WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES CREATIVE TEAM MEMBERS FOR 2021 LIVE SEASON
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Rick Miramontez / Aaron Meier
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FOR RELEASE ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 26 AT 4:30 PM ET, PLEASE
THE TONY AWARD®-WINNING
WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL
ANNOUNCES
CREATIVE TEAM MEMBERS FOR 2021 LIVE SEASON
DESIGNERS TO INCLUDE
LORRAINE GLOVER & DAVID ROCKWELL,
ARNULFO MALDONADO, JEN SCHRIEVER,
ADAM HONORÉ, VAN HUGHES & JACKSON TEELEY
DIRECTOR COLETTE ROBERT
JOINS RETITLED
“CELEBRATING THE BLACK RADICAL IMAGINATION: NINE SOLO PLAYS”
ALONG WITH SCHEDULE FOR THE WORLD PREMIERE SERIES
WTF BOX OFFICE WILL OPEN TUESDAY, JUNE 22, AT 12 PM ET
2021 LIVE SEASON WILL TAKE
PLACE OUTDOORS, SOCIALLY DISTANCED,
AND WITH SAFETY PRIORITIZED
New York, NY (May 26, 2021) – Williamstown Theatre Festival (Mandy Greenfield, Artistic Director) has announced members of the creative teams for all three of their 2021 Live Season productions, which will take place outdoors, socially distanced, and with safety prioritized. Acclaimed artists coming to the Festival this season include Lorraine Glover & Tony Award® winner David Rockwell, Obie Award winner Arnulfo Maldonado, Obie Award winner Jen Schriever, Audelco Award winner Adam Honoré, and Van Hughes & Jackson Teeley. In addition, Colette Robert will join the retitled Celebrating the Black Radical Imagination: Nine Solo Plays (formerly Outside On Main: Nine Solo Plays by Black Playwrights) as one of the production’s three directors. The WTF Box Office will open for ticket sales on Tuesday, June 22 at 12:00 PM ET. Tickets will be available for purchase online at www.wtfestival.org or by phone at 413 458 3253.
Celebrating the Black Radical Imagination: Nine Solo Plays, guest curated by Tony Award nominee Robert O’Hara, will feature a creative team that includes Lorraine Glover and David Rockwell (venue and set design), David Rockwell/The Rockwell Group (production design support), Ari Fulton (costume design for Week 2 and Week 3), Adam Honoré (lighting design), and Twi McCallum (sound design).
Colette Robert joins previously announced Celebrating the Black Radical Imagination: Nine Solo Plays directors Wardell Julius Clark and Candis C. Jones as Awoye Timpo departs the production.
Celebrating the Black Radical Imagination: Nine Solo Plays premieres over three weeks:
Week One (Tuesday, July 6 – Saturday, July 10):
Border of Lights by Guadalís Del Carmen
Ghosts of the Diaspora by France-Luce Benson
Freaky Dee, Baby by NSangou Njikam
Directed by Colette Robert
Week Two (Tuesday, July 13 – Sunday, July 18):
Black Moon Lilith by J. Nicole Brooks
A Ghost in Satin by Terry Guest
don’t get got by Ike Holter
Directed by Wardell Julius Clark
Week Three (Wednesday, July 21 – Sunday, July 25):
Mark It Down by Charly Evon Simpson
The Last……(A Work in Progress) by Ngozi Anyanwu
THE MASTER’S TOOLS by Zora Howard
Directed by Candis C. Jones
The creative team for the world premiere musical Row (Tuesday, July 13 – Sunday, August 8) features Arnulfo Maldonado (costume design), Jen Schriever (lighting design), Gabriel Hainer Evansohn (production design), and Leon Rothenberg (sound design).
ALIEN/NATION (Tuesday, July 20 – Sunday, August 8), the world premiere immersive theatrical experience that takes audiences on multiple journeys throughout Williamstown, by foot and by car, will feature a creative team that includes Matt Iacozza (scenic and props design), Ryan Park (costume, hair, and makeup design), Adam Honoré (lighting design), Peter Westervelt (video design), Van Hughes & Jackson Teeley (co-composers and soundscape design), and Joshua D. Reid (sound and system design).
Additional creative team members and casting for all three productions will be announced at a later date.
Williamstown Theatre Festival is part of a Berkshire-based consortium of cultural organizations that have developed a unified “COVID-19 Code of Courtesy” that addresses public safety for all visitors to the region. These guidelines have been reviewed and endorsed by the Berkshire Public Health Alliance and Tri Town Health Department, for their respective communities.
ABOUT THE 2021 LIVE SEASON
WORLD PREMIERE SERIES
Celebrating the Black Radical Imagination: Nine Solo Plays
Wednesday, July 6 – Sunday, July 25
Performed at the Front Lawn of the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
Directed by Wardell Julius Clark, Candis C. Jones, and Colette Robert
Guest Curated by Robert O’Hara
Written by Ngozi Anyanwu, France-Luce Benson, J. Nicole Brooks, Guadalís Del Carmen, Terry Guest, Ike Holter, Zora Howard, NSangou Njikam, and Charly Evon Simpson
Discover the power and intimacy of the solo play with this series of three shows centering and celebrating Black artists and their voices through theatrical storytelling. Each show consists of three, 30-minute world premieres, created by Black writers, written for actors of color, and brought to life by directors Wardell Julius Clark, Candis C. Jones, and Colette Robert on the Front Lawn of the ‘62 Center for Theatre and Dance. Celebrating the Black Radical Imagination: Nine Solo Plays is guest curated by Tony Award-nominated director and playwright Robert O’Hara.
