the week of june 27 - july 3, 2025

dear fefu, ben franklin, immersive dostoyevsky

You’re reading Nothing for the Group, a newsletter where one dramaturg rounds up one week in theatre news, reviews, and takes:

The Friday weekly round-up is always free, but if you’d like to sustain this project (and get access to occasional bonus content), you can upgrade to a paid tier. (You can also support via Venmo @halvorsen or Paypal.)

To learn more about this newsletter, read the About & FAQ.

To submit a press release or production information, read the submission guidelines.

To say hi, you can email me or follow Nothing for the Group on Instagram.

The views expressed in Nothing for the Group are my own and do not reflect any of my employers.

Brand Identity & Design: Holiday Studio | Editorial Support: Ryan Adelsheim

Some news! Nothing for the Group is teaming up with 3Views on Theater to launch Dear Fefu: an advice column for theatre workers written by industry experts.

Each column will focus on a different discipline/topic and the experts will rotate monthly. The line-up of Fefus we’ve assembled (including some of my artistic heroes) is amazing.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a student or early/mid/whatever-career—if you have a question about acting, stage management, directing, design, dramaturgy, administration, production, playwriting, etc.—send it to us here:

world premieres

• Witness’s The Double runs June 27 - July 13 at LIT Immersive in Seattle. Charlotte Murray directs Michael Bontatibus’s loose adaptation of Dostoyevsky's bureaucratic psychological thriller, now reimagined in “the unsettling, liminal environs of a modern tech office.”

• Pig Iron Theatre Company’s Franklin’s Key is now running through June 29th at Plays & Players Theatre in Philadelphia. The “thrilling sci-fi adventure reimagining Benjamin Franklin’s legacy in an alternate universe where science and magic collide” is directed by Dan Rothenberg.

• Ashley Robinson, Dan Gillespie Sells, and Shakina’s Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is now running through July 13th at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in Mountain View, CA. Giovanna Sardelli directs the “rockin’ country musical about choosing your family, creating your community, and finding your way.”

• Hoi Polloi’s Winning is Winning is now running through July 13th at JILL@JACK in Brooklyn. The “kaleidoscopic dance-theater piece with over 20 performers depicting a community reeling in the aftermath of the recent U.S. election” is conceived and directed by Alec Duffy and choreographed by Dan Safer.

productions

• Philip Kan Gotanda’s Yankee Dawg You Die runs July 3 - 27 at East West Players in Los Angeles. Jennifer Chang directs the 1988 drama (which originally premiered at East West) about the “complex, often fraught journey of Asian American actors in Hollywood.”

• Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is now running through September 7th at Invictus Theatre Company in Chicago. The “two-part, Pulitzer Prize-winning, expansive, poetic, and politically-charged look at the ‘80s in America” is directed by Charles Askenaizer.

• New York Theatre Company's revival of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal is now running through July 13th at New York City Center. Amy Marie Seidel directs the “meditation on gender, power, and the oppression of ‘the machine’, reimagined [to amplify] the mechanical rhythm and expressionism in Treadwell’s text through a dynamic underscoring of tap dance, practical foley, and heightened movement vocabulary created by choreographer Madison Hilligoss.”

workshops, readings, festivals

• Jonathan Karpinos, John McGrew, and Joseph Varca’s The Village of Vale will have a concert presentation June 27-29 at the Adirondack Theatre Festival in Glens Falls, NY. Lisa Rothe directs the “epic fantasy and haunting musical thriller.”

• James Anthony Tyler’s Pranayama will have a workshop performance on June 29th at Chautauqua Theater Company in Chautauqua, NY. Set at an early morning Bikram yoga class in Harlem, the new work “capturing the breath of a community trying to heal, connect and transform by showing up for themselves and for each other” is directed by Jade King Carroll.

• Mahira Kakkar’s A Mongoose Speaks will have a work-in-progress presentation on June 30th at The Huntington in Boston. The “funny and surprising exploration of selfhood, sacrifice, and the desire to evolve again and again into something more” is directed by Danilo Gambini and dramaturged by Amrita Ramanan.

