
(I'm going to slightly self-plagiarize my upcoming regional theatre season preview a bit here, sorry/not sorry)
Small-cast plays are obligatory elements in season planning calculus, but there's a preponderance of solo performances in 2023-24 seasons across the country. Many theatres are presenting multiple solo works, including The Huntington, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Playwrights Horizons, and DC's Woolly Mammoth and Theater J. It's easy to dismiss the increase of one-person shows as a purely financial decision, but that discredits the range and depth of storytelling. Solo performances centering artists of color, under-told lived experiences, and genre experiments can simultaneously serve an organization’s artistic mission and budget constraints. I'm particularly looking forward to three in DC this season: Adil Mansoor's Amm(i)gone, John Jarboe’s Rose: You Are Who You Eat, and Sun Mee Chomet's How To Be A Korean Woman. (And if you missed Native theatremaker Madeline Sayet's Where We Belong at Woolly last year, it's returning to the Folger in February.)
Amm(i)gone: Co-Directed by Adil Mansoor and Lyam B. Gabel. April 20 - May 12, 2024 at Woolly Mammoth
Rose: You Are Who You Eat: Directed by MK Tuomanen. June 3-24, 2024 at Woolly Mammoth
How To Be A Korean Woman: Direction and dramaturgy by Zaraawar Mistry. January 4-14, 2024 at Theater J
Where We Belong: Directed by Mei Ann Teo. February 15-March 10, 2024 at The Folger
Jenny Rachel Weiner's The Chameleon at Theater J
When I interviewed Theater J's new artistic director Hayley Finn during the DC Theatre Week Kick-Off, she was so effusive about the company's commitment to presenting and commissioning new work. (Not a surprise, given that Hayley came to DC after sixteen years at The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis.) Her inaugural season delivers on that excitement: the ambitious, eclectic seven-play line-up features four world premieres, starting with Jenny Rachel Weiner's new comedy about an actor on the brink of Marvel-esque success grappling with career-threatening news during her family’s Jewish Christmas. (I would also love for someone to produce Jenny's play Damsels, as I will never forget one of my readers at Studio starting their script report with "IT'S A HAUNTED BACHELORETTE PARTY, BITCHES")
World Premiere. Directed by Ellie Heyman. October 11 - November 5 at Theater J.
Whitney White's Macbeth in Stride at Shakespeare Theatre Company
After directing several acclaimed local productions (Aleshea Harris’ What to Send Up When it Goes Down at Woolly and James Baldwin's The Amen Corner at STC, where she is now an associate director), the prolific artist Whitney White takes center stage in her pop-rock-gospel-infused exploration of Lady Macbeth's fatalistic arc while "lifting up contemporary Black female power, femininity, and desire." It's a thrilling addition to the recent wave of new works reframing canonical texts from feminine perspectives: Alex Bechtel, Grace McLean & Eva Steinmetz's musical Penelope (coming to Signature Theatre next spring); Eleanor Burgess' Wife of a Salesman, Talene Monahon's The Good John Proctor, and NFTG fave Kimberly Belflower's John Proctor is the Villain. (And there are more inventive character excavations on Whitney's artistic docket: Macbeth in Stride is the first of her five A.R.T.-commissioned theatrical events about Shakespearean heroines.)
Directed by Tyler Dobrowsky and Taibi Magar. October 10-29 at Shakespeare Theatre Company.
The H Street Oral History Project Festival at Mosaic (but really everything at Mosaic)
Mosaic's multi-year venture with the DC Public Library to preserve the historically Black H Street neighborhood’s past through interview-based art culminates in a three-day festival, anchored by staged readings of new works by local playwrights Dane Figueroa Edidi, Gethsemane Herron-Coward, and James J. Johnson. The project's ambition, scale, and partnerships encapsulate artistic director's Reginald L. Douglas' community-driven vision for the company. Mosaic's 2023-24 season is the theatrical equivalent of a no-skips album: Psalmayene 24's Monumental Travesties (directed by Douglas), Dominique Morisseau's Confederates (directed by Stori Ayers and starring Nikkole Salter), Rhiana Yazzie's Nancy (directed by Ken-Matt Martin), and the Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson's live-looped hip-hop musical Mexodus (directed by David Mendizábal). I half-joke that I like seeing shows at the Atlas because it's next to my favorite pie shop, but Mosaic's line-up is so phenomenal that I don't need sugary incentives to trek over to Northeast this year.
March 15-17, 2024 at Atlas Performing Arts Center
Rorschach Theatre's 2023-24 Psychogeographies Project
As theatres devote their limited resources to live performance, many organizations have deprioritized pandemic-era innovations: virtual productions, digital accessibility, audio storytelling, etc. It's encouraging to see Rorschach Theatre continue its interactive opus Psychogeographies Projects, which launched in the bleak dog days of mid-2020. The latest chapter, Eldritch Investigations, is a season-long adventure directing participants to obscure spots around DC as a story unfolds through letters, artifacts, and objects mailed in monthly chapters, culminating in a live, in-person production.