Celebrating the Black Radical Imagination: Nine Solo Plays premieres over three weeks:
Week One (Tuesday, July 6 – Saturday, July 10):
Border of Lights by Guadalís Del Carmen
Ghosts of the Diaspora by France-Luce Benson
Freaky Dee, Baby by NSangou Njikam
Directed by Colette Robert
Week Two (Tuesday, July 13 – Sunday, July 18):
Black Moon Lilith by J. Nicole Brooks
A Ghost in Satin by Terry Guest
don’t get got by Ike Holter
Directed by Wardell Julius Clark
Week Three (Wednesday, July 21 – Sunday, July 25):
Mark It Down by Charly Evon Simpson
The Last……(A Work in Progress) by Ngozi Anyanwu
THE MASTER’S TOOLS by Zora Howard
Directed by Candis C. Jones
WORLD PREMIERE MUSICAL
Row
Tuesday, July 13 – Sunday, August 8
Performed at the Clark Art Institute
Book by Daniel Goldstein
Music and Lyrics by Dawn Landes
Directed by Tyne Rafaeli
Inspired by A Pearl in the Storm by Tori Murden McClure.
Featuring Grace McLean
The Clark’s serene reflecting pool becomes the stage for this uplifting world premiere musical that interrogates the resilience, fear, and ambition inside one individual as she aims to be the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic. Inspired by A Pearl in the Storm by Tori Murden McClure, with a book by Daniel Goldstein, music and lyrics by Dawn Landes, and directed by Tyne Rafaeli, Row exposes you to the elements endured by an extraordinary woman undeterred by the odds.
This production has received a 2021 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. Row is supported by a grant from the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation.
WORLD PREMIERE IMMERSIVE THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE
ALIEN/NATION
Tuesday, July 20 – Sunday, August 8
Performed throughout Williamstown
An Immersive Theatrical Experience in Two Parts
from The Forest of Arden
Written and Devised by Eric Berryman, Jen Silverman, and the Company of The Forest of Arden
From Tony Award-nominated director Michael Arden and the company of The Forest of Arden comes an immersive, world premiere theatrical experience that takes you on a journey throughout Williamstown, revealing unexpected surprises around you and within you. Choose to experience this completely unique site-specific performance by foot or by car and plunge yourself into the center of stories inspired by real events that took place in Western Massachusetts in 1969. Devised in collaboration with writers Jen Silverman and Eric Berryman and featuring members of WTF’s COMMUNITY WORKS program, ALIEN/NATION engages all of your senses for a theatre experience unlike any other.
ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL
Few institutions have as profound an impact on the American theatrical landscape as the Tony Award-winning Williamstown Theatre Festival. For over six decades, Williamstown Theatre Festival has brought emerging and professional theatre artists together in the Berkshires to create a thrilling summer festival of diverse, world premiere plays and musicals, bold new revivals, and a rich array of accompanying cultural events.
In response to the unprecedented challenges of 2020, Williamstown Theatre Festival continued its long history of artistic innovation, collaborating with Audible, the leading creator and provider of premium audio storytelling. The Festival’s initiative ensured the voices of artists could be heard loudly and clearly around the globe during an extraordinary moment when theatre’s power to inspire, move, and heal was most needed. The result – the WTF Season on Audible – is a complete collection of new and reimagined works defined by artistic excellence, cultural diversity and relevance, and unbounded reach and crafted by some of the most influential and provocative American theatre artists of today.
For 67 years, artists have been drawn to Williamstown Theatre Festival to make great theatre in an environment conducive to artistic risk-taking. Matthew Broderick, Audra McDonald, Dominique Morisseau, Mary-Louise Parker, Susan Stroman, Uma Thurman, and Blair Underwood are just a few of the luminous theatre artists who have worked at the Festival. Many others, including Chris Pine, Kate Hudson, Paul Giamatti, Allison Janney, Brie Larson, George C. Wolfe, and Kiefer Sutherland, began their careers at the Festival.
In addition, Williamstown Theatre Festival continues to grow new programs. Among the thriving new initiatives are COMMUNITY WORKS – a one-of-a-kind community-engaged theatre program – and the Andrew Martin-Weber New Play and Musical Commissioning Program, through which new work is created year-round by theatre artists including Jocelyn Bioh, Nathan Alan Davis, Halley Feiffer, Justin Levine, Matthew Lopez, Jiehae Park, Benjamin Scheuer, and many others.
Productions and artists shaped at the Festival fill theatres in New York City and around the world. In the abbreviated 2019-20 theatrical season alone, Williamstown Theatre Festival was represented or scheduled to be represented on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally by The Sound Inside and Grand Horizons, both of which received Tony Award nominations for Best Play, The Rose Tattoo, Seared, Selling Kabul, Unknown Soldier, Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow, and Lempicka. Cost of Living, which was developed and premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival, was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Learn more about Williamstown Theatre Festival at www.wtfestival.org.
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