the week of march 1-7, 2024
springtime for ibsen
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Graphic Design: Elizabeth Haley Morton | Editorial Support: Ryan Adelsheim
Much to my surprise (and relief), The Washington Post is hiring a new chief theater critic! Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell the best writers and thinkers you know.
The posting states that the position can be based in NYC or DC. Even though I think the Acela Quiet Car is the last bastion of civility, I firmly believe that the next Post theater critic needs to live here in order to properly cover the vast, sprawling DC theatre community. (And I’m all for out-of-the-box hiring, à la actual theater practitioners pivoting to criticism, but “past experience covering theater is a plus but not strictly required” gives me pause. We need more critics who know how to thoughtfully talk about craft and design! Writers who understand the realities and working conditions in which theater is made!)
productions
Amy Herzog’s new adaptation of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People is now in previews on Broadway. Sam Gold directs the 1882 masterwork about a Norwegian doctor trying to save his small town from water pollution, only to be “shaken to his core when those in power, including his own brother, not only try to silence him—they try to destroy him.”
Sufjan Stevens, Jackie Sibblies Drury, and Justin Peck’s Illinoise runs March 2-26 at the Park Avenue Armory. Based on Stevens’ 2005 concept album, the “musically ambitious work weaves together cinematic orchestral anthems, jazz riffs, and other influences to explore wide-ranging narratives about blossoming queerness and self-exploration, and is expanded upon through a mix of live music and impressionistic choreography to revisit the beloved album’s themes of self-discovery.”
Charles Busch’s Ibsen's Ghost: An Irresponsible Biographical Fantasy starts performances March 2nd at Primary Stages/59E59 in NYC. The “tall (and hilarious) tale of the toll a great man’s ghost takes on the women at the soul of his work” is directed by Carl Andress.
Zora Howard’s Stew starts previews March 2nd at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Stori Ayers directs the 2021 Pulitzer finalist about “three generations of Black women gathering in Mama’s kitchen to cook an important meal—just as family secrets are about to boil over.”
James Ijames’ Fat Ham runs March 2-24 at City Theatre Company in Pittsburgh. The Pulitzer-winning “modern revamp of Shakespeare’s Hamlet examining love, loss, and a particular set of daddy issues” is directed by Monteze Freeland.
Octavio Solis’ Quixote Nuevo starts performances March 2nd at Portland Center Stage in a co-pro with South Coast Rep and Seattle Rep. Lisa Portes directs the Tejano retelling of Don Quixote where “a brilliant professor battling dementia imagines himself as Cervantes’ titular hero, enlists his own Sancho, and embarks on a journey for his long-lost love—tilting at border patrol drones rather than windmills.”
Cayenne Douglass’ Maiden Voyage runs March 2-17 at The Flea in NYC. Alex Keegan directs the new work “charting the first all-female patrol aboard a US submarine, exploring the intersection between opportunity and marginalization and the mimicry of maleness to get ahead.”
Terrence McNally’s Master Class runs March 3-23 at Arizona Theatre Company. Marcia Milgrom Dodge directs the “Tony-winning play about the uncompromising opera diva Maria Callas delivering a life-altering master class to students at an elite opera training program.”
Lucy Prebble’s The Effect runs March 3-31 at The Shed in NYC. The National Theatre transfer of Prebble’s chemical romance between two volunteers in an anti-depressant clinical trial is directed by Jamie Lloyd.
Alex Bechtel, Grace McLean & Eva Steinmetz’s Penelope starts previews March 5th at Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA. Steinmetz directs the one-woman musical “that flips the script of the dutiful wife as Penelope takes the microphone to chronicle those twenty years waiting for her husband Odysseus on the small island kingdom of Ithaca.”
Michael Shayan’s Avaaz runs March 6 - April 7 at Olney Theatre Center in Maryland. Moritz von Stuelpnagel directs the solo performance chronicling the life of Shayan’s mother Roya, “her epic journey out of Tehran after the revolution and the challenges she faces as an immigrant and the single mother of a queer son.”
Madhuri Shekar’s Queen starts previews March 6th at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in Palo Alto, CA. The high-stakes environmental drama directed by Miriam A. Laube follows two best friends and how their “friendship, careers, and even an arranged marriage are at risk after a flaw is discovered in their scientific research.”