Created by Steve Yockey, Kylos Brannon, Jenny McConnell Frederick, and Jonelle Walker. October 2023 - July 2024 in various locations.
Elizabeth Dinkova's Inaugural Season at Spooky Action
After founding artistic director Richard Heinrich's acrimonious exit from Spooky Action, I was curious about the fate of the small theater, which operates out of a church in Dupont Circle. Who would want to assume the Herculean task of restructuring a fledgling company and rebuilding community trust? Enter Elizabeth Dinkova. I worked with Beth ten years ago during her directing apprenticeship at Studio; she's brilliant, kind, collaborative, and sincerely optimistic. (She's also the most effortlessly stylish person I know; I will never forget Michael Kahn joyously anticipating her daily outfits for Torch Song Trilogy rehearsals.) Beth's directing style reflects her classical theater training and her experiences as a Bulgarian immigrant: she centers global perspectives and influences, skirting realism in favor of visceral theatricality. Her first production at Spooky, a site-specific version of José Rivera's Sonnets for an Old Century, was a meticulously detailed experience maximizing the grandeur and intimacy of the labyrinthine church space. Each vignette felt like its own dreamy Joseph Cornell-style shadowbox. Spooky's 2023-24 two-play Beyond Borders season builds on these values and aesthetics, with Brazilian playwright Newton Moreno's Agreste (Drylands) (translated and directed by Danilo Gambini) and Phillip Howze's experimental satire Frontiéres sans Frontiéres.
Agreste (Drylands): October 26 - November 19
Frontiéres sans Frontiéres: April 25 - May 19, 2024
Selina Fillinger's POTUS at Arena Stage
Eight-ish years ago, I read an early draft of Mara Nelson-Greenberg's Do You Feel Anger? and thought, "I LOVE THIS" but also, "How do you calibrate this kind of high-octane, madcap energy for an entire performance?" I learned the answer when I saw the world premiere at the 2018 Humana Festival: You hire Margot Bordelon to direct it and Megan Hill to star in it. I can't think of a better pair of artists to tackle a farce. (The POTUS cast also includes two grand dames of DC theatre—Felicia Curry and Naomi Jacobson—and the always-excellent-in-everything Kelly McAndrew.)
October 13 - November 12 at Arena Stage.
Taylor Reynolds
I do not make it up to New York to see theatre as much as I did pre-pandemic. There are two reasons for this: I no longer have an institutional scouting budget to pay for tickets and after years of squeezing in socializing during five-play weekends, I now organize my trips around my friends' toddlers' nap schedules instead of curtain times. I miss those frequent treks in the Quiet Car (the last bastion of civility!), so it's always a delight when local theatres hire out-of-town directors I've admired for ages. Taylor Reynolds is a former producing artistic leader of the Movement Theatre Company (their indelible touring production of Aleshea Harris' What To Send Up When It Goes Down was presented at Woolly Mammoth in 2019) and she collaborates with so many extraordinary writers: Dave Harris, James Ijames, Will Arbery, Gina Femia, etc. I will be seated for both of the plays she's directing in DC this year: Ijames' Pulitzer-winning Fat Ham at Studio and the world premiere of Vivian J.O. Barnes' The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes at Woolly.
Fat Ham: Performances start October 25, 2023 at Studio Theatre
The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes: February 4 - March 3, 2024 at Woolly Mammoth
Natsu Onoda Power's Postcards from Ihatov at 1st Stage Tysons
The concept of a multidisciplinary artist was invented for people like Natsu—she's a director, playwright, adapter, designer, illustrator, professor, and one of the most collaborative, imaginative visual thinkers I've ever worked with. Her newest project is an adaptation of Japanese writer and poet Kenji Miyazawa's works, including the classic fantasy novel Night on the Galactic Railroad, and it sounds like the perfect canvas for her trademark creativity, spectacle and humor to run wild.
World Premiere. June 6-23, 2024 at 1st Stage Tysons
Inda Craig-Galván's A Jumping Off Point at Round House Theatre
It's a real bummer that Round House is scaling back its National Capital New Play Festival, which is normally anchored by two full-length world premieres. But if you can only have one headliner, building your festival around Inda Craig-Galván is an A+ move. After reading her work for years but never seeing it in production, I'm looking forward to her latest dark comedy about a young Black screenwriter battling plagiarism accusations from her white grad school classmate.
World Premiere. Directed by Jade King Carroll. April 10 - May 5, 2024 at Round House Theatre
The Flying V reinvention
The Bethesda-based nerd-and-pop-culture-infused theatre has successfully rebounded from its messy recent past. After founding artistic director Jason Schlafstein was fired in 2020 for sexual harassment, the company adopted a shared leadership model (executive director Katherine Offutt and co-artistic leads Kelly Colburn, Tim German, Joey Ibanez, and navi) and re-worked its values, prioritizing transparency, intersectionality, and accountability. The theatre hasn't announced its 2024 season, but its latest programming epitomizes multi-medium storytelling: the immersive horror experience Monstress was preceded by Nerdvana II, a two-day performance art festival fusing burlesque, hip-hop, wrestling, and cosplay.
