the week of january 17 - 23, 2025
the atlantic is not pro-union
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this week’s labor news: the atlantic strike
On January 12th, the production workers at the Atlantic Theater Company went on strike. Negotiations between IATSE and the Atlantic broke down after eleven months of stalled progress and mounting tensions:
“The Atlantic Theater’s refusal to bargain fairly has left the crew no choice but to strike,” said IATSE International President Matthew D. Loeb. “These workers deserve the same dignity, respect, and protections as everyone else in New York’s entertainment community—whether they work in front of or behind the curtain, on or off Broadway. Shame on them for not providing healthcare coverage to all their employees. We are prepared to resume negotiations as soon as Atlantic Theater is ready to bargain in good faith.”
In response, the Atlantic indefinitely postponed two world premieres that were already in previews: Eliya Smith’s Grief Camp and Mona Pirnot’s I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan.
This is the second time the Atlantic has chosen to abruptly postpone a production this season. In August, the theater delayed the fall world premiere of Nsangou Njikam's A Freeky Introduction, citing “significant unknown production revenues and expenses.” That move, among others, prompted IATSE to file unfair labor practice charges against the Atlantic with the National Labor Relations Board in November. In a letter to the theater’s board, Loeb wrote, “The Atlantic’s leaders have taken actions that seek to strongarm workers into accepting a watered-down deal, including moves to starve out crew members by ‘postponing’ the fall production season indefinitely.”
In response to this week’s strike action, The Atlantic issued the following statement:
Three observations:
A theater cannot identify as “pro-union” if that theater is represented by Littler Mendelson, the global ‘union avoidance’ behemoth infamous for its aggressive legal tactics against workers organizing at Starbucks, Apple, and Amazon. To quote labor studies scholar John Logan: “When you hire Littler Mendelson, it’s an indication that you’re prepared to do whatever is necessary to defeat a union campaign.” Diverting resources and power away from your workers and into the coffers of a law firm beloved by the most unethical corporations in America is the antithesis of pro-union behavior.
This statement is rife with anti-labor rhetoric and tactics, including an attempt to create division and undermine solidarity among unions. Unfortunately for the Atlantic, Actors’ Equity Association is publicly supporting IATSE:
The Actors’ Equity assistant executive director, Calandra Hackney, issued a statement of support for the stagehands, saying “Actors’ Equity Association stands in solidarity with these workers,” and adding, “We have full faith that IATSE is negotiating terms that are fair and appropriate for their members, and we look forward to the shows resuming when an agreement has been reached.” (NYT)
The survival of institutions is not more important than the survival of workers.
The idea that institutions are self-sustaining entities, independent of the people who constitute them, is a dangerous rationalization for exploitation. A theatre only survives with its animating force: the workers creating and facilitating the art onstage, who deserve fair wages, healthcare, and respect.
If you want ongoing updates from the ATC organizing committee, you can follow them at @unionizetheatlantic:
world premieres
Jake Brasch’s The Reservoir starts performances January 17th at The Denver Center in a co-pro with Alliance Theatre and the Geffen Playhouse. Shelley Butler directs the new work about a “lost, neurotic mess of a twenty-something moving home to get sober and finding unlikely allies in his four grandparents.”
Mark Clements and Deanie Vallone’s The Craic runs January 17 - March 16 at Milwaukee Rep. The Irish pub-set musical about a “band’s weekly gig interrupted by the unexpected return of a long estranged member, unearthing all their unresolved rivalries, unaired grievances, and unspoken romances” is directed by Clements.
Marisela Treviño Orta’s December: a love years in the making starts performances January 17th at The Alley Theatre in Houston, TX. Marcela Lorca directs the slow-burn romance “between a creative writing professor and her former student over two decades of exchanged letters, writings, and beloved poems.”
Cate Wiley’s Sheltered runs January 19 - February 9 at the cell theatre in NYC. The “haunting kaleidoscope centered on the realities of women experiencing homelessness” is directed by Liz Peterson.
