the week of june 3-9, 2023
wildfire (east coast premiere)
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productions
Donja R. Love’s one in two is now playing at DC’s Mosaic Theater Company. Inspired by the playwright’s own HIV diagnosis, the “unflinching portrait of being Black and queer today” is directed by Raymond O. Caldwell.
José Rivera's Sonnets for an Old Century runs June 15-25 at DC’s Spooky Action Theater. New artistic director Elizabeth Dinkova directs the immersive producion— set in multiple locations around the Universalist National Memorial Church in Dupont Circle — that “captures the psychic residue of ten lives in ten intimate, searing encounters in the afterlife.”
The Courtroom: A Reenactment of One Woman’s Deportation Proceedings is now running through July 2nd, with performances split between the Jungle Theater and an actual courtroom in Minneapolis. Created from verbatim transcripts arranged by Arian Moayed, the performance piece tells the “real-life story of an immigrant from the Philippines who faced deportation after inadvertently registering to vote while applying for a drivers license.”
The world premiere of Kate Arrington’s Another Marriage starts previews June 15th at Steppenwolf in Chicago. Terry Kinney directs the “intimate and beautifully rendered portrait of an ever-evolving relationship that may never be quite finished.”
David Greig’s Solaris starts performances June 17th at Book-It Repertory in Seattle. The adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 science fiction novel exploring “what happens when humans encounter, for the first time, a truly alien intelligence” is directed by artistic director Gus Menary.
Jane Chambers’ Last Summer at Blue Fish Cove runs June 17 - August 27 at the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles. Hannah Wolf directs the groundbreaking 1980 drama about the connections and complexities within a group of queer women summering together in a remote beach town.
workshops & readings
Prince Gomolvilas’ Big Hunk O’ Burnin’ Love will have a reading on June 12th as part of Roundabout’s Refocus Project. Eric Ting directs the “farcical exploration of how we love and the responsibilities we owe our families, and how those two emotional duties are often intertwined", which premiered at LA’s East West Players in 1998. The Refocus Project is an initiative to “elevate and restore marginalized plays to the American canon”; this year’s series is highlighting Asian American and Pacific Islander playwrights.
Nina Morrison’s Hearts on Fire will have a reading on June 9th at 7:30pm at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. The musical play “blurs the lines between reality, fantasy, teenage coming-of-age drama, and pop concert.”
Tori Keenan-Zelt’s The JonBenét Game had a reading on June 5th as part of San Francisco Playhouse’s Play Reading Series. Lauren English directed the new work exploring “the delicate, dangerous, and often grey space that true crime gives women to face their worst fears.”
festivals
ANT Fest runs June 12-24 in person and online at Ars Nova. The line-up for the annual showcase for emerging artists includes JUWAN’s JUWAN; SMJ, Natalie Myrick & Next Stop Creatives’ I’m Fine Though; Gian Perez, Pedro Hernandez & Cameron King’s multimedia concert experience ¿baby blue?; Taylor Steele & Hillary Fisher’s Damages; Dhari Noel, Andrew Watring, Ayla Taffel & Emmie Finckel’s three-part burlesque apocalypse Penguin Sex With Mr. Morgan; James Caverly & Andrew Morrill’s Thank You Ryan for a Clean Microwave (primarily performed in ASL); Hope R. Ward & Squeaky Wheelz Productions’s chorepoem To All the Black Girls Who’ve Waited; Beth Golison, Cami Pileggi, Kyle Brenn & Haley Fragan’s folk-rock musical Lottie and the Deep Blue Sea; WeAreMarried’s 2 ROSSES; Soojeong Son, Tallie Medel & Joanna Simmons’ clown and dance show CUM; Amanda Card & Bee Hall’s autobiographical puppet show Boy Crazy; and Ben Langhorst & Charlotte Murray’s Hartwell Church of God: The Musical - The Search for the Next Divine Pastor.