Monstress. Written by navi and directed by Kelly Colburn. October 19-28 at Silver Spring Black Box Theatre.
Julia May Jonas' Problems Between Sisters at Studio Theatre
I can't remember if I've ever read one of Julia's plays—this is not a reflection on her talent, but rather my lit manager-fried brain—but I will never forget reading Vladimir, her thrill ride of a debut novel. Initially I thought, "Ah yes, a moody meditation on obsession and desire and the crumbling marriages of upstate academics, here for it" and then it takes a truly wild narrative turn and I had no idea what was going to happen page-to-page in the final third and couldn't put it down. Her writing is wry and unsparing and I can't wait to dive into her theatrical work. Problems Between Sisters is a response to Sam Shepard's True Blue and is the first work in Julia's five-play ALTAS cycle (“All Long True American Stories”), in which she reimagines canonical 20th-century American male-experience plays as they’d be experienced by other people, mostly women. This production will be directed by NFTG fave Sivan Battat, last at Studio with their gorgeously meticulous production of Will Arbery's Heroes of the Fourth Turning.
World Premiere. Performances start May 8, 2024 at Studio Theatre.
Raymond O. Caldwell's Final Season at Theater Alliance
Nothing makes me roll my eyes harder than theatres regurgitating vague grant-speak about "the vitality of community engagement" without any meaningful relationship-building, concrete actions, or clear definitions on who exactly constitutes their community. The small but mighty Theater Alliance is an energizing outlier, distinguished by its hyperlocal commitment. As the company-in-residence at the Anacostia Playhouse, Theater Alliance resides in a historic, majority-Black, underserved neighborhood geographically divorced from most of the District by its namesake river. Over the last five years, Producing Artistic Director Raymond O. Caldwell has thoughtfully balanced the micro and macro, producing socially-conscious work responsive to the immediate community, yet also encompassing the greater DC area and the American theatre at-large. Theater Alliance's upcoming season is "an exploration of movements: both how we move through space and how we change the world"—but the theme extends beyond programming, as Caldwell plans to step down in June 2024. His five-year tenure was short but impactful and his final season is a testament to his visionary leadership.
Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks: Adapted by El Chelito and Raymond O. Caldwell from the book by Jason Reynolds. October 14 – 29 at The Kennedy Center.
The Trans-Atlantic Time Traveling Company: Developed by Holly Bass. February 27 – March 17, 2024.
TBA: A final production directed by Raymond O. Caldwell. Summer 2024.
The A+ panelists at the Smithsonian event—Nicole Hertvik (DC Theater Arts), Sarah Marloff (Washington City Paper), and André Hereford (Metro Weekly)—also enthusiastically cited the following productions:
Baño de luna (Bathing in Moonlight) at GALA Hispanic Theatre
Written and directed by Nilo Cruz
September 7 - October 1Public Obscenities at Woolly Mammoth
Written and directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury
November 13 - December 23
Alex Bechtel, Grace McLean & Eva Steinmetz's musical Penelope at Signature Theatre
Directed by Eva Steinmetz
March 5 - April 21, 2024
Leo McGann's The Honey Trap at Solas Nua
Directed by Matt TorneyWorld Premiere. November 2 - 19, 2023 at Atlas Performing Arts Center
John Logan and The Avett Brothers’ musical Swept Away at Arena Stage
Directed by Michael Mayer
November 25 - December 30Prince Gomolvilas’ The Brothers Paranormal at Olney Theatre Center
Co-Directed by Hallie Gordon & Aria Velz
October 1 - 29
Macbeth at Shakespeare Theatre Company
Starring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma
Directed by Simon Godwin
April 9 - May 5, 2024
Night of the Living Dead at Rorschach Theatre
Adapted from George Romero’s film by Christopher Bond, Dale Boyer, and Trevor Martin
Directed by Lilli Hokama
October 27 - November 19Marshall Pailet’s Private Jones at Signature Theatre
Directed by Marshall Pailet
Director of Artistic Sign Language: Alexandria WailesWorld Premiere. February 6 - March 10, 2024
Kelsey Mesa’s La Salpêtrière at Taffety Punk
Directed by Danielle A. Drakes
September 28 - October 14 at Capitol Hill Arts WorkshopSarah Ruhl's Orlando at Constellation Theatre Company
Directed by Nick Martin
October 12 - November 11 at Source TheatreJeff Augustin and The Bengsons’ Where the Mountain Meets the Sea at Signature Theatre
Directed by Timothy Douglas
May 21 - July 7, 2024
An excellent breakdown - thank you. Now that I live in Richmond instead of NYC, I hope to make more of these performances. And I was thrilled to see you mention Kelly McAndrew who is indeed excellent in everything!! She's my dear friend and former roommate! 💜 I'm headed to see her in POTUS next week!