the week of april 4-10, 2025
foggy moors, first loves, bollywood icons
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icymi
This month’s money diary is from a former production shop head and designer who left the industry eight years ago and now (gasp!) has hobbies:
world premieres
Christina Pumariega’s ¡VOS! runs April 5 - 27 at Two River Theater in Red Bank, NJ. Nicole A. Watson directs the “exhilarating quest for justice, family and home” about a woman returning to “her estranged birthplace of Buenos Aires to undergo IVF treatments, [as] her motherhood journey brings to light the lives of two women lost to the Dirty War decades ago.”
Eliya Smith’s Grief Camp starts performances April 5th Off-Broadway at The Atlantic. The “study of loss and adolescence” is directed by Les Waters.
Nate Eppler’s Human Resources is now running through April 6th at OZ Arts Nashville. Devised and developed by Nashville Story Garden, Lauren Shouse directs the “immersive theatrical experience full of comically corporate doublespeak, absurdly endless paperwork, and more hilariously surreal realities of the American workplace.”
Ryan J. Haddad’s Hold Me in the Water runs April 10 - May 4 Off Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. Danny Sharron directs the “funny and tender solo play about the passion and intimacy of first love.”
Novid Parsi’s The Life You Gave Me is now running through May 10th at Boise Contemporary Theater in Idaho. The dramedy about an “Iranian-American man's relationship with his mother [across] two theatrical worlds that overlap and collide” is directed by Hamid Dehghani.
Leegrid Stevens’ The Trojans is now running through April 26th at the cell theatre in NYC. Eric Paul Vitale directs the “original synth-wave musical in which warehouse workers re-enact the legendary tales of their hometown’s high school glory days of the 1980s, loosely following the mythic heroes and demigods of The Iliad.”
productions
Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery runs April 4 - May 4 at The Alley Theatre in Houston. The “classic whodunit and madcap mystery through the foggy moors of Devonshire” is directed by Eleanor Holdridge.
Rajiv Joseph’s King James starts performances April 4th at Warehouse Theatre in Greenville, SC. Ahsha Daniels directs the “clever comedy and intimate exploration of the place that sports occupy in our lives and relationships.”
Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich’s Here There Are Blueberries runs April 5 - May 11 at Berkeley Rep. Kaufman also directs the based-on-real-events Pulitzer finalist about “museum curators unraveling the shocking truth behind a mysterious album of Nazi-era photographs.”
Christine Quintana’s Espejos: Clean starts performances April 8th at Milwaukee Rep. Featuring Spanish and English surtitles, the bilingual drama and “potent look at isolation and the power of being seen” is directed by Juliette Carrillo.
Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust runs April 10 - May 11 at Theater Works Hartford. Jennifer Chang directs the “touching and inventive play about new beginnings, old friends, and seeing the world again for the first time.”
Gracie Gardner’s Athena starts performances April 10th at ArtsWest in Seattle. The “journey of two seventeen-year-old elite fencers from competitors to confidantes” is directed by Kathryn Van Meter.
workshop, readings & series
The Bonnie Hammerschlag National Capital New Play Festival is now running through April 27th at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, MD. Anchored by the world premiere of Sharyn Rothstein’s Bad Books, the festival line-up also includes four developmental readings: Beth Hyland’s Baby Shower Katie (directed by Jessica Fisch), Sam Mueller’s PIN. (directed by Caitlin Sullivan), Eliana Theologides Rodriguez’s Indian Princesses (directed by Miranda Cornell), and Harrison David Rivers’ Proximity (directed by Paige Hernandez).
The 2025 INK’D Festival of New Plays runs April 7-10 at The Playwrights Realm in NYC. This year’s line-up includes Alexa Derman’s The Creature (directed by Miranda Cornell); Mik/ayla Johnson’s obit, or no more dead dogs (directed by abigail jean-baptiste); Yilong Liu’s We Borrowed Brokenness (directed by Eric Ting); and Malaika Fernandes’s MULAQAT (directed by Adil Mansoor).
Tuyết Thị Phạm’s Dawn will have a reading on April 7th at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore. Raymond Caldwell directs the new work about “a first-generation Cambodian-American navigating her parents’ experiences and differing beliefs as survivors of the Khmer Rouge.”
