the week of april 26 - may 2, 2024

shipwrecks, strange loops, claustrophobic carnivals

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Graphic Design: Elizabeth Haley Morton | Editorial Support: Ryan Adelsheim

world premieres

• The Bengsons’ The Keep Going Songs is now playing at LCT3. Caitlin Sullivan directs the “part concert, part wake, part theatrical extravaganza [that] is a euphoric and moving journey through the grief of tough times and the rebirth of hope in better days.”

• Dave Malloy’s Three Houses starts previews April 30th at Signature Theatre in NYC. The “post-pandemic open mic night parable about magic, madness, and the end of the world” is directed and choreographed by Annie Tippe.

• Levi Holloway’s Turret starts previews May 2nd at A Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago. Holloway directs and Michael Shannon stars in the “claustrophobic carnival of carnage, carrier pigeons, cribbage, whiskey, music, mischief and mayhem.”

• Peregrine Teng Heard’s Redemption Story runs May 4-19 at A.R.T./New York. The “new play about alienation, conditional love, and our distorted senses of self” is directed by Sarah Blush.

productions

• Zoe Sarnak and Rachel Bonds’ The Lonely Few starts previews April 27th at MCC Theatre in NYC. Trip Cullman and Ellenore Scott direct the new rock musical about “the forces that launch us from home and the gravitational pull that can bring us back.”

• Lloyd Suh’s The Far Country starts previews April 26th at Yale Rep. Ralph B. Peña directs the intimate and epic Pulitzer finalist about “an unlikely family carrying invented biographies and poems of longing on an arduous journey from rural Taishan to Angel Island Detention Center, in hopes of landing in San Francisco.”

• Joshua Harmon’s Significant Other runs April 26 - May 19 at Dobama Theatre in Cleveland. The “comedy about companionship, loneliness, and love” is directed by Colin Anderson.

• Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop starts previews April 26th at Speakeasy Stage in Boston. The Front Porch Arts Collective co-production of the Pulitzer-winning musical about “a Black, queer writer writing a musical about a Black, queer writer writing a musical about a Black, queer writer” is directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent.

• Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone runs April 27 - June 2 at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Joanie Schultz directs the high-octane, hip-hop fueled, “partially true and endlessly entertaining tale of how the playwright’s parents, Quang and Tong, met in a refugee relocation camp in Arkansas during the Vietnam War.”

• Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s Little Shop of Horrors starts previews April 30th at Kansas City Rep. The sci-fi musical about a “foul-mouthed, R&B-singing, man-eating plant promising unending fame and fortune to a meek floral assistant” is directed by Stuart Carden.

workshops & readings

• Amina Henry’s When the Other Mary Celeste Sank: A Strange and Umweltian Tale and Else Went’s The Cause are the next readings at WP Theater’s Pipeline Festival. Henry’s “anachronistic, theatrical fairy tale about five women marooned on an island after a shipwreck” is directed by Ran Xia (April 25-27), while Dina Vovsi directs Went’s new work about “a group of actors and a director who gather in a house upstate for a week to shoot an experimental film adaptation of Othello.” (May 2-4)

• Nazareth Hassan’s Practice will have a reading on April 29th as part of the Vineyard Theatre’s Works in Progress Series. Keenan Tyler Oliphant directs the new work about “a theater company making a play about itself…and what we each sacrifice to become a group.”

• Renae Simone Jarrett’s To The Ends of the Earth will have a reading on April 29th at Bedlam’s Do More: New Plays reading series. Kate Whoriskey directs the new work about “two sisters getting lost in the woods and in the murkiness of their misremembered histories.”

festivals

• The New Art City Theatre’s inaugural festival of new works runs April 25-28 in Ventura, CA. Readings include Nicole Burton’s Swimming Up the Sun, Dan Noonan’s Reconciliation, Greg LoProto’s Drowned Cats, and Aly Kantor’s Blowhole.

