the week of august 30 - september 3, 2021
why have one artistic director when you could have three
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in-person & digital theatre
Bess Wohl’s Camp Siegfried starts in-person performances at The Old Vic on September 7th. Directed by Katy Rudd, the WWII-set world premiere follows two teenagers at a German-American youth summer camp that teaches Nazi ideology.
Martyna Majok’s Sanctuary City restarts performances at New York Theatre Workshop on September 8th. The 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about two teenage children of undocumented immigrants is directed by Rebecca Frecknall. The production originally started previews in March 2020, but shuttered after only eight performances due to the pandemic.
The world premiere of Phillip DePoy and Kristian Bush’s Darlin’ Cory begins September 8th at the Alliance Theatre. Directed by Susan V. Booth, the folk-country musical is inspired by local lore and set in 1920s Appalachia.
Octavio Solis’ Quixote Nuevo starts performances at Round House on September 8th. The Tejano music-infused reimagining of Don Quixote is directed by Lisa Portes.
Working in DC, a public arts & humanities event uplifting working class stories, plays September 3 - 19. Programming includes free performances of the musical Working, labor education initiatives, curated panel conversations, and oral history collection.
Kallan Dana’s The Great Hunger plays September 8 - 10 at The Tank. Directed by Erica Zippel Schnitzer, the Irish famine-set play is an “anachronistic, genre-bending journey through the past and into the present, exploring the different ways we define pain, suffering, and connection.”
2021-22 season updates
The House Theatre of Chicago announced its upcoming season. Projects include a new adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen by artistic director Lanise Antoine Shelley (directed by Amber D. Montgomery), Aimé Césaire’s The Tragedy of King Christophe (directed by Shelley), and The Rumpus Room, an online platform for storytelling.
The pre-Broadway run of KPOP, the Musical at Signature Theatre in Virginia has been canceled. The December run was scrapped by the New York producers who decided that “the fiscal and logistical challenge of bringing some 60 cast and crew members from across the country to Washington, at a time when the pandemic might still be raging, was too big a risk.”
Two other DC theatres have Broadway tryouts scheduled for later this fall — Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop at Woolly Mammoth and the Britney Spears songbook musical Once Upon A One More Time at Shakespeare Theatre Company — and I’ll be curious to see if this cancellation causes a ripple effect.
the regional theatre game of thrones (restructured!)
City Theatre Company in Pittsburgh announced a new shared artistic director structure. Current staff members Clare Drobot and Monteze Freeland will join Marc Masterson in joint artistic leadership. The three co-Artistic Directors will rotate as lead artistic director for a year, serving as the point person for staff and the Board for a given season. (The Wilma Theater launched a similar shared, rotating leadership model in February 2020.)
Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced two new associate artistic directors. Mei Ann Teo will become the new associate artistic director of new work and Scarlett Kim will be the associate artistic director of innovation and strategy. The pair joins Evren Odcikin, associate artistic director of artistic programming, in the new triumvirate to work with artistic director Nataki Garrett.
that’s not a living wage
Here are this week’s featured underpaid job listings, paired with the living wage for a 40-hour work week for one adult with no children in that area. (You can read more about the methodology here.)
Executive Assistant, Signature Theatre: “low 30K”
Living Wage for Arlington County, VA: $56,221Development Assistant, The Goodman: $33,000 - $35,000
Living Wage for Chicago: $38,605Production Logistics Coordinator, The Public Theater: $45,000 (overtime eligible)
Living Wage for NYC: $51,323