• Heidi Armbruster’s Scarecrow will have readings July 3-6 at Cape Cod Theatre Project in Falmouth, MA. Tamilla Woodard directs the “rip-roaringly hilarious and unbelievably touching one-woman journey about a big-city actress landing back on her dad’s small-time Wisconsin dairy farm with plans to start a new life.”

• Global Forms is now running through June 29th Off Broadway at Rattlestick Theater. The “all-international arts festival showcasing the work of immigrant theater artists” features “a bountiful mix of performances, panels, and community events”, including public readings of Francisco Mendoza’s Best Foreign (directed by Attilio Rigotti).

I realized several hours after I sent last Friday’s edition that I never updated my placeholder text with the actual blurb for the Global Forms festival. This is what happens when I try to write a newsletter while very doped up on Sudafed. (I do not recommend summer sinus infections; I do recommend strong-ass cold meds.) My apologies to Rattlestick!

2025-26 season updates

• NYU Skirball announced its fall season. The line-up includes German theatre company Rimini Protokoll’s All right. Good night. (directed by Helgard Haug), Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim’s asses.masses, Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape (starring Stephen Rea and directed by Vicky Featherstone), Theater In Quarantine (TiQ)’s Phantom of the Opera (created by Joshua William Gelb and Normandy Sherwood), Norwegian theater company Susie Wang’s Burnt Toast, Ultima Vez’s Infamous Offspring (directed by Wim Vandekeybus), Jack Ferver’s My Town, and Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener’s dance work Open Machine.

• Playwrights Horizons announced its full 2025-26 season. The Off Broadway theatre added Jacob Perkins’ The Dinosaurs (directed by Les Waters), Milo Cramer’s No Singing in the Navy (directed by Aysan Celik), Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s Rheology, and John J. Caswell, Jr.’s Jerome (directed by Dustin Wills) to its previously announced partial line-up.

• InterAct Theatre Company announced its 2025-26 season. The Philadelphia theatre will produce Amy Berryman’s Walden and two world premieres: Phaedra Michelle Scott’s Plantation Black and Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay’s Seng’s Hair Salon.

• Oklahoma City Rep announced its 2025-26 season. Produced in partnership with Oklahoma Contemporary, the line-up includes Aaron Posner’s Life Sucks. (directed by Benita de Wit), the reading series RepFest 2025, Under the Radar: On the Road, and Lindy West & Ahamefule J. Oluo’s Every Castle, Ranked.

• The Vineyard Theatre announced two productions in its 2025-26 season. The Off Broadway theatre will produce the world premieres of Anne Washburn's The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire (directed by Steve Cosson, co-pro with The Civilians) and Eisa Davis' ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| (directed by Pam MacKinnon).

the nyc theatre game of thrones

• Kelly Kerwin and Annie Middleton are the new leaders of Keen Company. The duo—Kerwin will be Artistic Director, while Middleton will serve as Producing Director—succeed Jonathan Silverstein, who departs the Off Broadway company at the end of this month.

• Lynne Meadow is stepping down as the artistic director of Manhattan Theatre Club. She has led the organization, which operates two Off Broadway theatres and one Broadway house, for 53 years.
  

  Meadow is the last long-serving AD to depart one of NYC’s four nonprofit theatres with a Broadway space. In the last two years, all of their artistic leaders have exited after multi-decade runs: André Bishop’s 33-year tenure at Lincoln Center Theater officially ends this month, Carole Rothman departed Second Stage in 2023 after 45 years, and Todd Haimes passed away in 2023 after running Roundabout Theater Company for 40 years.

🎶 brand new sounds in my mind 🎶

• John Proctor is the Villain playwright Kimberly Belflower wrote a predictably stunning essay in Elle on the witchy power of Lorde’s “Green Light”, the ultimate coming-of-age anthem:

  I knew from the start that the play should end with a dance sequence that doubles as an act of rebellion. This calls back to the girls in The Crucible dancing and casting spells in the woods, but it’s also a way for the girls in my play to reclaim their own bodies, process their trauma, and cultivate joy in the face of a world that has never valued them and doesn’t take care of them. It’s sleepover dances in your best friend’s basement meets ancient witchcraft meets demonic possession. I never had to think about what the soundtrack of the play’s ending should be. It was always “Green Light.” These girls have walked the path of their pain, and it led them here: harnessing their hurt and turning it into magic, into art.