the week of october 22 - 28, 2022

theatre ghosts coast to coast

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Graphic Design: Elizabeth Haley Morton | Editorial Support: Rebecca Adelsheim

in-person theatre

• The world premiere of Jennifer Rumberger’s The Locusts is now playing at the Gift Theatre in Chicago. John Gawlik directs the thriller that “explores how lost souls manage their fear, and their desperate search for a way to survive in a world that threatens their existence.”

• My Body No Choice is now playing through November 6th at Arena Stage. Molly Smith directs eight monologues about the importance of bodily autonomy written by Lee Cataluna, Fatima Dyfan, Lisa Loomer, Dael Orlandersmith, Sarah Ruhl, Mary Hall Surface, V, and Anonymous.

• Kate Hamill’s adaptation Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really is now playing through November 6th at DC’s Rorschach Theatre. Rebecca Rovezzi directs the site-specific production, staged in the appropriately haunted disused firehouse at The Parks at Historic Walter Reed.

• Will Snider’s Death of a Driver starts performances October 28th at Philadelphia’s InterAct Theatre Company. The “bracing examination of ‘doing good’ abroad and what happens when personal and political obligations collide” is directed by Charlotte Northeast.

• Gabby Wolfe’s La Llorona runs October 28 - November 19 with DC’s We Happy Few. The adaptation of the Latin American mythical ghost story “weaves us through three generations of women and their relationship with family, love, and colonization” and is co-directed by Kerry McGee, Rachel Dixon, & Esteban Marmolejo-Suarez.

• Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong starts performances October 28th at the Public Theater. Directed by Mei Ann Teo, Indigenous theatermaker Sayet “journeys across geographic borders, personal history and cultural legacies in search of a place to belong.”

• Danny Robins’ 2:22 A Ghost Story runs October 29 - December 4 at Center Theatre Group. The Olivier-nominated supernatural thriller is directed by Matthew Dunster.

• Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap runs October 29 - November 20 at Cleveland Play House. The “kinetic, darkly comic sports drama” is directed by Esther Jun.

• The world premiere of Milo Cramer’s School Pictures starts performances November 2nd at the Wilma Theater. Morgan Green directs writer/performer Cramer’s “warmhearted and funny portrait of modern school life, told in musical snapshots of individual teenagers, sung by their broke and hapless tutor.”

• The US premiere of a new version of J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World starts previews November 3rd at Solas Nua in DC. Shanara Gabrielle directs Nigerian-Irish playwright Bisi Adigun and Irish novelist Roddy Doyle’s new adaptation, which “shifts the action to modern-day, urban Ireland and highlights the changes that have occurred in the country, especially around such issues as immigration and inequality.”

• The rolling world premiere of Dustin Chinn’s Colonialism is Terrible, but Pho is Delicious debuts November 4th at Aurora Theatre in Berkeley. The “comic meditation on cultural ownership and authorship that spans three eras in the history of Vietnamese noodle soup, from 19th century Hanoi to modern day Brooklyn” is directed by Oanh Nguyen.

digital theatre

• Tall Order’s Those With 2 Clocks is now available to stream through November 6th from the Wilma Theater. The world premiere from Philadelphia artists Jess Conda, Jenn Kidwell, and Mel Krodman is “a fast-paced, genre-defying production combining sketch, drag, and cabaret performance that examines the role comedy plays in reinforcing dangerous patriarchal norms.”

• Nick Blaemire and Van Hughes' musical Space Dogs is now available to stream on BroadwayHD. Ellie Heyman directed the MCC production of the “sweeping, kaleidoscopic tale of invention, betrayal, international political intrigue” about the dogs trained by Russian scientists to travel into outer space. 

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the regional theatre game of thrones

• Cody Estle is stepping down as Artistic Director of Chicago’s Raven Theatre. Estle has led the company since 2017; he is leaving to join Milwaukee's Next Act Theatre as Artistic Director.

• Liz Carlson is new interim AD of New York Stage & Film. A 15-year veteran of the summer new work lab, she succeeds Chris Burney, who joined NYSF in 2019 and will step down in December.

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awards & commissions

• Cathy Tagnak Rexford won the National Theatre Conference’s Stavis Playwright Award. She is the first Native American playwright to receive the honor, which includes a $2,000 honorarium and a public reading of her play Cold Case.

• PlayPenn announced three new playwrights for The Foundry. Chaz T. Martin, Zahra Patterson, and Lexi Thammavong will join the three-year membership program for Philadelphia-based playwrights, facilitated by lead artists L M Feldman and R. Eric Thomas.

• Matt Barbot is the recipient of the Miami New Drama x Black List Playwriting Commission. The $10,000 commission is the first of four commissions from the screenwriting platform’s new partnership program with several regional theatres.

• Theater J in DC announced the seven playwrights for the Expanding the Canon commissioning initiative. The writers — Harley Elias, Zachariah Ezer, Carolivia Herron, Jesse Jae Hoon, M.J. Kang, Thaddeus McCants, and Kendell Pinkney — each receive a $10,000 commission and $5,000 developmental budget. The program seeks to “correct and broaden the historically limited portrayals of Jewishness on stages in the US and around the world.”