Season Schedule
Musical Workshops
Absolute Zero
July 12–14, 2024
In the Powerhouse Theater
Book and lyrics by Dorie Clark
Music by Marie Incontrera
Directed by Ellie Heyman
Choreographed by Bo Park
Absolute Zero is a gleeful reclamation of the patriarchal and often sexist spy genre: a classic form in a decidedly new wineskin. Absolute Zero is the lowest temperature known to humanity. It’s just a theoretical construct that’s never actually been reached—until now. By terrorists. But when the CIA’s top agent—sexy lesbian lothario Sam Knight—is called in to investigate, she never expected that in order to save humanity, she’d have to excavate her own past. Fueled by a contemporary pop-rock and jazz score, Absolute Zero is a taut, funny musical thriller written for a cast of female, trans and gender nonconforming performers.
Absolute Zero has been developed with the help of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, Apples and Oranges Arts, New Musicals, Inc, MusicalWriters.com, The York Theatre Company, New York Theatre Barn, and Ohio Wesleyan University. Absolute Zero was an O’Neill Semi-finalist in 2023. Dorie Clark and Marie Incontrera were Dramatists Guild Foundation Virtual Fellows finalists in 2023.
Shanghai Sonatas
July 26–28, 2024
In the Martel Theater, Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film
Music and Concept by Sean Gao
Book by Alan Goodson
Lyrics by Joyce Hill Stoner
Directed by Chongren Fan
Musical Arrangement and Direction by Asher Denburg
Produced by Diane Fisher and LED Theatrical Productions
During WWII, when the push to escape the horrors of the Nazi Regime in Europe escalated, cosmopolitan Shanghai was the only place in the world that would accept European Refugees without a visa. Forced into a ghetto by Japanese occupiers, the two diverse cultures of East and West soon shared a warm and enduring bond through the language of music, including connections both romantic and humorous. With the beauty of its musical score and compelling storyline set within the fading glamour and wartime danger of the city in the 1930s and ’40s, Shanghai Sonatas illustrates how the seeds sown by these fateful events of the past resonate to this day.
Play Workshops
A Simple Herstory
July 5–7, 2024
In the Powerhouse Theater
Part of The Tank Residency
Created by Jocelyn Kuritsky
Written by Jonathan A. Goldberg, Jenny Turner Hall
Directed by Meghan Finn
Series Director and Co-Executive Producer Donya K. Washington
A Simple Herstory is a groundbreaking—Telly Award winning and Webby honored—deviant, multi-platform audio fiction exploration of the 100+ women who have run for President of the United States. The initial season revolved around Victoria Woodhull, arguably the first woman to run in 1872, before women had the right to vote. Sections of Season 2 revolve around the life and times of Margaret Chase Smith. Smith ran for President of the United States in 1964. She was a member of the Republican Party. She was the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress. While it is an audio drama, Season 2 borrows from 20th century film styles to create a complex portrait of the Senator from Maine, challenging preconceived notions, historical facts, and our perceptions of American culture. As with Season 1, it takes a lesser known story, presents it, and then works to deconstruct it.
Messy White Gays
July 19–21, 2024
In the Powerhouse Theater
Written by Drew Droege
Directed by Mike Donahue
Developed and Produced by The Fabulous Invalid
Sunday morning. Hell’s Kitchen. Brecken and Caden have just murdered their throuple-mate and stuffed him into a Jonathan Adler credenza. Unfortunately, they’ve invited friends over for brunch. Feel bad for them! They’re MESSY WHITE GAYS!
Readings
This Place Is Definitely Haunted
June 21, 2024, 8 p.m.
In the Powerhouse Theater
Written By Max Reuben
Directed by Caley Chase
Three teenagers gather in a spooky old house to go ghost hunting. A group of theater makers gathers in a spooky old theater to explore the sinister events of that night. A Russian nesting doll of scary stories, This Place is Definitely Haunted blurs the line between fact and fiction, reality and imagination, and explores the very human desire to scare the living daylights out of ourselves and each other.
Extinction
June 23, 2024, 6 p.m.
In the Powerhouse Theater
Part of the Theatre East residency
Written by C.J. Baer
Directed by Judson Jones
Extinction follows Louis Ebbings (née Wilder), a brilliant and promising PhD student in the early 1980s, interested in the rising field of feminist biology, who discovers, as the singular female in her advisor’s lab, androcentric bias in her very own backyard. Challenging the sexist narrative within Darwinian theory, Louis discovers just how powerful these forces she’s working against are, and unwittingly becomes the subject matter of her own studies.
Holes in the Shape of My Father
June 27, 2024, 8 p.m.
In the Powerhouse Theater
Part of the The Tank residency
Written by Savon Bartley
Directed by Adam Coy
What spirals when an absent father reaches out to his son over Instagram with no apologies, no remorse, and 20 years’ worth of unanswered questions? Savon Bartley unravels the nuances of boys who grew up without a father. Told by the son of a mother who tried, Holes in the Shape of My Father is the myth and miracle of boys becoming men.
Possessed (or, “the Crazy African Girl” Play)
June 28, 2024, 8 p.m.
