the week of august 23-29, 2024

drag spectaculars, teenage canonesses, food bank influencing

Aug 23, 2024

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Graphic Design: Elizabeth Morton | Editorial Support: Ryan Adelsheim

*If this week’s listings feel a bit scant, it’s because every theatre is currently in rehearsals for their season opener. (I don’t miss being in tech over three-day holiday weekends but my condolences to all of you who will be!)

world premieres

Sasha Velour and Moisés Kaufman’s Velour: A Drag Spectacular is now playing through September 15th at La Jolla Playhouse in a co-production with Tectonic Theater Project. Kaufman also directs the “sweeping, coming-of-age tale interwoven with the radical history of drag and queer expression…unfolding through a dazzling blend of innovative projection mapping, video animation, awe-inspiring lip-sync performances, and bold personal storytelling.”
Diana Ly’s Sex and the Abbey is now running at The Brick in Brooklyn through September 7th. Emily Lyons directs the new work set in a “medieval abbey teeming with teenage canonesses trying to save their home from a takeover by the monastery next door.”

workshops & readings

Kristina Wong, #FoodBankInfluencer will have a work-in-progress showing on August 27th at New York Theatre Workshop from En Garde Arts. Jessica Hanna directs “Wong offering her rendition of the American Musical like nobody ever asked for by celebrating our emergency food system.”

summer festivals

The Local Theater Festival runs August 23 & 24 at The Kennedy Center in DC. The annual celebration showcasing local companies and playwrights includes works-in-progress readings, workshops, and panel discussions. This year’s staged readings include ArtsCentric’s A Book of Judges, Nikki Mirza’s This Play Isn’t About Brian, Marjuan Canady’s Imagine, Money Talks, Prologue Theatre’s Emil and the Detective, Spooky Action Theater’s Professor Woland’s Black Magic Rock Show, Edwin Fontánez’s One Last Song for My Father, Tom Minter’s By Me You’ll Never Know, navi’s Space II, Ifa Bayeza’s One Small Alice, Regan Linton’s Squishy but Firm: Sexcapades of a Crip Girl, and Jeremy Hunter’s Thank You for Sharing.

2024-25 season updates

Solas Nua announced its fall 2024 season. The DC-based Irish arts organization will present Murmuration’s audio-immersive live performance Summertime (written by James Elliott and directed by John King), Brú Theatre’s virtual reality experience Ar Ais Arís, Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty’s installation A Collection of Disarticulated Bones, and a workshop production of Rex Daugherty, Ashleigh King, and Liz Roche’s MORE DOGS.
National Black Theatre announced its 2024-25 season. The line-up includes Ebony Noelle Golden’s The Divining: Ceremonies in the name of the m/other tree (co-pro with The Apollo); Smita James, Veronique Efomi, and Munganyende’s KINGS…come home (co-directed by Ira Kip and Winston "Winnie" Bergwijn), Aishah Rahman's Chiaroscuro (directed by abigail jean-baptiste, in association with The Flea), a public presentation of Nathan Yungerberg’s Sweetwater: The Gospel of Iman (directed by Zhailon Levingston), and the world premiere of Nazareth Hassan's Bowl EP (co-pro with The Vineyard and The New Group).
La MaMa announced its 2024-25 season. The season includes Belarus Free Theater (BFT)'s KS6: Small Forward, Hanna Eady and Edward Mast's The Mulberry Tree, Richard Foreman's Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey (directed and adapted by Kara Feely with music by Travis Just), H.M. Koutoukas’ Medea of the Laundromat (directed by Arthur Adair), The Trojan Women Project's Sur, and The Puppet Festival (directed by Denise Greber and Federico Restrepo).

this week in The Crisis™

Aurora Theatre Company is downsizing after reaching its emergency fundraising goal. The Berkeley, CA theatre successfully raised $600,000 from donations and a one-time city grant to stay open. The company has now reduced its upcoming season budget to $1.5 million, cutting expenses by $700,000. Aurora laid off “five full-time workers, including one co-managing director and its entire marketing and development teams, leaving just four full-time employees plus six hourly staffers.” (Marketing, development, and finance will now be contract labor.) The company also reduced executive salaries by 25%, cut one production from the season, and is no longer hiring understudies.
The Atlantic is postponing its first production of the season due to “significant unknown production revenues and expenses”. The world premiere of Nsangou Njikam's A Freeky Introduction was scheduled to start previews in October; it is now moved to spring 2025.
In a statement, The Atlantic said: “We are not yet able to finalize our annual budget because of significant unknown production revenues and expenses that have the potential to impact our future shows. We fully expect to complete the negotiations affecting the budgeting process in the coming few months and are hopeful that the full season will proceed in its entirety.”

Playbill’s Logan Culwell-Block provided additional context:
“While the theatre is not sharing specifics about the budgetary issues nor the nature of current negotiations, the news follows the unionization of its backstage crew earlier this year, part of a larger trend sweeping the formerly non-union Off-Broadway backstage scene. The push will provide workers with higher pay and various protections, but is also likely to force a change in the Off-Broadway business model, or at least higher ticket prices.”

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