the week of may 24-28, 2021
Friends, Romans, countrymen...it's Britney, bitch
You’re reading Nothing for the Group, a newsletter where one dramaturg rounds up one week in theatre news, reviews, and takes. If you like this kind of thing:
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Identity design by Elizabeth Haley Morton.
online & audio theatre
Playing On Air announced its spring 2021 projects. The seven short audio projects include Mallory Jane Weiss' I Think It's Worth Pointing out That I've Been Very Serious throughout This Entire Discussion or, Julia and Dave Are Stuck in a Tree, Jen Silverman's Real American Dinner Party (directed by Rachel Chavkin), David Ives' Dummy Dialogue (directed by Walter Bobbie), Amelia Roper's Camberwell House (directed by Claudia Catania), JuCoby Johnson's Revelations (directed by Goldie E. Patrick), Jonathan Spector's Owner Occupy (directed by Taibi Magar), and Avery Deutsch's The Donor (directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel).
Christine Quintana’s Clean will stream May 31 - June 6 as part of South Coast Rep’s digital Pacific Playwrights Festival. The play, directed by Lisa Portes and dramaturged by Anna Jennings, “brings together a hotel worker at a Mexican resort and a guest who is there for her sister’s wedding and examines what the two women have in common and the cultural borders that separate them.”
Tlaloc Rivas’ The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano streams June 10-11 at New Hazlett Theater. Based on the novel by Sonia Manzano, the new play for young adults follows a teenage girl growing up in 1969 Spanish Harlem at the advent of the Young Lords’ revolutionary social activism for Puerto Rican rights.
in-person theatre
Lynn Nottage and Miranda Haymon’s immersive installation The Watering Hole will run at Signature Theatre from June 22 - July 25. The project consists of “a series of 10 installations inspired in part from water itself as they flow from all directions into a larger whole…[the series explores how Signature] can serve artists and communities after the pandemic’s shuttering of theatres and a year of uprisings for racial justice.”
Collaborators include playwrights Christina Anderson, Matt Barbot, Montana Levi Blanco, Stefania Bulbarella, Amith Chandrashaker, nicHi douglas, Iyvon E., Justin Ellington, Emmie Finckel, Vanessa German, Ryan J. Haddad, Phillip Howze, Riccardo Hernández, Haruna Lee, Campbell Silverstein, Charly Evon Simpson, and Rhiana Yazzie.
Ann Dowd will star in Robert Icke’s solo adaptation of Enemy of the People at the Park Avenue Armory from June 22–July 25. Dowd plays all of the characters and Icke’s version “incorporates an interactive element, with audiences voting during pivotal moments to determine the direction of the story.”
2021-22 season updates
London’s Almeida Theatre announced its 2021 season. Projects include Yaël Farber’s production of The Tragedy of Macbeth, Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater's musical Spring Awakening (directed by Rupert Goold), Lolita Chakrabarti's Hymn (directed by Blanche McIntyre), and the world premieres of Yomi Ṣode's and breathe... (directed by Miranda Cromwell), Josh Azouz’s Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia (directed by Eleanor Rhode), and The Key Workers Cycle, a collection of works dedicated to those working in essential services. The theatre plans to stage previously announced productions of Jeremy O. Harris’ “Daddy”: A Melodrama, Beth Steel’s The House of Shades, and Carmen Nasr’s The Maladies in 2022.
Arizona Theatre Company announced its 2021-22 season, with six productions in Tucson and Phoenix. The line-up includes Christian Duhamel/Ed Bell/Charissa Bertels’ musical My 80-Year-Old Boyfriend, Lauren Gunderson & Margot Melcon’s Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, and Wendy MacLeod’s Women in Jeopardy (all directed by Sean Daniels); Christina Ham’s Nina Simone: Four Women (directed by Tiffany Nichole Green); Lauren Gunderson, Bree Lowdermilk, and Kait Kerrigan’s new musical Justice; and the world premiere of christopher oscar peña’s how to make an American Son (directed by Kimberly Senior).
Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta announced its 2021-22 season. The in-person season includes Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s An Iliad (directed by Matt Torney), Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, Tanya Barfield’s Bright Half Life, Ike Holter’s The Wolf at the End of the Block, and Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park announced its 2021-22 season. Projects include the world premiere of KJ Sanchez’s Need Your Love; Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play (directed by Candis C. Jones); Katie Forgette’s Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help (directed by Blake Robison); the world premiere of Keith Josef Adkins’ The West End (directed by Nicole A. Watson); and the world premiere of Deborah Zoe Laufer’s Rooted (directed by Noah Himmelstein).
The Court Theatre announced its 2021-22 season. The shortened line-up includes Othello (co-directed by Charles Newell and Gabrielle Randle-Bent), Richard Nelson’s translation of Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea (directed by Shana Cooper), and August Wilson’s Two Trains Running (directed by Ron OJ Parson).
Northlight Theatre announced its 2021-22 season. The season includes the Joanna Murray-Smith musical Songs for Nobodies (directed by Rob Lindley), the world premiere of Michael Hollinger’s Mr. Dickens’ Hat (directed by David Catlin), Donja R. Love’s Fireflies (directed by Mikael Burke), Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise, and a remount of the pandemic-shuttered revival of Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel (directed by Tasia A. Jones).
Shakespeare Theatre Company announced its 2021-22 season. The line-up includes James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner (directed by Whitney White), David Strathairn in Derek Goldman and Clark Young’s Remember This: The Lessons of Jan Karski (directed by Goldman), Lolita Chakrabarti’s Red Velvet (directed by Jade King Carroll), The Merchant of Venice (a co-pro with Theatre for a New Audience, directed by Arun Arbus), Much Ado About Nothing (directed by Simon Godwin), Our Town (directed by Alan Paul), and a pre-Broadway run of Once Upon a One More Time, a musical by Jon Hartmere and Britney Spears (directed and choreographed by Keone and Mari Madrid).
My deepest sympathies to STC’s box office staff, who are probably handling an influx of uppity classical purists threatening to cancel their subscriptions over that last one. Britney Spears’ discography has been more artistically consequential to me than a quarter of Shakespeare’s plays and I’m not afraid to say it!
prize watch
After a 15-month delay, The Tony Awards will air on September 26th in a two-platform event on CBS and Paramount Plus. Can’t summon the energy for a take on this mess but it doesn’t surprise me that the American Theater Wing opted for the least accessible viewing option!
The 2021 Drama League Awards, celebrating digital and socially distant theatre, were announced on May 21st. Honored productions included amfAR's The Great Work Begins: Scenes from Angels In America, Miami New Drama’s site-specific 7 Deadly Sins, Williamstown Theatre Festival and Audible’s co-production of Shakina Nayfack's Chonburi International Hotel and Butterfly Club, and Theater in Quarantine.