In the Powerhouse Theater
Written by Gloria Majule
Directed by Shariffa Ali
Furaha returns home to Tanzania on a medical leave, and is reunited with her brother Angaza. Unfortunately for her, he believes her mental illness is in fact a demon possession. As the siblings road-trip from Dar Es Salaam to Singida, they encounter colorful characters and testing challenges along the way. Possessed is a dramedy that explores the toll it takes to leave home, and the toll it takes to be back.
Ping Pong Play
June 29, 2024, 8 p.m.
In the Powerhouse Theater
Part of the Leah Ryan Fund residency
Written by Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin
Directed by Benita de Wit
Ping Pong Play is about keeping up with your best friend at the end of the world, non-chronologically following Yining and Anjali over nine decades playing competitive ping pong. This work imagines a speculative future informed by our present, with militarism and climate change shaping how Yining and Anjali can connect.
3 Graces
June 30, 2024 - 2 p.m.
In the Powerhouse Theater
Written by Alexandra Neil
Directed by Valentina Fratti
The original three Graces were goddesses who represented beauty, elegance, charm and mirth. 3 Graces explores the cost of those attributes to women today. The play weaves the lives of three women of different ages (20s, 40s, 60s), each named Grace. As the piece spirals back and forth in time, all three Graces examine their past, present, and future together.
All readings are free. Tickets can be reserved beginning on June 13, 2024.
The Training Company
Twelfth Night
July 12–14, 2024, 7 p.m.
At The Preserve
Written by William Shakespeare
Adapted and Directed by Devin Kawaoka
Twelfth Night begins as all good tales do...with a shipwreck. Viola finds herself having lost her dear twin brother and stranded on the coast of Illyria. With no family or means to protect her, she disguises herself as a servant to the ruler of Illyria, Duke Orsino. She soon loses herself in a Bermudian Triangle of love that steals the hearts and minds of those who dare to pass through it. Our question: Will Viola be able to find herself amongst the wreckage, not of her ship, but of her love?
Free and open to the public. No ticket required.
The Taming of the Shrew
July 19–21, 2024, 7 p.m.
At The Preserve
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Caley Chase
After falling asleep outside a bar, tinker Christopher Sly awakes inside a wild comedy—a play! Sly plays Katherine—sister to the fair Bianca, eldest daughter to Baptista, and betrothed to the fortune-seeking Petruchio. Full of ogling suitors, witty wordplay, and subversive performances of power, gender, and love, this faced-paced adaptation deconstructs The Taming of the Shrew to its bones, seeking - through great humor, absurdity, and role-play - a most intimate connection.
Free and open to the public. No ticket required.
We Are Gathered Together
July 4, 11, 18, 25, 2024, 6 p.m.
In the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Conceived and Composed by Max Reuben
Developed and performed by members of the Training Company
INSERT SALUTATION HERE. It is with GREAT JOY/A HEAVY HEART/INCREDIBLE EXCITEMENT that we invite you to INSERT EVENT HERE to CELEBRATE/MOURN/COMMEMORATE our dear INSERT NAME HERE on the occasion of INSERT SPECIFICS HERE. As we gather together to share in this special moment, we kindly ask that you RSVP by INSERT DATE HERE. Your presence would mean a lot to us and to INSERT NAME HERE, and we look forward to sharing this DELIGHTFUL/SOLEMN/MOMENTOUS occasion with you. Thank you.
We Are Gathered Together utilizes the gestural composing language of Soundpainting to create a spontaneous, ensemble-based improvised performance.
Free and open to the public. No ticket required.
Marathon
July 21–22, 2024, 7:30 p.m.
In the Susan Stein Shiva Theater
Co-created by Hal Cosentino and Ellenor Riley-Condit
Devised by Members of the Training Company
It is 490 BC. After days of fighting, Pip runs 26 miles without stopping from the Battle of Marathon to the city of Athens to warn his fellow citizens that the approaching Persian navy has no claim to Athenian land. He shouts: “We have won!” before collapsing. Marathon is a devised piece that uses this origin story as an inciting incident, an event that connects feats of human endurance across time to ask: What is that spark that makes us keep going beyond what we think is possible? Together, we’ll run a marathon from 490 BC to today, trying, with our own bodies, to understand humanity’s capacity to defy our assumed limits. When we push past the boundaries of our imaginations, what are we running towards?
Free and open to the public. Reservation required. Tickets can be reserved beginning on June 13, 2024.
New Works Play Festival
July 27, 2024, 7:30 p.m.
In the Susan Stein Shiva Theater
Written and Directed by members of the Training Company
This festival of new works is the culminating event for the directors and writers of the Training Company. Along with their coursework, directors and playwrights will have observed the process of bringing a new script to life in a professional rehearsal setting. Each pair of writers and directors will workshop a play that they have developed over the summer. Featuring performances by the actors of the Training Company, these short plays reflect the students’ unique voice and vision for the future of American theater.
Free and open to the public. Reservation required. Tickets can be reserved beginning on June 13, 2024.
Special Event
Performing Art
July 14, 2024, 2 p.m.
In the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Conceived and Directed by Liz Dahmen
Performing Art is a highly-collaborative performance project that brings together an ensemble of local creators to explore the relationship between visual and performing art. This production takes inspiration from the works currently on display at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, and the final presentation is a site-specific one-of-a-kind performance inside the gallery.