the week of may 16-22, 2025
dog shows, coney island, gothic melodrama
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some late-breaking labor news
The Kennedy Center staff is unionizing. The union, in partnership with UAW, will consist of “nonsupervisory employees from artistic programming, education, marketing and development departments, along with administrators of the Washington National Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra.” 60% of eligible employees have currently signed union cards.
Organizers cited multiple waves of layoffs and the new leadership’s “lack of transparency [and creation of a] culture of anxiety and uncertainty” as the catalyst for the unionization. Since February, 10% of the Center’s 400-person workforce has been laid off and “several dozen” other staffers voluntarily resigned.
Here’s a WaPo gift link to Travis Andrews’ reporting on the unionization effort, which also contextualizes the Trump administration’s anti-labor track record.
You can follow the Kennedy Center United Arts Workers on Instagram for ongoing updates.
world premieres
NSangou Njikam’s A Freeky Introduction starts performances May 16th Off-Broadway at The Atlantic. The “mix of poetry, ministry, and magic” is directed by Dennis A. Allen II and features DJ Monday Blue.
Tarell Alvin McCraney’s We Are Gathered runs May 16 - June 15 at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Kent Gash directs the new queer love story about “a milestone anniversary and a long-kept secret that leads boyfriends Wilson and Free on a journey to the forest.”
Melvin Tunstall III and Kevin Duda’s Senior Class starts performances May 16th at Olney Theatre Center in Maryland. The new musical about “two Broadway-obsessed students who decide to stage their own original musical version of Shaw’s Pygmalion” is directed by Amy Anders Corcoran and choreographed by Karla Puno Garcia.
Keiko Green’s Gorgeous is now running through June 7th at Chicago’s Raven Theatre in a co-pro with Rivendell Theatre Ensemble. Kirsten Fitzgerald directs the dark comedy about two women navigating a sudden death and finding a way forward for themselves—and the deceased’s champion show dog.
Maxine Dillon’s Unbury Your Gays starts performances May 22nd at Broad Theatre in Austin, TX. The “darkly funny, tender exploration of middle school friendship, desire, and the haunting echoes of history” is directed by Kairos Looney.
productions
Jocelyn Bioh’s Jaja's African Hair Braiding runs May 17 - June 15 at La Jolla Playhouse in a co-pro with Arena Stage, Berkeley Rep, and Chicago Shakes. The Harlem-set comedy about a “lively and eclectic group of West African hair braiders confronting what it means to be outsiders in the place they call home” is directed by Whitney White.
Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep starts performances May 18th at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore. Joseph W. Ritsch directs “the high-camp Gothic melodrama of murder and mayhem.”
John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt runs May 22 - June 22 at Actor’s Express in Atlanta. The Pulitzer-winning drama about suspicions surrounding a charming priest and a Bronx parochial school’s first and only Black student is directed by Freddie Ashley.
Ben Bonnema and Jonothon Lyon's The Apple Boys is now running through May 25th at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, PA. David Alpert directs the musical comedy set in turn-of-the-century Coney Island where "an aspiring fruit farmer teams up with three other guileless dreamers to save his family’s apple orchard through a foolproof get-rich-quick scheme: busking as a singing quartet."
festivals, workshops & readings
Gloria Oladipo’s The Care and Keeping of Schizophrenia (And Other Demons) and Celeste Jennings’ Potliqka will have readings on May 18 & 19 as part of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group Spotlight Series. Oladipo’s work is an “absurdist, humorist romp”; Potliqka is “a three-act epic about Black history in the Antebellum South.”
DN Bashir’s Hollow House will have a reading on May 18th as part of the Starr Reading Series at The Bushwick Starr. The “riff on Variations on a Theme meets The Cherry Orchard fractures time, layering surreal interruptions with sharp commentary on history’s grip on the present.”
Zackary Grady’s Mr. Leather, 1976 will have a developmental reading on May 19th at NYC’s Open Jar Studios as part of Fault Line Theatre’s Irons in the Fire series. Ryan Dobrin directs the new work about a man reeling from a break-up who “dives into the world of 1970s gay nightlife in NYC and is forced to confront the truth of his relationship head-on after a new group of friends invites him to compete in a Men’s Leather Contest.”
Abigail Miller’s Trauma Play will have a workshop production May 22 - June 2 at IAMA Theatre in Los Angeles. Diana Wyenn directs the dark comedy about the “meta-upon-meta s***storm kicked up by a playwright’s buzzy new autobiographical play.”
Tim Macy, Ramaa Mosley, Chaz Cardigan, and Erik Kaiko’s The Brass Teapot: A New Musical will have a workshop staging May 16 - 25 from Firefly Theatre Group in Los Angeles. The “magical, mischievous, darkly comic” musical adaptation of the 2012 film is directed by Zoe Lesser.
The New Ground Festival is now running through May 17th at Cleveland Play House. Readings include Eric Coble’s World Class Care, Majkin Holmquist’s Jane Scott, and Kate Hamill’s Murder Play (or, The Aristocrats!).
digital & streaming
The Wilma Theater’s production of Rajiv Joseph’s Archduke is now available to stream on demand through June 1st. The “humanized glimpse into the catalyst of WWI” is directed by Blanka Zizka.
2025-26 season updates
The Jungle Theater announced its upcoming season. The Minneapolis theatre’s line-up includes The Moving Company’s adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (directed by Dominique Serrand); Christina Baldwin, Sun Mee Chomet, and Jim Lichtscheidl’s Dinner for One; Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play (directed by Addie Gorlin-Han); Sarah Ruhl’s Letters from Max (directed by Christina Baldwin), and the Greenhouse Play Reading Series, featuring Paul Kruse’s Hotdish (directed by Shelby Richardson), Jayne Deely’s I Never Ask For A Gofundme, and Melinda Lopez’s Sonia Flew.
