the week of june 21-27, 2024

this is not a tony awards recap

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Graphic Design: Elizabeth Morton | Editorial Support: Ryan Adelsheim

world premieres

• Elevator Repair Service’s Ulysses is now playing through July 14th at Fisher Center at Bard. The “eclectic sampling from Joyce’s life-affirming masterpiece, with madcap antics and a densely layered sound design” is directed by John Collins with co-direction and dramaturgy by Scott Shepherd.

• reid tang’s Isabel is now playing through July 6th at NYC’s Abrons Arts Center from the National Asian American Theatre Company. Kedian Keohan directs the dark comedy following “Matt, who is fixing up a cheap old house in the middle of nowhere when Harriet and Isabel show up unannounced, bringing news about mysterious abandoned staircases in the forest, a backpack named Loaves, and the uncannily human screams of mountain lions.”

• Tamarie Cooper and Patrick Reynolds’ Tamarie's Texas Toast runs June 21 - August 3 at Catastrophic Theatre in Houston, TX. The “completely irreverent musical bonanza” is a love letter to Houston, with “high school football, gas station beavers, flag parades, giant roaches, tons of guns, and the glory of Whataburger.” (It is the official opinion of Nothing for the Group that there is no better after-midnight snack than a Whataburger taquito.)

• Roger Q. Mason’s The Duat is now playing through June 23rd at Philadelphia Theatre Company. Taibi Magar directs the “psychological portrait of FBI counterintelligence officer Cornelius Johnson [and] poetic and virtuosic story of redemption using spoken word, North African drumming, and gorgeous choreography.”

• Jaclyn Biskup and Lauren Holmes' adaptation of Olga Ravn's The Employees is now running through June 30 at Theaterlab in NYC. The “intimate and immersive examination of work, rebellion, and humanity on board a spaceship in the 22nd century” is directed by Biskup.

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productions

• Taylor Mac and Jason Robert Brown’s musical Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil starts previews June 25th at The Goodman in Chicago. The adaptation of John Berendt’s 1999 non-fiction best-seller about a landmark murder trial in Savannah and “the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else” is directed by Rob Ashford.

• The THISISPOPBABY and Abbey Theatre production of Panti Bliss: If These Wigs Could Talk runs June 26 - July 7 at DC’s Studio Theatre in a co-presentation with Solas Nua. Phillip McMahon directs the Irish drag queen’s solo performance “questioning her purpose and place in this changing world after a lifetime of accidental activism, far-fetched shenanigans and making a full time show of herself.”

• The National Black Theatre’s public presentation of Kristen Adele Calhoun’s Bloodwork runs June 26-30 at The Chelsea Factory. Tiffany Nichole Greene directs the “Afro-futuristic odyssey about ten generations of women converging across time and space in the name of deep healing.”

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summer festivals

• Max Reuben’s This Place Is Definitely Haunted and CJ. Baer’s Extinction will have readings June 21st & 23rd as part of Vassar’s Powerhouse Season. Caley Chase directs Reuben’s “Russian nesting doll of scary stories”, while Judson Jones directs Extinction, which “follows a brilliant and promising PhD student in the early 1980s, interested in the rising field of feminist biology, who discovers, as the singular female in her advisor’s lab, androcentric bias in her very own backyard.”

• Crystal Finn’s Find Me Here is now running through June 29th as part of Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks. Caitlin Sullivan directs the new work about a recently deceased patriarch’s three sisters: “One sister is worried she is next. One sister is determined never to be next. One sister is becoming invisible.”

• Chris Campbell’s translation of The Blacks: Les Nègres de Jean Genet will have readings on June 21 and 23 at The O’Neill in Waterford, CT. The part satire, part ritual is “a meditation on the invention of the idea of Blackness in the white mind” and directed by Miranda Haymon.

• The PRISM Festival of New Queer Musicals runs June 22-29 at Judson Memorial Church in NYC. The inaugural line-up includes Adam J. Rineer’s A Trip to the Moon (directed by Jason Aguirre), Ben Holbrook and Nate Weida’s The Church of the First Order of Cloud City’s Inaugural Unity Jamboree! (directed by Andrew Scoville), Beth Golison’s Lottie and the Deep Blue Sea (directed by Cam Pileggi), and Dante Green’s An Incomplete List of All the Things I'm Going to Miss When the World is No Longer.

• Pan Asian Rep’s NuWorks Festival runs June 22-30 at Theatre Row in NYC. The annual experimental series of self-created work includes Howard Ho’s Parity (co-directed by Austin Ku & Jully Lee), Kurt Sanchez Kanazawa’s L’Opera! (co-directed by Jeff Liu & Kalina Ko), Nina Ki’s Origen Story (directed by Chris Yejin), Kenjiro Lee’s Peach Boy (directed by Alexandra Darcy Haddad), Patrick Lee’s Wash n Fold, azumi O E’s Solitude, Joy Regullano’s Body Count (directed by Fran de Leon), and Cody LeRoy Wilson’s Halfanese: Two Halves of a Whole Idiot.