Gina Femia’s The Violet Sisters will have readings April 7 & 8 at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. The two-hander follows estranged sisters reuniting for their father’s funeral as they’re “forced to deal with all that they have let slip away.”
Dream Devis runs April 4-13 as part of Steppenwolf’s LookOut series in Chicago. Curated by noted Chicago drag queen and artist Abhijeet and featuring a collective of South Asian femme artists, the two-act multimedia series is a “queer celebration of the feminine archetype in Indian cinema told through drag, dance, music and film.”
digital & streaming
Stephen Wadsworth’s translation of Marivaux’s The Triumph of Love is available to stream on demand through May 4th from The Huntington. Loretta Greco directs the “uproarious classic French comedy where mistaken identities, hilarious complications and deeply felt desire collide head on with Rationalist Philosophy.”
A digital reading of Dan O’Brian’s The Other Jack is now available to stream on demand through April 22nd from the Lortel Theatre. James Dacre directs the adaptation of Charles Boyle’s novel about “books, mostly . . . and bonfires, clichés, dystopias, failure, happiness, jokes, justice, privilege, publishing, rejection, self-loathing, shoplifting, and umbrellas.”
2025-26 season updates
Contemporary American Theatre Festival announced its 2025 season. The Shepherdstown, WV summer new play festival will produce five world premieres: Cody LeRoy Wilson’s Did My Grandfather Kill My Grandfather?, Lisa Sanaye Dring’s Happy Fall: A Queer Stunt Spectacular, Kevin Kling’s Kevin Kling: Unraveled,
Mark St. Germain’s Magdalene, and Lisa Loomer’s Side Effects May Include…
Curious Theatre Company announced its 2025-26 season. The Denver theatre’s line-up includes Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day, Max Wolf Friedlich’s Job, Sharyn Rothstein’s Bad Books, L.M. Feldman’s Another Kind of Silence, and a.k.payne’s Furlough’s Paradise.
Theater J announced its 2025-26 season. The DC theatre will produce Amy Herzog’s adaptation of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (directed by János Szász), a new play by Jonathan Spector (directed by Hayley Finn), Olney Theatre Center’s production of Michael Shayan’s Avaaz (directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel), a special presentation of Iris Bahr’s Stories From the Brink, and the world premiere of Ali Viterbi’s The World to Come (directed by Howard Shalwitz, co-pro with Woolly Mammoth).
Syracuse Stage announced its 2025-26 season. The line-up includes Peter Mills and Cara Reichel’s musical The Hello Girls (directed by Reichel); Patrick Barlow’s The 39 Steps; Philip Grecian’s adaptation of A Christmas Story (directed by Robert Hupp); August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (directed by Timothy Douglas); Kristen Anderson Lopez, Robert Lopez, and Jennifer Lee’s Disney’s Frozen The Broadway Musical (directed by Amy Anders Corcoran), and the world premiere of Rae Binstock’s Relentless (directed by Melissa Crespo).
things i read this week
Gabriela Furtado Coutinho and Jerald Raymond Pierce’s monthly rundown of Chicago theatre news at American Theatre:
“This should be a celebratory time for Chicago theatre. Three of the city’s major institutions are all celebrating significant milestones in their long, illustrious histories. And yet, rather than reveling in celebration, I find myself singing, “one of these things is not like the others.” I feel like I’m looking at the three-headed dragon meme of Chicago theatre: two fierce, steely-eyed legends and one that’s—well, it’s just happy to be there.”
Ezra Tozian’s practical guide on how theatre workers can negotiate COVID protections for Howlround:
“Please remember that you have power in these negotiations, whether it feels like it or not. What you do, what you say, and what you ask for influence the safety of everyone working on the project. If it starts to feel overwhelming, remind yourself that you’re just having a conversation. You deserve to have your access needs met and a theatre will not fire you simply because you asked…If we’re going to participate in this industry, we need to have the courage to do so safely. The more of us who do it, the easier it gets for everyone."
the crossover event of the season
I sincerely believe that Austin Spero deserves a Special Tony Award for the Oh, Mary! and John Proctor is the Villain social campaigns and not just because he masterminded this:
