the week of july 22 - 28, 2023
exit strategy
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summer festivals
Clarence Coo’s Chapters of a Floating Life will have a reading July 28th as part of Williamstown Theatre Festival’s Fridays@3 series. Jennifer Chang directs the new work about “two couples, separated by class and education, converging as they try to make ends meet in New York City in the wake of the Second World War.”
New York Stage and Film continues its summer 2023 season. The third week includes two readings on July 29th: Sopan Deb’s The Good Name (directed by Trip Cullman) and Beth Henley’s Downstairs Neighbor (directed by Jaki Bradley).
productions
The world premiere of Nathan Alan Davis’ The Art of Bowing is now playing through August 13th at Haven Chicago. The “mystical, metatheatrical and effervescent journey spanning multiple eras, places, and dimensions” is directed by Ian Damont Martin.
2023-24 updates
InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia announced its 2023-24 season. Productions include Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul and three world premieres: Jahna Ferron-Smith’s Step Mom, Step Mom, Step Mom; Deborah Zoe Laufer’s The Last Yiddish Speaker, and C.A. Johnson’s The Climb.
Center Theatre Group announced its upcoming Ahmanson Theatre line-up. Productions include Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop (directed by Stephen Brackett, co-pro with American Conservatory Theater), Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown (developed with & directed by Rachel Chavkin), A Christmas Story: The Musical (directed by Matt Lenz), Matthew Bourne’s dance theatre adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, the touring Broadway revival of Funny Girl, and Sandy Rustin’s adaptation of Clue. The Los Angeles company announced last month that it was pausing all programming in its Mark Taper Forum, including canceling scheduled runs of the Larissa FastHorse world premiere Fake It Until You Make It and Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band.
La Jolla Playhouse announced the 2023 Latinx Play Festival line-up. The three-day October event will feature Karina Billini’s Apple Bottom (directed by Amelia Acosta Powell), Jessi Realz’s The Invocation of Selena (directed by Cambria Herrera), Iraisa Ann Reilly’s The Jersey Devil Is a Papi Chulo (directed by Dr. Maria Patrice Amon), and Benjamin Benne’s Manning (directed by Cat Rodríguez).
Theatre for a New Audience announced its 2023-24 season. The line-up includes Annie Dorsen’s Prometheus Firebringer, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (directed by Arin Arbus), Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s Public Obscenities, and the Royal Lyceum Theatre production of Zinnie Harris’ Macbeth (an undoing).
the regional theatre game of thrones
Eric Ting and Caleb Hammons are the next directors of Soho Rep. They’ll join Cynthia Flowers as part of the NYC company’s shared leadership model. Ting was most recently the artistic director of Cal Shakes, while Hammons has spent the last decade in various senior artistic producing roles at Fisher Center at Bard. The two succeed Sarah Benson and Meropi Peponides, who both stepped down earlier this year to focus on their own creative work.
Dámaso Rodríguez is the new artistic director of Seattle Rep. The freelance director was previously the artistic director of Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, OR from 2013 to 2021. Rodríguez succeeds Braden Abraham, who left last year to lead Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL.
Mark Shanahan is the next artistic director of Westport Country Playhouse. The writer/director/actor will serve in an interim capacity before officially succeeding Mark Lamos next March.
end of an era
DC’s 4615 Theatre Company will sunset this September after ten years. The company, which received the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre at the 2020 Helen Hayes Awards, is closing because of the diverging personal and professional lives of its leadership.
With all of the sudden theater closures1, it’s almost comforting to read about a company deliberately crafting its end so the artists can pursue new creative opportunities. A colleague of mine once asked “When should a theatre die?” and I think about this constantly. Generally speaking, the American cultural response to death and grief is deeply inadequate and dominated by morbidity. We have few socially acceptable rituals and mechanisms for addressing and accommodating loss. (I’ve also been ruminating on how this links to the collective American obsession with hoarding authority and influence, and how this greed and refusal to relinquish power inflicts irreparable damage.) But I think the question of intentional exits and endings is one that more artistic and executive leaders — beyond those running small ensemble companies — should contemplate rather than avoid.
