the week of january 3-9, 2025
new year, same board clownery
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icymi
I wrote my annual year-in-review post for paid subscribers, recapping all the ambition, nonsense, and possibility:
2024: The Year in Review
The American theatre has once again stumbled, soared, and occasionally face-planted its way through another twelve months. Now comfortably ensconced in The Crisis™ mode, this year felt like a high-wire act performed on a fraying tightrope, a flailing attempt to balance ambition and austerity. This tension isn’t new, but it felt extra legible in 2024 as the industry ping-ponged between panic and possibility. (Fortunately, there was no shortage of the latter.)
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world premieres
Mona Pirnot’s I'm Assuming You Know David Greenspan starts performances January 8th Off-Broadway at The Atlantic. Ken Rus Schmoll directs the “comedy (full of drama) about how to make a living as a playwright (or to try) [starring] one 68-year-old man playing four millennial women.”
Eliya Smith’s Grief Camp runs January 9 - February 16 Off-Broadway at The Atlantic. The “study of loss and adolescence” is directed by Les Waters.
productions
Ari’el Stachel’s Out of Character starts performances January 8th in a co-presentation between DC’s Theater J and Mosaic Theater Company. Tony Taccone directs the “expansive autobiographical tale of Stachel’s Yemeni Jewish mixed ethnicity, mental health, and success.”
Dutch Kills Theater and Long Story Short’s Peregrinations: a Masked Show About People and Borders starts performances January 9th at The Tank in NYC. The devising ensemble’s “wordless play with original music and sound design explores journeys of displacement and migration.”
festivals
The Under the Radar Festival is now running through January 19th at various locations around New York City. Here are some highlights playing this week:
Target Margin Theater’s Show/Boat: A River, “a daring reimagining of the seminal musical Show Boat” at NYU Skirball (January 9-26)
Wakka Wakka’s Dead as a Dodo, a “mesmerizing musical odyssey about survival, transformation and the power of true friendship” at Baruch Performing Arts Center (January 8-19)
Ian Kammu’s Loss, a multi-media “exploration of grief and healing in Afro-Caribbean communities” at Apollo Stage at The Victoria (January 9-11)
Ahamefule J. Oluo’s The Things Around Us, a “collection of seemingly unrelated stories that swirl and dance with an immersive, live musical score created through electronically looped and effected trumpet, clarinet, and everyday objects” at La MaMa (January 9-12)
Ronnie Burkett’s solo puppetry performance Wonderful Joe at Lincoln Center (January 7-12)
Tania El Khoury’s lecture and installation performance The Search for Power at The Invisible Dog Art Center (co-pro with Fisher Center at Bard, January 9-19)
Ann Liv Young’s Marie Antoinette at Chemistry Creative (January 9-19)
Irina Kruzhilina’s Spacebridge, a “devised live performance by eleven young Russian refugees alongside eight American-born participants of the same age”, at La MaMa (January 7-11)
Robert Schenkkan and Jorge Andrade’s “outrageous political satire” Old Cock at 59E59 (January 8-19)
Sinking Ship and Theater in Quarantine’s cinematic sci-fi comedy The 7th Voyage of Egon at NYTW (January 4-19)
The Exponential Festival is now running through February 2nd at various locations around New York City. Here is this week’s line-up for the festival dedicated to emerging artists working in experimental performance:
kanishk pandey’s PRISONCORE!, directed by Rachel Gita Karp (January 3 & 4 at The Brick)
Eulàlia Comas’ haircut play :€, directed by Eulàlia Comas (January 3-5 at Loading Dock)
Susannah Yugler’s CASSANDRA, directed by Susannah Yugler (January 9-11 at The Brick)
Nic Adams’ NECK DOWN, directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps (January 9-12 at We Are Here Brooklyn Studios)
audio
Playing on Air’s new season of audio plays is available to stream on demand. The newest works are Patricia Cotter’s Did I Miss Anything Important? (directed by Marchánt Davis), David Ives’ Kansas Anymore, John Patrick Shanley’s Reverie, Lloyd Suh’s Disney/Fujikawa (directed by Ralph Peña), Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s Crisis Planning (directed by Jason Eagan), Kirsten Greenidge’s Sheila: A Year in the Life Of (directed by Melia Bensussen), and Ken Urban’s A Sticky Memento (directed by Knud Adams).
labor news
The Congo Square Theatre Ensemble has withdrawn from the Chicago company’s 2025 season due to an impasse with the Board. The nineteen ensemble members of the venerable Black theatre “unanimously decided to not participate in any production, artistic curating and programming for the upcoming 2025 season until the current board president [Dawn Reese] has been removed from the board.” The ensemble said that it had made “several requests for neutral mediation with the entire board of directors, to no avail.”
In a statement, the ensemble did not specifically detail the rift’s origins, writing, “Our current challenges highlight a systemic issue that many arts organizations have had with boards. We believe that most people who serve on nonprofit boards are incredible people who believe in the mission and see value for themselves and the community. Many board members are eager to roll up their metaphorical sleeves to be champions for the arts and artists. It is our hope that we can find a resolution and will continue to advocate for a productive and collaborative work environment so we can get back to the business of producing work that reflects the complexities of Black culture.”
Congo Square Theatre is in the midst of a leadership turnover — executive director Charlique C. Rolle stepped down last March, while artistic director Ericka Ratcliff resigned in October.
The current interim executive director Charles A. Montori-Archer doesn’t seem willing to engage with the ensemble, telling Chicago Defender that, “[The chair] decision is with the board of directors because it is a board matter of governance, and they have decided that they’re going to support their leadership, and Dawn is their chair.”
Montori-Archer is already spinning a ‘rebuilding’ narrative excluding the current ensemble, saying, “We are really enthusiastic about expanding our reach, thinking about diverse talent and about the innovative ways we can do this work, and bringing in different voices and perspectives to Congo if this is [the ensemble’s] decision to professionally pivot…This is a moment of transformation.”
As an unofficial archivist of recent regional theatre history, I’m reminded of the dramatic saga of Victory Gardens, i.e. the last time a Chicago-based ensemble of resident artists resigned en masse due to Board-related conflicts. It didn’t end well for that institution!
in memoriam
Aziza Barnes passed away on December 15th. The BLKS playwright, screenwriter, and poet, who was known to their friends as ‘Z’, was 32 years old.
gahhh I want to see all of the UTR and Exponential shows !