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workshops & readings & residencies

• Mekala Sridhar’s Ghost Forest will have public workshop performances on June 27 & 28 at Eaton House in DC. Katie Ciszek directs the new work “exposing the personal and environmental consequences of a severed relationship between humans and land.”

• Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group Reading Series runs through June 27th at The Wild Project. The series features works-in-progress from Nikhil Mahapatra, Alle Mims, Ashil Lee, Kallan Dana, Sebastian Alberdi, Marissa Joyce Stamps, Daniel Holzman, and Alexa Derman.

• Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Bloodworks Reading Series continues through June 28th. Upcoming readings include Phanésia Pharel’s Dead Girl's Quinceañera (June 24) and new plays from Brysen Boyd (June 21), Libby Carr (June 25), Nia Akilah Robinson (June 26), and Ava Geyer (June 28).

• Farah Haidari’s By Any Means runs June 21 & 22 as part of CoHo Productions 2024 Residency Project in Portland, OR. The new work “follows three college friends’ interwoven evolutions in political consciousness during the 2020 George Floyd uprising in Portland.”

• Makeda Declet’s Service will have a reading on June 24th at The Understudy in Chicago. Regina Victor directs the dark, farcical exploration of “how far would you go to preserve the memory of a friend.”

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digital & streaming

• Ars Nova’s ANTFest runs through June 27th, in-person and streaming (both live and on demand). This week’s offerings from the annual showcase of new work from “New York’s most adventurous emerging artists” include Justine Gelfman and Joan Sergay’s The Galas (June 21); Allisha Edwards and Fernanda Brigneti’s Night T.V. (June 22); Jay Adana and Jess McLeod’s The Jordan and Avery Show in Concert (June 24); Madison Fiedler and Francesca Sabel’s Homofermenters, Or The Park Slope Co-op Play (June 25); Adam J. Rineer and Jason Aguirre’s THIRD SEX: 1930s transvestite leider (June 26); and Ema Zivkovic and Katie Spelman’s swearing in english (June 27).

• Mark Clayton Southers’ The Coffin Maker is now available to stream on demand through July 14th from Pittsburgh Public Theater. Monteze Freeland directs the 1849 Oklahoma-set western-comedy-revenge play, the latest installment in Southers’ 19th Century Collection, a century-spanning chronicle of the Black experience inspired by his mentor August Wilson.

• Kate Scelsa and Robert M. Johanson’s Hilma is available to stream on demand June 24 - July 21 from The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. The contemporary opera “wrestling with the hubris and humility that fueled early 20th century queer mystic and artist Hilma af Klint’s spiritual quest” is directed by Morgan Green.

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2024-25 season updates

• Ars Nova announced its 2024-25 season. The line-up includes two world premieres: On the Rocks Theatre Company’s The Beastiary (written by Christopher Ford & Dakota Rose and directed by Dakota Rose) and Brandon Kyle Goodman’s the heaux church (directed by Lisa Owaki Bierman).

• Manhattan Theatre Club announced the remainder of its 2024-25 Off Broadway line-up. In addition to Erika Sheffer’s Vladimir, the company will produce three world premieres: Rajiv Joseph’s Dakar 2000 (directed by May Adrales), Joshua Harmon’s We Had a World (directed by Trip Cullman), and Dominique Morisseau's Bad Kreyol (directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene, co-production with Signature Theatre).

• WP Theater announced its 2024-25 season. The NYC theatre will produce Mathilde Dratwa’s Dirty Laundry (directed by Rebecca Martinez) and Francisca Da Silveira’s minor.ity (directed by by Shariffa Ali, co-pro with Colt Coeur).

• Brooklyn Academy of Music announced its fall programming. The season includes Nick Blaemire and Ryan Miller’s musical Safety Not Guaranteed (directed by Lee Sunday Evans), a public workshop production of The TEAM’s Reconstructing (Still Working but the Devil Might Be Inside) (co-directed by Rachel Chavkin and Zhailon Levingston), and the 2024 Next Wave Festival.

• Ensemble Studio Theatre announced its 2024-25 season. The NYC company’s line-up includes Lloyd Suh’s Franklinland (directed by Chika Ike) and the world premiere of Michael Walek’s Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother? (directed by Linsay Firman).

• Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta announced its 2024-25 season. Productions include Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Philip Grecian’s A Christmas Story, Ben Power’s adaptation of The Lehman Trilogy, and the world premiere of Psalmayene 24 and Eugene H. Russell IV’s hip-hop musical Young John Lewis.

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end of an era

• Rescripted, the Chicago-based, artist-led interactive critical platform, is ending after seven years. Founder and Editor-in-Chief Regina Victor announced the news in a piece that cited Annalisa Dias’ viral essay “Decomposition Instead of Collapse”, which Nothing for the Group co-published with Rescripted last summer. Regina’s writing, artistry, curatorial brain, and editorial insights have been indispensable and inspirational to me. I’m so excited for their next chapter.

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award season

• The Tony Awards were announced on Sunday. Stereophonic won five, including Best Play; The Outsiders’ four prizes included Best Musical; and you can read the full rundown of recipients here. I didn’t watch the ceremony live (I was at a Maggie Rogers concert) but I did win both of my brackets this year.