the week of september 22 - 28, 2023

ghost-hunting, sumo wrestling, and multiple mariachi musicals

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

productions

• The world premiere of Pearl Cleage’s Something Moving: A Meditation on Maynard starts performances September 22nd at Ford’s Theatre. Seema Sueko directs the time-jumping exploration of the 1973 election of Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first Black mayor.

• James Ijames’ Fat Ham runs September 22 - October 29 at the Huntington in Boston. The Pulitzer-winning comic reinvention of Hamlet set an uproarious family barbecue is directed by Stevie Walker-Webb.

• The world premiere of Steve H. Broadnax III’s Bonez starts previews September 22nd at People’s Light in Malvern, PA. The social horror about game of dominoes gone awry, as “childhood demons cause [a group of] men to question what they think they know about masculinity, intimacy, and what makes a man” is also directed by Broadnax.

• José Cruz González’s American Mariachi starts previews September 22nd at the Alley Theatre in Houston. KJ Sanchez directs the 1970s-set, music-infused comedy about a pair of cousins’ quest to form an all-girl mariachi band.

• Brian Quijada’s Somewhere Over the Border starts performances September 23rd at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre Company. Inspired by the true story of the playwright’s mother’s journey from El Salvador to the U.S., the new rock-cumbia-mariachi-hip hop musical is directed by Laura Alcalá Baker.

• nicHi douglas’ (pray) runs September 23 - October 28 in a co-pro from the National Black Theatre and Ars Nova. Featuring music by S T A R R Busby & JJJJJerome Ellis, douglas also directs and choreographs the sacred offering that “channels the joy and vitality of a Sunday Baptist Church service through a surreal and Afrofuturist lens.”

• The world premiere of Eliana Pipes’ Bite Me starts previews September 23rd in a co-pro from WP Theater and Colt Coeur. The dark comedy exploring the “the drama (and trauma) of trying to fit in at high school, and the unfinished business waiting [at a] reunion a decade later” is directed by Rebecca Martínez.

• The world premiere of Lisa Sanaye Dring’s Sumo runs September 26 - October 22 in a co-pro between La Jolla Playhouse and Ma-Yi Theater Company. Ralph B. Peña directs the new work set in an elite sumo training facility in Tokyo as six wrestlers “struggle to carve themselves – and one another – into the men they dream of being.”

• The world premiere of Idris Goodwin’s Parental Advisory starts previews September 26th at Milwaukee Rep. The “half DJ jam session, half TED Talk [using] live music, humor and a bit of modern pop culture history to explore what it’s like being a father and the important choices we make for our families” is directed by Kyle Haden.

• Prince Gomolvilas’s The Brothers Paranormal runs September 27 - October 29 at Olney Theatre Center in Maryland. Hallie Gordon and Aria Velz co-direct the modern horror story about two Thai-American brothers launching a ghost-hunting business and the strange occurrences they experience when investigating a Hurricane Katrina-displaced couple’s home.

• Stew and Heidi Rodewald’s Passing Strange starts previews September 27th at Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta. The rock musical about a young man’s “odyssey in search of identity, acceptance, and the ‘Real’” is directed and choreographed by Thomas W. Jones II.

• The world premiere of Jamario Stills’ 2216: The Remix of a Global Experiment runs September 28 - October 15 at Wilbury Theatre Group in Providence, RI. Stills also directs the immersive theatrical experience weaving together “personal narratives, historical truths, and futuristic possibilities to explore the lives of an ensemble of actors representing nationalities around the globe as they create and reenact a new world doctrine that connects and transcends time.”

• Here We Are, the final musical by the late Stephen Sondheim, runs September 28 - January 7 at The Shed. Inspired by the films The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel, the musical is directed by Joe Mantello with a book by David Ives.

readings & workshops

• Ran Xia and Risa Puno’s Unresolved Rage Game will have a behind-the-scenes presentation on September 23rd as part of the Soho Rep Writer Director Lab. The conversation will explore the creative process of developing the playable theatrical experience based on the tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) that Xia and Puno have been designing about Asian femme rage.

• lily gonzales’ (trans)formada will have a staged reading on September 25 & 26 at Shotgun Players in Berkeley, CA. linda maria girón directs the new work about a “queer and a little trans child of Mexican immigrants building the courage to present their gender to their mother” who attends a debaucherous high school party, where a “brave and strange set of rituals ensues.”

digital

• Black Trans Women at the Center runs September 28 - October 1 online from Long Wharf Theater. Curated by Dane Figueroa Edidi, the digital festival features five short plays by Black trans women: Eva Reign’s Desire/Require (directed by Adisa Steele), Indie Johnson’s Futura in the Garden (directed by Mickaela Bradford), and Elisawon Etidorhpa’s Desperately Seeking Faith, Simone Immanuel’s From the Inside Out, and Asteria LaFaye Summers’s Memoirs of a Flower Witch (all three directed by Edidi).