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2024-25 season updates

• The Alliance Theatre announced its 2024-25 season. The Atlanta theatre’s line-up includes Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop (directed by Tinashe Kajese-Bolden),  Lloyd Suh's The Chinese Lady, and four world premieres: Adam Guettel and Bob Martin’s musical Millions (directed by Bartlett Sher), Milo Cramer's Business Ideas (directed by Matt Torney), Zora Howard's Bust (directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, co-pro with Goodman Theatre), and Jake Brasch's The Reservoir (directed by Shelley Butler, co-pro with Denver Center and Geffen Playhouse).

• Trinity Repertory Company announced its 2024-25 season. The Providence, RI theatre will produce Selina Fillinger’s POTUS and Kate Hamill’s Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B in rotating rep (directed by Laura Kepley); Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky (directed by Jackie Davis); Tatyana-Marie Carlo, Leandro “Kufa” Castro, and Orlando Hernández’s translation and adaptation of The Tempest (directed by Christie Vela); and the world premiere of Deborah Salem Smith, Charlie Thurston, and Dr. Michelle Cruz’s Someone Will Remember Us (directed by Christopher Windom).

• The Gift Theatre announced its 2024-25 season. The Chicago ensemble’s line-up includes Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog (directed by Shanésia Davis), the world premiere of Susan Soon He Stanton’s Cygnus (directed by Brittany Burch), a reading of Jennifer Rumberger’s The Fires, and the 10-minute performance festival of new work by local artists TEN.

• Nu Sass Productions announced its 15th season. The DC theatre’s line-up includes Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (directed by Ashley Mapley-Brittle), Meghan Brown’s The Pliant Girls (co-pro with Theatre Prometheus), Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day (directed by Aria Velz, co-pro with Pinky Swear Productions).
  
  Re: Nu Sass, I love seeing multiple small local theatre companies pooling their resources. (I wrote about the nationwide trend of local co-productions in my American Theatre season preview last year.)

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the regional theatre game of thrones

• Kate Bergstrom is the new artistic director of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. The director and producer officially joins the organization in mid-May. (Kate succeeds Hana S. Sharif, who departed last summer to lead Arena Stage in DC.)

• Jonathan Norton is the new interim artistic director of Dallas Theater Center. Norton has served as DTC’s resident playwright since 2019. He succeeds former artistic director Kevin Moriarty, who was promoted to executive director in 2023 and artistic producer Sarahbeth Grossman, who recently departed the organization.

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award season

• The 2024 Drama League Award nominees were announced. The winners of the limited category roster — consisting of seven competitive awards — will be announced May 17. Four special honors were previously revealed: Jonathan Groff (Distinguished Achievement in Musical Theater Award), Schele Williams (Founders Award for Excellence in Directing), Jessica Lange (Contribution to the Theater Award), and Kandi Burruss (Gratitude Award).

• The 2024 Outer Critics Circle Award nominations were announced. The musical Dead Outlaw leads with nine nominations, followed by The Connector with seven. David Adjmi’s Stereophonic leads in the play categories with seven nominations, followed by Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust with five. The winners will be announced May 13.

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assorted

• Robert O’Hara is set to direct a film adaptation of his play Barbecue. The satirical comedy originally premiered at the Public in 2015; the film will star Colman Domingo, Marisa Tomei, and Danai Gurira.

• Photo Call: The Theater Photos of Joan Marcus and Carol Rosegg is on view May 1 - September 28 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The exhibition “presents an extensive selection of the many theater productions Marcus and Rosegg have photographed over the past four decades, and tells some of their fascinating and unique stories of their experiences capturing some of Broadway’s most iconic images.”

• I loved this week’s episode of Decoder Ring, “Making Real Music for a Fake Band”, which uses Stereophonic as a case study to explore the history and process of creating songs for fictional artists (and properly cites all-time infectious bop “That Thing You Do!” as one of the most successful examples.)