The Moxie Arts 2023 Incubator runs June 9-24 at WP Theater. This year’s line-up of one-weekend-only presentations includes Alyssa Haddad-Chin’s You Should Be So Lucky (directed by Michelle Chan), Skyler Volpe’s one drop cool (directed by Autumn Angelettie), and August Hakvaag’s As I Was, Not As I Am (directed by Annabel Heacock).
digital/streaming
Melinda Lopez’s adaptation and translation of Lorca’s Yerma is available to stream on demand June 14-25 from Shotgun Players in Berkeley, CA. The 1930s California-set “lyrical exploration of infertility, feminism, and obsession” is directed by Katja Rivera.
The Rogue Theater Festival — offering a mix of live and streaming productions — is now running through June 18th. The hybrid festival’s in-person and online line-up includes new work from Gavin Matthias, Christine Stoddard, Rebecca Kane, Arnie Roman, Peter Fenton, Katherine Boorstein, Kyle Thomas, Francesca Bolam, Carly Polistina, Wayne L. Firestone, Phil Way, Amy Losi, Joel Krantz, Larry Rinkel, Curt Strickland, Rex McGregor, Hannah Bakke & Maxwell Emmett Ward, Johanna Beale Keller, Cindi Sansone-Braff, Coni Koepfinger, and John Tierney.
Audible released four new audio plays. The June programming slate includes Gabriel Byrne's Walking with Ghosts, Eric Bogosian's Drinking in America, Eva Noblezada’s Nostalgia: A Love Letter to NYC, and C. Quintana’s The 126-Year-Old Artist (directed by Estefanía Fadul).
2023-24 season updates
WP Theater announced its upcoming season and 2024 Pipeline Festival artists. The company will produce two world premieres: Eliana Pipes’ Bite Me (directed by Rebecca Martinez) and Corinne Jaber’s munich medea: Happy Family (directed by Lee Sunday Evans). The 2024 Pipeline artists are playwrights Amara Janae Brady, Christin Eve Cato, Queen Esther, Amina Henry, and Else Went; directors Jordana De La Cruz, Oneyekachi Iwu, Julia Sirna-Frest, Dina Vovsi, and Ran Xia; and producers Alverneq Lindsay, Emma Orme, Sami Pyne, Barbara Samuels, and Praycious Wilson-Gay.
Theater J in DC announced its 23-24 season. The first season programmed by new artistic director Hayley Finn includes Jonathan Spector’s This Much I Know (directed by Finn); Lauren Yee’s The Hatmaker’s Wife (directed by Dan Rothenberg); a triptych of solo performances: Sun Mee Chomet’s How to Be a Korean Woman (direction and dramaturgy by Zaraawar Mistry) and the world premieres of Iris Bahr’s See You Tomorrow and Michele Lowe’s Moses (directed by Johanna Gruenhut); and two additional world premieres: Jenny Rachel Weiner’s The Chameleon (directed by Ellie Heyman) and Sharyn Rothstein and Joel Waggoner’s musical adaptation Hester Street.
awards & residencies
New York Theatre Workshop announced its new 2050 Artistic Fellows and Company-in-Residence. The next cohort of fellows includes Emily Abrams, Andrea Ambam, Raz Golden, Celeste Jennings, Ying Ying Li, and Nicholas Polonio. Ebony Noelle Golden's Jupiter Performance Studio — “a hub for the study of diasporic Black performance tradition” — is the newest company-in-residence, joining Noor Theatre, Safe Harbors NYC, Dominican Artists Collective, and JAG Productions.
things i read this week when i wasn’t watching fast x
Makeda Easter’s Artist Pay Project, an anonymous interview series with dancers, painters, poets, and other creators examining how American artists “survive and thrive amid a cost of living crisis.” (Do you love Bills, Bills, Bills? You’ll dig these.)
American Theatre’s Amelia Merrill on the end (extended hiatus? permanent cancellation? unclear!) of the Under the Radar Festival and the troubling future for experimental theatre in a dwindling new work landscape after the recent demises of influential incubators like The Lark, Humana Festival, Sundance Theatre Lab, American Realness, and the COIL Festival. The NYT’s Alexis Soloski also interviewed Mark Russell, UTR’s artistic director (gift link!), noting that Russell “owns the intellectual property rights to the festival [and] is in conversation with venues and potential producers, seeking a way forward.”
