the week of january 21 - 27, 2023

the january festival effect

Lauren Halvorsen

Jan 27, 2023

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

in-person theatre

Woolly Mammoth hosts A Mammoth Showcase: An Interdisciplinary Gathering of Native Artists on January 29th. The celebration of Indigenous artists and creators includes a reading of Rhiana Yazzie’s ADY (directed by Angelisa Gillyard and featuring Regina Victor), performances from Uptown Singerz and Miss Chief Rocka, a conversation with local mixed media artist Rose Powhatan, and video installations from Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi.
Dipika Guha’s Getting There is now running through February 26th at San Francisco’s New Conservatory Theater Center. The world premiere “intergenerational meditation on love, aging, and solitude” is directed by Nailah Harper-Malveaux.
Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty is now playing through February 12th at Quintessence Theatre Group in Philadelphia. Kyle Haden directs the revival of Odets’ “incendiary and revolutionary play about the growing pains of labor in capitalist America.”
Roger Guenveur Smith and Marc Anthony Thompson’s Otto Frank runs January 26-29 at Oklahoma City Rep. The devised work inspired by Anne Frank’s father is a collaboration with the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival.
The world premiere of Stephanie Satie’s The Last Parade is now playing through February 19th at InterAct in Philadelphia. Seth Rozin directs the 1990s-set drama about three generations of a Jewish family in Kyiv grappling with emigration.
DC’s Flying V will present a developmental workshop of Vanishing Girl on January 28th & 29th. William Yanesh and Hope Villanueva’s new coming-of-age musical about an introverted college student who develops electricity-related superpowers is directed by Eric Jordan.
The world premiere of Erica Schmidt’s Lucy starts performances January 27th at the Minetta Lane in NYC. The Audible production, also directed by Schmidt, “explores the wild range of parents’ emotions” and will also be released on the audio platform.
Lydia R. Diamond’s Toni Stone runs January 28 - February 26 at the Goodman in Chicago. The “sensational true story of the first woman to play professional baseball” is directed by Ron OJ Parson.
Lee Edward Colston II’s The First Deep Breath starts performances February 1st at LA’s Geffen Playhouse. Steve H. Broadnax III directs the new epic drama “chronicling the depths families will go to hide their skeletons from the outside world and each other.”
Guillermo Calderón’s Kiss runs January 31 - February 19 at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. Fadi Skeiker directs the new play about “American actors performing a Syrian soap opera realizing the limits of their own cultural understanding.”
Samuel D. Hunter’s A Bright New Boise starts performances January 31st at Signature Theatre. The Off-Broadway premiere of Hunter’s 2010 Hobby Lobby-set workplace dramedy is directed by Oliver Butler.
Idris Goodwin’s Bars and Measures runs February 2 - 26 at DC’s Mosaic Theater Company. Reginald L. Douglas directs the moving drama (inspired by true events) about two brothers “united through a love of music but separated by prison bars.”
LAByrinth Theater Company’s 2023 Barn Series runs January 31 - February 12. The annual new play reading festival includes Sidney Williams’ No Easy Way to be Free (directed by Ross Klavan), Madeline Barr’s Diary Play (directed by Adrian Wattenmaker), Florencia Lozano and Paul Martinez’s Fun with Shame, Dipti Bramhandkar’s Love Lake (directed by Padraic Lillis), Lia Romeo’s Still (directed by Charles Goforth), Paula Pizzi-Black’s The Spaces in Between (directed by John Gould Rubin), Jake Brasch’s Spin (directed by Padraic Lillis), Lyle Kessler’s Silence in the Mountains, Justin Reinsilber’s the title of the play is 'untitled’, Margaret Ladd’s Hidden (directed by Erica Gould), Jen Cook-Ortiz’s Planet Mirth (directed by John Ortiz), and Ben Snyder and Will Stone’s Shoe Story the Musical (directed by Heidi Marshall).

digital theatre

Majkin Holmquist’s Tent Revival premieres January 30th at 7pm as part of Paula Vogel’s Bard at the Gate series. Teddy Bergman directs the drama set in rural Kansas during the mid-20th century evangelical revivalist tradition.
Heather Raffo’s screen adaptation of 9 Parts of Desire streams January 30 - February 12 from People’s Light. The film version of Raffo’s 2003 solo play about a wide cross-section of Iraqi women is directed by Mike Mosallam.

the regional theatre game of thrones

Hayley Finn is the new artistic director of Theater J in DC. The director and new play producer is currently the long-time associate artistic director of the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. She succeeds Adam Immerwahr, who departed last year to lead Seattle’s Village Theatre.
Peter Rothstein is the new artistic director of Asolo Rep. Rothstein joins the Sarasota theatre after 25 years as the founding artistic director of Theater Latté Da in Minneapolis.

end of an era

Single Carrot Theatre is shuttering after 15 years. The Baltimore ensemble theatre cited “complex, multi-faceted and layered” reasons for the closure, including “compounding post-pandemic organizational challenges that have made sustaining a theater of our size ever more difficult. These include issues of staffing shortages and stretched human capacity, limited regional philanthropic resources, and the ever-increasing cost of sustaining live theatrical productions.”

award season

Majkin Holmquist is the 2023 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow. Holmquist will received an unrestricted $10,000 award and an additional $10,000 to spend on research, workshops, and readings.
The Flea received $1.2 million from the Mellon Foundation to support a new shared leadership model and community building projects. Over the next three years, the NYC theatre will implement “a shared leadership structure with its resident theatre makers” and support initiatives “to enhance and uplift experimental art by Black, brown and queer artists.”

what i read this week when i wasn’t reading betty gilpin’s delightfully unhinged essays

Jen Silverman interviewing Dipika Guha on her artistic curiosities, her new play Getting There, and “the pleasure and strangeness” of writing in different mediums (BOMB Magazine)
The first installment of Fergus Morgan’s weekly recommendation of five shows to see at London’s VAULT Festival, which is now running through mid-March. (The Crush Bar)
Helen Shaw and Vinson Cunningham in conversation about the highlights of this year’s Under the Radar Festival (The New Yorker)
Nicole Serratore on the return of NYC’s January festivals — Under the Radar, Prototype, and Exponential — after years of cancellations and postponements (American Theatre)
The many social media remembrances touting the kindness, dedication, and generosity of Primary Stages artistic director Andrew Leynse, who passed away on January 20th after a sudden illness.

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 and the most recently available 990 data. (You can read more about the methodology here.)

Development Associate at Atlantic Theater Company: $40,000 - $45,000
- Living Wage for New York, NY: $56,718
- Revenue (2020): $10.3 million / Net Income: -$1.44 million
- Executive Compensation: $214,169 (Artistic Director) / $233,640 (Managing Director)

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