Dave Harris’ Exception to the Rule runs March 7-17 at Front Porch Arts Collective in Boston, MA. Donovan Holt directs the dramedy about “six Black students stuck trying to make it through detention in the worst high school in the city.”
workshops & readings
Ella Boureau’s QUAND TU SORS DU FEU will have a reading March 1st as part of Noor Theatre’s Highlight Reading Series in NYC. The “‘three-hander’ that is equal parts 1930s cabaret, andalusi music, and téléphone arabe” is directed by Leyla Levi and music directed by Laura Elkeslassy.
Abby Rosebrock’s Wilma will have a reading March 4th as part of Manhattan Theatre Club’s Ted Snowdon Reading Series. Colette Robert directs “the intergenerational story of two women, three decades apart, as desperate to master the cult of American striving as they are to find some permanent relief from it.”
Sarah Mantell’s The Good Guys will have a reading March 4th as part of Second Stage’s Next Stage Festival. The new work about a Connecticut group of Civil War reenactors and “tents, spooning, queer romance, and the lengths we go to think of ourselves as the good guys” is directed by Mei Ann Teo.
Steven Dietz’s Vial Man (The Apothecary’s Story) will have readings March 4 & 5 at The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. The “lively theatrical concoction of magic, loss and the consequences of true passion denied” follows a centuries-old apothecary determined to atone for his role in the fate of a certain pair of star-crossed lovers. (The reading will be available to stream on demand March 18-24.)
The 2023-24 Starr Reading Series concludes March 5-6 at The Bushwick Starr. The final readings are:
Avi Amon’s MOTHER/ROAD (directed by Keenan Tyler Oliphant): “A multimedia musical meditation on grief, memory, and borders, using the cassette tapes my parents brought when they immigrated to this country...as keys to other dimensions.” (March 5)
Genevieve Simon’s THIS BUG IS GAY (directed by Katherine Wilkinson): “A solo queer cabaret in German, starring Gregor Samsa from Kakfa’s The Metamorphosis. You disgust me. You’re delightful. Let's be bugs together.” (March 6)
festivals
MACH 33: The Festival of New Science-Driven Plays runs March 1 & 2 at Caltech in Pasadena, CA. This year’s staged readings include Aubrey Clyburn’s Axioms (directed by Kevin Delin), Karen Howe’s Five Degrees Above Polaris (directed by Adam Lustick and Maggie Marion) and L. Feldman’s S P A C E (directed and co-created by Larissa Lury).
digital/streaming
Katie Hileman’s I Will Eat You Alive is now streaming on demand from Interrobang Theatre. Drawn from a series of interviews with self-identified fat people, Hileman also directs the “dinner party confronting diet culture, fatphobia, and what it’s really like to be a fat woman in the age of Ozempic.”
M Sloth Levine’s The Interrobangers is available to stream on demand through March 15th from Company One. Josh Glenn-Kayden directs the “queer coming-of-age story about exploring identity, creating community, and finding that men in masks are the scariest monsters of all.”
2024-24 season updates
Kansas City Rep announced its 2024-25 season. The line-up includes Enda Walsh, Glen Hansard, and Markéta Irglová’s musical Once (directed by Stuart Carden); Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill; Nathan Louis Jackson’s Broke-ology; and one show TBA.
The Denver Center announced two world premieres for its 2024-25 season. The theatre will produce Jake Brasch’s The Reservoir (directed by Shelley Butler, in partnership with The Alliance and Geffen Playhouse) and Sandy Rustin’s The Suffragette’s Murder (directed by Margot Bordelon). The rest of the line-up will be announced in April.
cohorts & fellowships
Primary Stages announced the 2023-24 Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group members. The selected playwrights are Benjamin Benne, Oscar A. L. Cabrera, Fedna Jacquet, Eric Micha Holmes, Jonathan Norton, Madhuri Shekar, and Calamity West.
The Old Globe announced the inaugural Powers Playwriting Fellowship. The selected fellows are Mathilde Dratwa, Nimisha Ladva, and Seayoung Yim. The “$20,000 fellowship allows the writers to work on a project of their choosing, spend time in San Diego to write and research, and meet regularly with the artistic staff of the Globe, culminating in a workshop and a publicly streamed presentation of the playwright’s project.”
I always appreciate these round-ups for keeping track of what's going on in the US.