the week of october 4 - 10, 2024
the week of october 4 - 10, 2024
australian bushfires, egyptian revolutionaries, future farmers of america
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Graphic Design: Elizabeth Morton | Editorial Support: Ryan Adelsheim
I’m donating this week’s subscription income to several local non-profits and mutual aid efforts in western North Carolina to support Hurricane Helene recovery. Carolina Farm Stewardship Association is maintaining an excellent list of organizations and funds to support. (Fitting to see multiple plays reckoning with climate change in this week’s round-up.)
icymi: bills, bills, bills
This month’s money diary is from a freelance stage manager on the West Coast navigating understudies, a COVID outbreak, and performance cancellations:
world premieres
Michi Barall’s Drawing Lessons runs October 8 - November 10th at Minneapolis’ Children’s Theatre Company in a co-pro with Ma-Yi. Jack Tamburri directs the live graphic novel about a young artist navigating “school, friends, and how her Korean heritage fits into her American lifestyle.”
Dominique Morisseau’s Bad Kreyòl starts performances October 8th at Signature Theatre in a co-pro with Manhattan Theatre Club. The drama about “a first-generation Haiti-American’s pilgrimage back to her ancestral homeland that forces two cousins to confront their differing world views” is directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene.
Hilary Bettis’ Falcon Girls runs October 10 - November 2 at Yale Rep in New Haven, CT. May Adrales directs the 90s-set coming-of-age memoir about six ambitious teenage girls on an FFA horse judging team “grappling with jealousy, rivalries, sex, Jesus, AOL chat rooms, impossible expectations, and rumors of a serial killer.”
productions
Nassim Soleimanpour’s Nassim runs October 4-27 at The Huntington Theatre in Boston. Omar Elerian directs the “striking theatrical demonstration of how language can both divide and unite us.”
Erlina Ortiz’s La Egoista starts performances October 4th at Philadelphia Theatre Company. The comic exploration of “sisterhood, caregiving, and the search for balance between career and family” is directed by Tatyana-Marie Carlo.
Sarah Ruhl’s Becky Nurse of Salem runs October 4 - November 16 at Shattered Globe in Chicago. Polly Noonan directs the “darkly comic play about a woman coming to terms with her family's legacy and finding her voice in the ‘lock her up’ era.”
Steve Yockey’s Sleeping Giant starts performances October 4th at DC’s Rorschach Theatre. Jenny McConnell Frederick directs the “intimate, darkly comic, and sometimes startling vignettes about the lengths people go to when they desperately want to believe in something.”
Eboni Booth’s Primary Trust starts performances October 5th at The Goodman in Chicago. The Pulitzer-winning, open-hearted drama “about leaving your comfort zone to find fulfillment” is directed by Malkia Stampley.
David Finnigan’s Deep History runs October 5 - November 10 at The Public Theater in NYC. The Australian writer’s solo performance “interweaving 75,000 years of humanity with the incredibly personal account of his best friend’s escape from Canberra’s bushfires to illuminate the transforming planet and how we’ve arrived here” is directed by Annette Mees.
The Waterwell production of Lee Sunday Evans and Elizabeth Marvel’s The Ford/Hill Project will play at DC’s Woolly Mammoth on October 7th. The new work excavates the testimonies of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford, “with an ensemble of four actors speaking from the verbatim transcripts of these pivotal hearings.”
The On The Rocks Theatre Co. production of Christopher Ford & Dakota Rose’s The Beastiary runs October 7 - November 9 at NYC’s Ars Nova. The “twisted comedic puppet pageant of consumption, corruption and the end of humankind” is directed by Dakota Rose.
Lloyd Suh’s Franklinland starts performances October 9th at Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC. Chika Ike directs the comedy about “growing up as the only son of Benjamin Franklin.”
The 7 Fingers’ Duel Reality runs October 9-13 at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ. The “epic, cirque-infused performance inspired by Romeo & Juliet” is directed by Shana Carroll.
The Lazours’ We Live in Cairo starts performances October 9th at New York Theatre Workshop. The musical following “six student activists using their street art, photography and song to overthrow a regime older than they are” is directed by Taibi Magar.
C. Meaker’s You Must Wear A Hat runs October 10-12 at NYC’s Theatrelab from The Interstitial. Erica Wray directs the “play about finding connection after climate collapse…while making hats.”
Sarah Mantell’s In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot starts performances October 10th at NYC’s Playwrights Horizons in association with Breaking the Binary Theatre. The “quietly revolutionary tale of queer aging, chosen family, and the search for home in a volatile world” is directed by Sivan Battat.Kat Sadler’s Yaga runs October 10 - November 3 at Marin Theatre in Mill Valley, CA. Barbara Damashek directs the “subversive dark comedy fairy tale that begins as a classic whodunit then veers into supernatural territory.”
The Belarus Free Theatre production of KS6: Small Forward is now playing through October 13th at La MaMa in NYC. The “extraordinary life story of Belarusian international-athlete-turned-activist, Katsiaryna (Katya) Snytsina, turbocharged with the electrifying energy of a basketball match” is directed by Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin.
workshops & readings
Aurora Real de Asua’s The Pride Before will have readings October 10-12 as part of The Playwrights Realm’s Beyond the Realm series. The “wild ride through the power, perils, and pride that come before the fall, spanning the Serengeti and Silicon Valley” is directed by James Fleming.
