the week of july 26 - august 1, 2024

aliens, america's sweethearts, daisy the cow

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Graphic Design: Elizabeth Morton | Editorial Support: Ryan Adelsheim

world premieres

• Harley Elias’ The Handless King starts performances July 26th at Amphibian Stage in Fort Worth, TX. The “high-octane fantasy about a coworker dispute turned deadly” is directed by Jay Duffer.

productions

• Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine runs July 27 - August 4 at Chautauqua Theater Company. The social satire follows a successful Black publicist “grappling with the disintegration of her once-perfect life as she is forced to return to her humble roots in Brooklyn and the family she once abandoned.”

• Kate Hamill’s Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson - Apt. 2B starts previews July 27th at The Old Globe in San Diego. James Vásquez directs the “fast-paced and wildly entertaining reimagination of the most iconic detective team of all time.”

• ML Roberts’ Riverside is now running through July 27th at Indianapolis Shakespeare Company. Developed in partnership with The New Harmony Project, the new work exploring “Black Indianapolis from the perspective of a single family line across three decades: the 1820s, 1920s, and 1960s” is directed by Rudi Goblen.

• Cecilia Gentili’s Red Ink runs July 30 - August 18 at NYC’s Rattlestick Theater presented by Breaking the Binary Theatre, Nic Cory, Sara Ramirez,
  Ianne Fields Stewart and Killer Films. Nic Cory directs the “part stand-up, part camp” tribute to the late Pose star Gentili (who passed away in February) “navigating the hilarity of growing up in rural Argentina during the 19(redacted)s.” (The producers are offering 10 complimentary tickets to transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ theatergoers at each performance. Email info@btb-nyc.com for more details.)

• Barzin Akhavan’s Behfarmaheen (If You Please) starts performances July 31st at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The one-man show telling “the true story of Akhavan’s immigration from Iran in 1980 and his adaptation to American life” is directed by Desdemona Chiang and dramaturged by Linda Lombardi.

workshops & readings

• The Jungle Theater Showcase runs July 26-28 in Minneapolis. The weekend celebrating local artists & new work features readings of Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong (directed by Sara Pillatzki-Warzeha and starring Isabella Star LaBlanc) and Katie Ka Vang’s Fast Fwd Motions (directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh), as well as a community event with Native writer Marcie Rendon.

summer festivals

• The JAW New Play Festival runs July 26-28 at Portland Center Stage in Oregon. This year’s line-up includes Julia Izumi’s A Re-Enactment of the Imagined Trial of Daisy the Cow, who Allegedly Caused the Great Chicago Fire (directed by Josiah Davis); Brett Robinson’s Good Person (A One-Woman Bouffon Show) (directed by Dominique Rider); Beth Hyland’s Fires, Ohio (directed by Marissa Wolf); and Rob Smith’s The Sunnyview Elementary Art Show (directed by Josh Hecht).

• The Ojai Playwrights Conference’s New Works Festival runs August 1-4 in Ojai, CA. This year’s plays are Alex Lin’s barren. (directed by Iris McCloughan and dramaturged by Tiffany Moon), Lee Cataluna’s Thursdays Come at Morning (directed by Jeremy B. Cohen and dramaturged by Jeff Liu), Libby Carr’s CALF SCRAMBLE (directed by Jaki Bradley and dramaturged by Olivia O'Connor), Christina Pumariega’s ¡VOS! (directed by Nicole Watson and dramaturged by Sarah Rose Leonard), and Mfoniso Udofia’s The Ceremony (directed by Awoye Timpo and dramaturged by Donnetta Lavinia Greys). The 2024 writers-in-residence are Jaclyn Backhaus, Stephen Adly Guirgis, and Steve Yockey.

• Melis Aker’s Indigo Dreams will have a reading on July 26th at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Kate Whoriskey directs the new work about “three carpet-weaving women in Turkey caught between wanting to salvage their dying industry and an offer to modernize that could have dangerous consequences.”

• Ruby Rae Spiegel’s Dry Land is now running through August 4th at Portland Theater Festival in Maine. The “tender, acerbic, and eerily prescient play about abortion, female friendship, and resiliency, and what happens in one high school locker room after everybody’s left” is directed by Taylor Reynolds.

• New York Stage & Film continues through August 4th at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY. This week’s offerings includes public presentations of Ngozi Anyanwu’s the monsters; Stacy Osei-Kuffour’s Basement, IL (directed by Stevie Walker-Webb); Shanessa Sweeney, Bongi Duma, and Ray Mercer’s Game Night (directed by Rufus Bonds Jr); and Kate Douglas’ Tulipa (directed by Kate Whoriskey).

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2024-25 season updates

• The Jungle Theater announced its 2024-25 season. The Minneapolis company will present Christina Baldwin, Sun Mee Chomet, and Jim Lichtscheidl’s Dinner for One; Lucy Prebble’s The Effect (directed by Alison Ruth); and the world premiere of Katie Ka Vang’s Fast Fwd Motions.

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award season

• Keegon Schuett’s this dry spell is the winner of the 2024 Yale Drama Series Prize. Schuett will receive $10,000 and a staged reading with the Yale Schwarzman Center and Long Wharf Theatre. The shortlisted plays were Jess Edwards’ Spooky Action at a Distance, Gina Femia’s This Happened Once at the Romance Depot Off the I-87 in Westchester, Duncan Gates’ Arkansas, Ayvaunn Penn’s For the Love of Uvalde, Reid Pope’s Amino Amino Amino Amino Amino Amino Amino Amino Amino, Michael Quinn’s The River East, TyLie Shider’s Whittier, Kayla Stokes’ Literally Just Girls, and Zachary Wilcox,’s I just like you | a queer myth.

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scattered cultural recommendations because I feel like it

• I saw Julia Masli’s ha ha ha ha ha ha ha at Woolly Mammoth last week and the Estonian clown’s absurdist problem-solving show is my favorite kind of theatre: weird, droll, delightful, communal, ephemeral. (It’s running through August 4th.)

• Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland sounds like high-concept sci-fi — a young girl in 1980s working-class Philadelphia is secretly an alien, reporting back to her overlords on the intricacies of human life via fax machine — but it is so aching and funny and perceptive. (I haven’t cried at a book like this since Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.) It also functioned as a beautiful companion piece to ha ha ha ha ha ha ha: two curious, otherworldly beings exploring fragility and loneliness and connection.

• Two weeks ago, I had zero opinions on the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders but after watching America’s Sweethearts on Netflix I fervently want them to unionize. (I was trying to articulate the appeal of this docuseries to a friend and settled on this: it's the center of the Venn diagram for people who only get obsessed with women's gymnastics every four years during the Olympics and also consume #BamaRush content like it's a grad-level sociology seminar.)