* The emailed version of this post misspelled Elisawon Etidorhpa’s name; NFTG regrets the error!

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2023-24 season updates

• Spooky Action Theater announced its 2023-24 season. The DC theatre will produce Newton Moreno’s Agreste (Drylands) (translated and directed by Danilo Gambini) and Phillip Howze’s Frontiéres sans Frontiéres (directed by Elizabeth Dinkova), as well as a developmental workshop of Christopher Hampton’s Cracking Zeus.

• Ma-Yi Theatre Company announced its fall 2023 season. The line-up includes the world premiere of Lisa Sanaye Dring’s SUMO (directed by Ralph B. Peña, co-pro with La Jolla Playhouse), as well as developmental support for Haruna Lee’s 49 Days and Michi Barall’s Drawing Lessons (directed by Jack Tamburri). The NYC company also announced that a joint commission with Minneapolis’ Children’s Theatre Company for Lloyd Suh and Diana Oh’s new musical The Science Fair Project.

• The New Group announced two more productions in its 2023-24 season. The NYC company will produce Jordan Seavey's The Seven Year Disappear (directed by Scott Elliott) and Laura Winters' All of Me (directed by Ashley Brooke Monroe), joining Ariel Levy and John Turturro’s previously announced adaptation of Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater (directed by Jo Bonney).

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awards & residencies

• The Playwrights Realm announced its 2023 Writing Fellows & Scratchpad Playwrights. The fellows — T.J.L, J.C. Pankratz, Eliana Theologides Rodriguez, and Jesús I. Valles — will receive a $5000 stipend, INK’d Festival reading and nine months of resources. The Scratchpad playwrights — Nimisha Ladva, Malena Pennycook, and Sarah Saltwick — receive paid developmental support.

• MacDowell announced its fall/winter fellows. The seventeen theatremakers receiving residencies at the Peterborough, NH campus are playwrights Amy Berryman, Steph Del Rosso, Sam Grabiner, C.A. Johnson, Peter Kim George, Luz Lorenzana Twigg, Daaimah Mubashshir, Aya Ogawa, Kevin Renn, Christopher Shinn, and Ken Urban; actor-playwrights Carolina Đỗ, Jesse Jae Hoon, Diana Lobontiu, and Carmen Pelaez; actor-theatremaker Amara Janae Brady; and community organizer Anooj Bhandari.

• The 2023 Helen Merrill Awards for Playwriting were announced. Guadalís Del Carmen, Cassandra Medley, Aya Ogawa, and Kit Yan will each receive $30,000 unrestricted cash prizes to support their work.

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the regional theatre game of thrones

• André Bishop will step down as producing artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater in 2025. He has led the three-stage New York theatre for 33 years, which is one of four New York non-profit theatres to operate a Broadway house.

• Carole Rothman is stepping down as president and artistic director of Second Stage Theatre after 45 years. Rothman co-founded the theatre in 1979, which is one of the other three New York non-profits to operate a Broadway house. (The other two are Roundabout Theatre Company, which is currently searching for a new artistic director after Todd Haimes’ death in April, and Manhattan Theatre Club, which has been led by Lynne Meadow since 1972.)

• Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco is adopting a seven-person shared leadership model. Responsibilities will be split between Riley Alyson (Production & Community), Caro Asercion (Artistic Producing), Nailah Harper-Malveaux (Artistic Curation & Producing), Bethany Herron (Management & Fundraising), Julie McCormick (Management & Operations), Leigh Rondon-Davis (Artistic Curation & Marketing), and, until she departs in December, Mina Morita (Artistic Curation & Strategy). Lily Janiak wrote an excellent write-up on the transition in the San Francisco Chronicle.

• Charles Newell is retiring as artistic director of the Court Theater after 30 years. Newell is the latest Chicago artistic leader to step down in the last three years, after recent departures and transitions at Steppenwolf, The Goodman, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Writers Theatre, The Gift, Remy Bumppo, Teatro Vista, Congo Square Theatre — as well as the now-shuttered Victory Gardens, House Theatre of Chicago, and Sideshow.

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reminder: dc theatre week kick-off

It’s going to be a dreary, rainy day in DC tomorrow — perfect weather to spend inside at the free Theatre Washington DC Theatre Week Kick-Off at Arena Stage from 1-5 PM!

There will be approximately four million activities and performances and workshops — including me moderating a panel at 3:15 PM with DC’s three newest artistic directors (Hana S. Sharif, Hayley Finn, and Elizabeth Dinkova — a real dream line-up!) I’ll also be informally hosting the whole afternoon of conversations (i.e. introducing the other illustrious moderators Greg Reiner and Dani Barlow) because I always say yes when Amy Austin asks me to do something. If you’re there, please say hi and come to my panel and ask questions, not comments.