Andrea Thome’s modern verse translation of Cymbeline starts performances January 18th Off-Broadway from National Asian American Theatre Company in partnership with Play On Shakespeare. Stephen Brown-Fried directs an eleven-woman ensemble in Shakespeare’s “story of hope and rebirth in the unlikeliest of circumstances.”
Harley Elias’ Bad Dog runs January 23 - February 16 at Miami New Drama. The art world comedy about “a performance artist staging a controversial new gallery piece where he will live as a dog for a month” is directed by Michel Hausmann.
Deborah Salem Smith and Charlie Thurston’s Someone Will Remember Us starts performances January 23rd at Trinity Rep in Providence, RI. Christopher Windom directs the “moving portrait of the innumerable tolls of war, interlacing the real-life testimonies of U.S. military veterans, a Gold Star family, Iraqi civilians, and refugees living in Rhode Island.”
productions
The DNAWORKS production of Christopher Rivas’ The Real James Bond…Was Dominican starts performances January 18th at City Theatre Company in Pittsburgh. Rivas also performs the “young man’s guide to love, color, code-switching, white-washing, fake-it-til-you-make-it, and the roller coaster of finding one’s true self”, which was developed with and directed by Daniel Banks.
R. Eric Thomas’ Mrs. Harrison runs January 19 - February 16 at Portland Center Stage in Oregon. Tiffany Nichole Greene directs the college reunion drama where a successful Black playwright and a struggling white stand-up comedian clash over their shared past, conflicting narratives, and the construction and ownership of memory.
Daf James’ On the Other Hand, We're Happy starts performances January 22nd at Boise Contemporary Theater in Idaho. The Welsh playwright’s “tender, funny, hopeful” adoption drama is directed by Cameron Watson.
David Harrower’s A Slow Air starts performances January 18th at Steep Theatre in Chicago. Robin Witt directs the drama about “estranged siblings brought together through a remarkable string of events to reckon with memories of lives lived together and apart.”
Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust runs January 22 - February 9 at Syracuse Stage. Melissa Crespo directs the Pulitzer-winning drama about “modern loneliness, the heroism of everyday kindness, and the joy of finding community in the most unlikely of places.”
Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust starts performances January 22nd at TheatreSquared in Fayetteville, AR. The “surprising, touching comedy exploring new beginnings, old friends, and the power of seeing the world through fresh eyes” is directed by Vickie Washington.
Vanessa Severo’s Frida...A Self Portrait runs January 23 - February 23 at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL. Joanie Schultz directs the solo performance chronicling the “iconic Mexican painter who lived boldly, loved wildly, and painted prolifically in order to see herself and the world around her more clearly.”
Kelly Jones’s My Mother’s Funeral: The Show is now playing at Soho Playhouse in NYC through January 25th. Charlotte Bennett directs the Edinburgh Fringe hit “tackling the inequalities around death and the cost of turning your loved ones into art.”
workshops & readings
Christin Eve Cato’s Beneath the Land of Cockpit Country will have a reading on January 17th at The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. The new work follows four estranged cousins grappling with the unexpected riches of an inheritance, “as a familial conflict unravels into a larger existential threat to all who surround them.”
festivals
The Under the Radar Festival is now running through January 19th at various locations around New York City. Here are other productions & workshops I haven’t linked to yet in the past two round-ups:
Eli Rarey and Sasha Molochinikov’s Seagull Fucker at La MaMa in association with En Garde Arts (January 17-19) is “a highly imaginative theatrical production centered on an artist’s struggle to survive censorship and the personal cost of resistance.”
Marcella Murray, David Neumann, and Tei Blow’s Rich With History and other stuff you say at a haunted house at Mabou Mines (closed yesterday, sorry!) is set “somewhere between the cargo hold of a spaceship and a craft services table, as a film crew setting up a shot immerse themselves in a dance of multiple takes through haunted spaces, ideas, and interactions.”
Jenn Kidwell and the blackening’s we come to collect: a flirtation, with capitalism at The Flea (January 17) is “an anti-capitalist ritual comedy in which performers and audience together explore value, labor, and currency.”
Amir Reza Koohestani and Mehr Theatre Group’s Blind Runner at St. Ann’s Warehouse in partnership with Waterwell and Nimruz (January 17-19) follows “a man whose political prisoner wife in Tehran impels him to help a blind woman, currently training for a marathon in Paris, run through the Channel Tunnel from France to England.”
The Lazours and Taibi Magar’s Night Side Songs at Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theater (January 17-19) is “a genre-breaking theatrical kaleidoscope fusing story and song to take us on a journey through illness that brings us closer to life.” (The production will have its world premiere next month at Philadelphia Theatre Company.)
Alex Tatarsky’s Nothing Doing at Chemistry Creative in partnership with Playwrights Horizons (January 17 & 18) “offers a generous peek inside [the avant-garde experimentalist’s] half-cracked skull, revealing a roiling cauldron laden with lofty concept and earthy funk.”
Ahamefule J. Oluo’s The Things Around Us runs January 17 & 18 at Oklahoma City Rep in association with Under the Radar. The “uplifting and bleak, deep and silly” collection of “stories and soundscapes that reflect the forced isolation of the pandemic” is presented as part of a multi-year partnership bringing UTR festival work straight from New York City to Oklahoma City.
The Exponential Festival is now running through February 2nd at various locations around New York City. The annual showcase for emerging experimental performance artists continues this week:
Lal Ensari, Kenneth Keng, Sophie Zmorrod’s AMA/GILDA/SOLSTICE at Target Margin Theater (January 17-19) is a split bill:
Lal Ensari’s winter solstice is “a site-specific gathering that aims to bring some lightness, joy and celebration into the darkness of winter.”
Kenneth Keng’s AMA is “a participatory silent monologue about the difficulty of intergenerational communication despite trilingual fluency, interrupted by the invasion of the Philippines by the Japanese Imperial Army” directed by Annaporva Green.
Sophie Zmorrod’s Gilda, with an Olive is directed by Margaret Lee and set during “the final act of Verdi’s acclaimed opera Rigoletto, as Gilda thinks about her life choices while waiting inside of a body bag onstage for her cue to die.”
Xiaoyue Zhang’s Braiding Water at JACK (January 17 & 18) is “a tender exploration of grief and a reimagining of mourning practices for unnamed losses and the dead who could not be honored” co-directed by Brittney Brady and Xiaoyue Zhang.
Laura Galindo’s Happy Birthday, Curiosity Rover! at Brick Aux (January 23 - 25) is “a play with music about getting your solitude punctured, about the strange in stranger, about loving what will always go away” directed by Karma Masselli.
PhysFestNYC is now running through January 19th at the Stella Adler Center for the Arts. This weekend’s line-up for the “community-led festival that celebrates, enriches, and envisions the field of physical theater" includes:
Broken Box Mime Theater (January 17 & 18) is a collaborative company that “reimagines French pantomime through the lens of contemporary US-American theater.”
Bill Bowers’ It Goes Without Saying (January 18) “takes the audience on a scenic tour of Bill's life thus far: from growing up gay in the wilds of Montana, his outrageous jobs as a performer, studying with Marcel Marceau, and the whirlwind of working on Broadway.”
The Fire This Time Festival runs January 23 - February 2 at wild project in NYC. The annual event is a “platform and community for early career Black writers.” This year’s line-up of ten-minute plays, directed by Kimille Howard, includes Brittany Fisher’s Pound Cake, FELISPEAKS’ OUT, Jeanette W. Hill’s Just One Good Day, D.L. Patrick’s But Not Forgotten, TyLie Shider’s Security Watch, and Garrett Turner’s Immanentize the Eschaton.
the regional theatre game of thrones
Executive Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming is departing Actors Theatre of Louisville after five years. Fleming is “moving on to pursue other creative and artistic opportunities.” Current artistic producing staffers Amelia Acosta Powell and Emily Tarquin will serve as interim artistic director and managing director, respectively.