Vanessa Pereda’s fresno’s fire + flood are in the pool again will have a reading on October 7th at A.R.T./NY from Latinx Playwrights Circle. Mino Lora directs the “family storytelling journey, woven together with yaqui native american and mexican mythology, as they survive flood, dance through fire celebrate through devastation + replenish each other + the earth in the ways indigenous hands have done time + time again.”
Good Apples Collective’s Rootstock Reading Series will take place on October 6th at A.R.T./NY’s Spaces @ 520. The line-up includes Noma Mirny’s Among the Coats (directed by Kenny Castro); Mehrnaz Tiv’s I Am Malala Book Club Meeting on Sunday, November 12 2023 (directed by Sabina Sethi Unni); and Jen Diamond’s The Morbs (directed by Britt Berke).
TS Hawkins’ the Are We Free Yet? project will have an “elevated staged reading” on October 5th at Theatre Exile in Philadelphia. Hawkins also directs the new choreopoem that “sojourns through an afro-future encapsulated within a Sunday dinner unpacking decades and dynasties of epigenetic memories.”
festivals
The San Diego Latinx New Play Festival runs October 4-6 at La Jolla Playhouse. The line-up includes Jayne Deely’s I never asked for a gofundme (directed by Juliana Frey-Méndez with dramaturgy by Cambria Herrera), Ricardo Pérez González’s MOTHER OF GOD (directed by Juliette Carrillo), Oliver Mayer’s The Man in the Maze (directed by Patrice Amon), and Sandra Ruiz’s El Puente/The Bridge (directed by Vanessa Duron).
SolFest: A Latine Theater Festival runs October 6-10. The Sol Project’s annual showcase for Latine artists will include presentations of Anne García-Romero’s Dolorosa (directed by Laurie Woolery), Edwin Sánchez’s Lottery Boy (directed by Jorge B. Merced), Ana Luz Zambrana and Aditya Joshi’s La Tormenta (directed by Kathleen Capdesuñer), Peter Pasco’s Te quiero en South Street Seaport (directed by Katherine George), Reynaldo Piniella’s Afro-Borinqueña (directed by Reza Salazar), Jen Diaz’s La Gringa No Baila (directed by Adriana Gaviria), Phanésia Pharel’s Dead Girl's Quinceañera, Dillon Yruegas’ The Brunch Crowd (directed by Rula A. Muñoz), and Iraisa Ann Reilly’s January 6th, A Celebration: A bodega princess remembers tradition, not insurrection (directed by Estefanía Fadul).
2024-25 season updates
Boston Court Pasadena announced its 2025 season. The LA-area theatre’s line-up includes Critical Mass Performance Group’s Mariology (directed by Nancy Keystone), Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana (directed by Jessica Kubzansky), and the world premiere of John Anthony Loffredo’s Frou-Frou: A Menagerie of Sorts (directed by Zi Alikhan).
Rorschach Theatre announced its 2024-25 season. The DC theatre will produce Steve Yockey’s Sleeping Giant (directed by Jenny McConnell Frederick), Doug Robinson’s The Figs (directed by Randy Baker), jose sebastian alberdi’s ¡Mamágua!, and the company’s newest multi-chapter Psychogeographies Project Vox Populi (created by Randy Baker, Kylos Brannon, Jenny McConnell Frederick, and Jonelle Walker).
INTAR Theatre announced its 2024-25 season. The NYC Latine theatre company’s line-up includes the Unit 52 public presentation of
David Anzuelo & Nate Dobson’s musical A Boy Called Lobo (directed by Rudy Ramírez) and two world premieres: Julián Mesri’s The Irrepressible Magic of The Tropics (directed by Kathleen Capdesuñer) and Christin Eve Cato’s O.K.! (directed by Melissa Crespo).
space jam: a new legacy
DC’s Theatre Alliance will perform at The Westerly in Southwest for its 2024-25 season. The temporary venue is a retail space in a new mixed-use development and is part of DC’s Pop-Up Permit pilot program, which “makes it easier for entrepreneurs to transform vacant storefronts in Downtown DC.” Theater Alliance was the company in residence at Anacostia Playhouse for over a decade until earlier this spring.
that’s not a living wage
Here are this week’s featured underpaid job listings, paired with the living wage for a 40-hour work week for one adult with no children in that area and the most recently available 990 data. (You can read more about the methodology here.)
Assistant Ticket Services Manager at Ford’s Theatre: $44,000 – $46,000 (Full-Time)
Living Wage for Washington, DC: $60,090
Revenue (2023): $14.2 million / Net Income: -$2.01 million
Executive Compensation:
Director: $678,921 ($627,855 base / $51,066 other compensation)
Costume Shop Manager at Round House Theatre: “High 40Ks - Low 50Ks” (Full-Time)
Living Wage for Montgomery County, MD: $60,281
Revenue (2023): $6.76 million / Net Income: -$1.3 million
Executive Compensation: