the week of april 19 - 25, 2024

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some dc theatre news for the group

Theater Alliance announced on Monday that it was forced out of its longtime home at Anacostia Playhouse. The community-driven theater specializing in socially-conscious work had been the Playhouse’s company-in-residence for 12 years. Per a statement released by the Theater Alliance Board, it’s a real mess:

“In February, Theater Alliance discovered, through a posted eviction notice on the door, that the Anacostia Playhouse had not paid any rent to the property owner from October 2023 to January 2024. During this time, Theater Alliance had continued paying our monthly rent — which constitutes the majority of the monthly rent payment for the building — to the DC Theatre Arts Collaborative, d.b.a. The Anacostia Playhouse…

Theater Alliance then discovered that Anacostia Playhouse had no legal authority to enter into a sublease with Theater Alliance at all; the lease that the Playhouse holds with the property owner expressly forbids precisely this kind of long-term sublease. And apart from the legal rights that Anacostia Playhouse sold but never delivered, we learned that Anacostia Playhouse was purporting to lease and encourage the use of a property without permits for safety, improvements, and occupancy…

Despite our shock at learning about this grave mismanagement and betrayal of trust, we made every effort to resolve the issue through discussions between the organizations’ respective boards, including a proposal for Theater Alliance to take over responsibility for the management activities Anacostia Playhouse had failed to handle. However, on the evening of April 10th, Anacostia Playhouse informed us of its decision to cease further talks, to fully and finally terminate our relationship, and requested removal of all Theater Alliance property, while inviting a “smooth transition.” Anacostia Playhouse then rescinded that invitation immediately, when it seized all of Theater Alliance’s property, locked us out, and prevented our staff from accessing even their own personal belongings.  Sadly, such behavior only reinforces that, under the current leadership, a future with Anacostia Playhouse is impossible.”

Washington City Paper’s Sarah Marloff has more details and actual reporting, like how the Playhouse is owned by “Curtis Properties Inc., which agreed to pay $1 million in 2020 to settle claims that the company refused to accept housing vouchers and other subsidies at some of its residential rental properties, according to the D.C. attorney general’s office.” (Aside: A DC-area real estate company discriminating against low-income renters? Color me shocked.)

Theater Alliance is a crucial part of the DC theatre ecology. The company operates in a historic, majority-Black, underserved neighborhood in Ward 8, geographically divorced from most of the District by the Anacostia River. (Theater Alliance previously resided at the now-shuttered H Street Playhouse from 2001 until 2012.) The organization is also mid-leadership transition: incoming producing artistic director Shanara Gabrielle officially starts July 1st; she is currently working alongside the exiting Raymond O. Caldwell.

Theater Alliance’s 2023-24 season was branded as “an exploration of movements: both how we move through space and how we change the world.” It’s unfortunate this theme has extended beyond programming to their physical space. The company hopes to eventually return to Anacostia, but in the interim I’d love to see a space-rich DC theatre step up and offer a temporary residence.

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world premieres

• Eleanor Burgess’ Galilee, 34 starts performances April 21st as part of South Coast Rep’s Pacific Playwrights Festival in Costa Mesa, CA. Davis McCallum directs the new work set a “few months after Jesus's crucifixion, [finding] his disciples are living in his mother's house, trying to remember what he taught them and to figure out what he would want them to do next.”

• Tira Palmquist’s The Body’s Midnight runs April 18 - May 26 in a co-production between Boston Court Pasadena and IAMA Theatre in Los Angeles. The road trip drama following two “impending grandparents grappling with the unavoidably messy and breathtaking journey of their lives” is directed by Jessica Kubzansky.

• Rob Ulin’s Judgment Day starts performances April 23 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. The rollicking comedy about “a staggeringly corrupt, morally bankrupt lawyer who's threatened with eternal damnation by a terrifying angel after a near-death experience” is directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel.

• Helder Guimarães’ The Hope Theory starts performances April 25th at Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. Frank Marshall directs the theatrical event about “Portuguese immigrant, storyteller, and sleight-of-hand magician’s Guimarães arrival in America at age 29 as he discovers a fascinating puzzle of cultural and professional challenges to solve while he tries to build a home.”

productions

• Moisés Kaufman & Amanda Gronich’s Here There Are Blueberries is now playing at New York Theater Workshop. The new piece from Tectonic Theater Project centers on an album of never-before-seen Nazi-era photos and the Holocaust Museum archivists and descendants unraveling the story behind the shocking images.

• Huang Ruo & Basil Twist’s Book of Mountains and Seas runs April 19 - 21 at Arts Emerson in Boston. The collaboration takes on “ancient Chinese creation myths which are strikingly relevant to our current climate change emergency [as] an ensemble of massive puppets, as beautiful as they are intimidating, and the chorus of Ars Nova Copenhagen harness music and a stunning visual tableaux to offer a portrait of the natural world and our vital, yet tenuous, relationship to it.”

• Brian Quijada’s Where Did We Sit on the Bus? starts performances April 19th at Denver Center. Matt Dickson directs the solo performance that “captures both the innocence of youth and the pressures that come with being the child of immigrants, immersing the audience in elaborate, layered soundscapes by fusing Latin rhythms, hip-hop, and spoken word poetry.”

• Charly Evon Simpson’s Jump runs April 19 - June 1 at Shattered Globe in Chicago. The “play full of flickering lights, vapes that fall from the sky, and love that recycles” is directed by AmBer Montgomery.

• Adil Mansoor’s Amm(i)gone starts performances April 20th at Woolly Mammoth in DC. Co-directed with Lyam B. Gabel, “through Greek tragedy, teachings from the Quran, and audio conversations with his mother, Mansoor creates this theatrical personal story about locating love across faith.”

• Brent Askari’s Andy Warhol in Iran runs April 20 - May 12 at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre Company. The 1976-set “fiery, thought-provoking drama about art, revolution, and discovering a world beyond yourself” is directed by Marc Masterson.

• Rosa Joshi’s adaptation of Coriolanus starts previews April 20th at Portland Center Stage in a co-presentation with Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Joshi also directs Sean San José’s modern verse translation of the “rare and unique tragedy fueled by a dynamic female and non-binary ensemble, and a muscular, movement-focused staging that updates the Bard’s language while lifting the story’s core — reminding us that democracy is fragile and always worth defending.”

• Colt Coeur’s production of Lia Romeo’s Still is now running at DR2 Theater in NYC. Adrienne Campbell-Holt directs Jayne Atkinson and Tim Daly in the “whirlwind comedy about getting older, political divisions, and roads not taken.”

• Laura Winters’ All of Me starts previews April 23rd at The New Group in NYC. The “boldly humorous and candid love story exploring class and disability in America today” is directed by Ashley Brooke Monroe.

• Candrice Jones’ FLEX runs April 23 - May 19 at Penumbra in Minneapolis. Tiffany Nichole Greene directs the rural Arkansas-set dramedy about a high school basketball team’s coming of age.

• Phillip Howze’s Frontiéres Sans Frontiéres starts performances April 25th at DC’s Spooky Action Theater. The “brightly colored, comic fantasia on cultural imperialism” is directed by Elizabeth Dinkova.

• Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play runs April 25 - June 2 at Steppenwolf in Chicago. Jess McLeod directs the “skewering and satirical comedy serving up the hypocrisies of woke America on a big, family-style, platter.”

workshops & readings

• The 2024 EST First Light Festival runs April 25 - June 13. The festival is a collaboration between Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Sloan Foundation; the first public reading will Jacob Marx Rice's Binding Energy at 3pm on April 25th.

• Queen Esther’s Blackbirding runs April 18-20 at WP Theater’s Pipeline Festival in NYC. Alverneq Lindsay produces and Lorna Vent directs the “solo show steeped in lost history, ephemera, ghost stories and folklore, storytelling and original reclamation driven Americana…a requiem for America’s neverending Civil War and the promise of Reconstruction, tangled in a Southern Black feminist vernacular.”

digital & streaming

• Shotgun Players’ A Midsummer Night's Dream will be available to stream on demand from April 21 - May 5. William Thomas Hodgson directs the “bold reimagining” of the Shakespearean comedy.

• Lisa B. Thompson’s The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body will livestream on April 25th at The VORTEX in Austin, TX as part of the 2024 Fusebox Festival. Rudy Ramirez directs the choreopoem “meditating on Black women’s experiences from the perspectives of mind, body, and spirit, culminating in an audience dance party and an invitation for Black women to share their own contributions to Black feminist wisdom.”

• Tony Kushner’s adaptation of Brecht’s The Good Person of Setzuan is available to stream on demand from April 22 - May 21 from The Wilma in Philadelphia. The “classic parable is retold and radically reclaimed through the vision of director Justin Jain with original live music and members of the Wilma HotHouse Acting Company.”

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2024-25 season updates

• Berkeley Rep announced its 2024-25 season. The Bay Area theater’s line-up includes Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson's history-hip-hop musical Mexodus (directed by David Mendizábal), Mary Zimmerman's The Matchbox Magic Flute (in association with the Goodman), Conor McPherson’s adaptation of Uncle Vanya (directed by Simon Godwin, co-pro with Shakespeare Theatre Company), Tectonic Theater Project's Here There Are Blueberries (written by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich), Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of Jocelyn Bioh's Jaja's African Hair Braiding (directed by Whitney White, co-pro with Arena Stage and Chicago Shakes), and two world premieres: Keith Bunin’s adaptation of The Thing About Jellyfish (directed by Tyne Rafaeli) and Jiehae Park’s the aves (directed by Knud Adams).

• Long Wharf Theater announced its upcoming season. The itinerant, New Haven-based company will present the world premiere of Terrence Riggins’ Unbecoming Tragedy: A Ritual Journey Toward Destiny (directed by Cheyenne Barboza, in partnership with Collective Consciousness Theatre), the fifth annual Black Trans Women at the Center: A Virtual New Play Festival (curated by Dane Figueroa Edidi), a reimagined production of the musical She Loves Me (directed by Jacob G. Padrón, staged at The Lab at ConnCorp), and Matt Barbot’s El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom (directed by Kinan Valdez, in partnership with Southern Connecticut State University).

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application station

• Woolly Mammoth is now accepting applications through May 12th for the next cohort of Lin-Manuel Miranda Family Fellowships. Each fellowship is structured as a paid two year-long department-specific entry-level position with health insurance benefits. Areas offered including Connectivity, Marketing, New Work & Artistic Producing, and Production. Pay is $23.90/hour and is full-time non-exempt.