Marin Theatre Company announced its 2025-26 season. The Mill Valley, CA company will produce Suzan-Lori Parks’ Sally & Tom (directed by Lance Gardner), Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day (directed by Josh Costello), Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (directed by Carey Perloff), and Sharr White’s Pictures from Home (directed by Jonathan Moscone).
Front Porch Arts Collective announced its 2025-26 season. The Boston theatre’s line-up includes Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop (directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent) and Mfoniso Udofia’s In Old Age (directed by Dawn M. Simmons), as well as readings of Charles Vincent Burwell and James Sasser’s musical Cubamor and Kelundra Smith’s The Wash (directed by Tasia A. Jones).
SpeakEasy Stage announced its 2025-26 season. The Boston theatre will produce Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust (directed by Dawn M. Simmons), Justin Huertas’ musical Lizard Boy, Max Wolf Friedlich’s Job (directed by Marianna Bassham), Jordan Harrison’s The Antiquities (directed by Alex Lonati), and John Logan and The Avett Brothers’ musical Swept Away.
Manhattan Theatre Club announced two new additions to its 2025-26 season. The world premiere of David Lindsay-Abaire's The Balusters (directed by Kenny Leon) and a newly imagined version of Martyna Majok's 2018 play Queens (directed by Trip Cullman) join previously announced productions of James Graham's Punch and Ngozi Anyanwu's The Monsters.
The Public Theater announced its 2025-26 season. The Off-Broadway company will produce John Leguizamo’s The Other Americans (directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson), Jordan E. Cooper’s Oh Happy Day! (directed by Stevie Walker-Webb), Elevator Repair Service’s Ulysses (co-directed by Scott Shepherd and John Collins), and four world premieres: Ethan Lipton’s The Seat of Our Pants (directed by Leigh Silverman and choreographed by Sunny Min-Sook Hitt), Else Went’s Initiative (directed by Emma Rosa Went), Anna Ziegler’s Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) (directed by Tyne Rafaeli), and Julissa Reynoso and Michael J. Chepiga’s Public Charge (directed by Doug Hughes).
The Public will also host Ma-Yi Theater Company in residence, producing Zoë Kim’s Did You Eat? (밥 먹었니?) (directed by Chris Yejin) and the world premiere of Jeena Yi’s Jesa (directed by Mei Ann Teo).
award season
The Outer Critics Circle Awards were announced. John Proctor is the Villain won Outstanding New Broadway Play and Outstanding Direction of a Play; other multi-award recipients included Maybe Happy Ending (4), Boop! The Musical (3), and Stranger Things: The First Shadow (3), Drag: The Musical (2), and Cats: The Jellicle Ball (2).
The Crisis™ dispatch
Aurora Theatre Company is suspending production of its 2025-26 season. The Berkeley, CA theatre hopes “to exist in a smaller form”, but cited a “$500,000 operating deficit and a 50% decrease in the company’s subscriber count.” As SF Chronicle’s Lily Janiak notes, the Bay Area has been “hemorrhaging” companies since the pandemic:
If Aurora’s suspension evolves into a permanent closure, it will hardly be alone. California Shakespeare Theater, Cutting Ball Theater, Bay Area Children’s Theatre, PianoFight, TheatreFirst, American Conservatory Theater’s master of fine arts program, foolsFury and Exit Theatre’s Eddy Street venue have all closed in recent years, while Custom Made Theatre Co. and Mugwumpin both went into long-term hibernation. San Francisco nonprofit musical theater company 42nd Street Moon stopped producing without even making a public statement or responding to press queries.
a book rec
I can’t remember if I’ve praised Jennifer Romolini’s memoir Ambition Monster in this space, but in honor of the paperback release (and because I suspect a not-small amount of NFTG readers identify somewhere on the workaholic spectrum), here’s a passage that I haven’t stopped thinking about since I read it last summer:
A profession is not a personality, a columnist at The Atlantic will tell you; work won’t love you back, says yet another antihustle book. But if a career was no longer my personality, what was? I’d spent the entire first half of my life living and working in dysfunctional systems, my waking hours dictated by inflated-ego monsters and incompetent adults who behaved like children; swimming in the whiny-briny muck of rich-people stew; lured by the promise of titles, promotions, status, awards, and fiscal comfort.
When we talk about burnout, we most often discuss feelings of overwhelm; the physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that occurs after periods of overwork and excessive stress, how we become numb, unable to achieve or even dream of what future achievements could be.
But we less often talk about burnout in terms of grief, the grief for what you thought your career could be, what you thought you could be, the grief for the time you’ll never get back, the grief for having given yourself over to something unworthy of you, the grief that springs from cruelty and mishandling, of never being given as good as you gave. The sadness that comes from reaching the top of a summit you’d set your sights on, only to get there and feel, Is that all there is?
The grief I felt the day after I was fired presented as a kind of nauseous rage, an aching remorse for what I’d allowed and tolerated over the course of my career. Decades when I was verbally harassed, sexually harassed, my boundaries crossed, my self-esteem trampled by bullies young and old. Sold to me as the price of admission, part of the job, what you signed up for, you’re lucky, so lucky, to be employed.
And it wasn’t only that. I grieved for my complicity, my inability to show up better than I had; the moments when I chose dominance over kindness; the moral culpability inherent in the company lines I toed; the draconian rules I’d followed; the foul, inequitable systems I’d protected. No amount of personal success is achieved without at least a bit of cost to someone else.