“From oft forgotten or unheard sides of history, to powerfully resonant stories of today, this season in particular looks at life from myriad perspectives, and allows our audiences the opportunity to view the world through a different lens,” artistic director Mark Clements said in a statement.
The season will open with My Way: A Musical Tribune to Frank Sinatra
(Sept. 11-Nov. 8), created by David Grapes and Todd Olson with a book
by Olson. Directed by Kelley Faulkner, the musical will feature the
greatest hits from Sinatra’s five-decade career.
Next up will be Titanic the Musical (Sept. 15-Oct. 25), with
a book by Peter Stone and music and lyrics by Maury Yeston, a musical
retelling of the stories of those aboard the fateful ship. Clements will
direct.
Following will be the co-world premiere of Meghan Brown’s The Tasters
(Sept. 22-Nov. 1). Tasters have the important job of protecting
high-ranking government officials from assassination attempts by serving
as food tasters. The system is thrown off when one taster goes on a
hunger strike. Laura Braza will direct.
The season will continue with an adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic, Murder on the Orient Express (Nov. 10-Dec. 13), adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig. Detective Hercule Poirot must battle the clock to solve a murder on a train full of suspects who all have a motive and an alibi.
Next will be a musical comedy from Matt Zembrowski, Dad’s Season Tickets (Nov. 13-Jan. 17). Directed by Ryan Quinn, the musical asks the simple question: Who will inherit Frank’s prized season ticket at Lambeau Field?
TEXAS INSTITUTE OF LETTERS ANNOUNCES NINETEEN DISTINGUISHED WRITERS
TO BE INDUCTED
For the 84th
year,members of the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL) have decided on
the induction of new members to join the ranks of the distinguished
honor
society founded in 1936 to celebrate Texas literature and to recognize
distinctive literary achievement.
The
TIL’s membership consists of the state’s most respected writers –
including winners of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award,
PEN/Faulkner Award, Academy Award,
Americas Award, International Latino Book Award, and the MacArthur
“Genius” grant. Membership is based on ongoing and exceptional literary
accomplishment. Members of the Texas Institute of Letters have
overwhelmingly approved nineteen writers to join the
ranks of the TIL.
The 2020 honorees include poets Cyrus Cassells, ir’ene lara silva, Emmy Pérez, and Loretta Diane Walker; award-winning playwrights Octavio Solis and Regina Taylor(also a Golden Globe winner); novelists Glenn Blake, Kathleen Kent, and Natalia Sylvester; bestselling journalists/editors/publishers Nate Blakeslee, Dan Goodgame, and Dan Williams; award-winning songwriters James McMurtry and Robert Earl Keen; environmental writer and editor Andrew Sansom; scholars Andrew R. Graybill and Emma M. Pérez; children’s and YA author J.B. (Jessica) Powers; and photo-historian of award-winning Southwestern cultural histories Bill Wright.
Dr.
Carmen Tafolla, President of the Texas Institute of Letters states,
“The move to diversify and include a wide variety of literary genres in
our analysis of literary
accomplishment has continued to bring us a rich base of outstanding
word-crafters. We are extremely proud of the exceptional work these
individuals represent. These nineteen literary masters and innovators
span the creative gamut from stage plays to song lyrics
and from novels to poetry, journalism, short stories, publishing,
children’s works, and scholarly books.”
New
members will be inducted at the upcoming TIL annual meeting, to be held
in Georgetown, Texas March 27-29. The Annual TIL Literary Awards will
also be presented
at the weekend’s events. For more information, please visit the TIL
website:
www.texasinstituteofletters.org or email Carmen Tafolla,
president@texasinstituteofletters.org.
Commissioned by National New Play Network, Jacqueline Goldfinger’s BABEL comes to Theatre Exile in a couple weeks as part of a rolling world premiere with five other theaters across the country. The winner of the Smith Prize for Political Theater, the latest play by one of Philadelphia’s best-regarded playwrights tackles the moral questions behind modern eugenics and asks how far we will go when playing God? Phindie talked to Jackie about the themes and inspirations behind her new work.
Phindie: What inspired BABEL?
Jacqueline Goldfinger: When I was pregnant with the
twins, we had some odd test results and had to do additional testing.
While, thankfully, the kids turned out to be fine, the additional
testing opened our eyes to the wide, and sometimes shady, world of
reproductive technologies. I thought, this would make a great play! And
then I had twins. And I spent the next five years raising twins. So it
wasn’t until they began kindergarten that I was able to sit down,
research properly, and write the play.
Phindie: Why is it called BABEL?
Jacqueline Goldfinger: The title BABEL is taken from
the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel; where humans tried to climb
close to God in order to rule the world. Spoiler Alert: The attempt
failed. The tower and the people climbing came crashing down. And God
split the community into factions that eventually began warring with
each other. Much like the Tower of Babel, reproductive technology is
reaching towards God by trying to control everything from hair and the
color to attempting to sequence and define genes. What will happen as we
reach? Will will rise? Will we fall? Who will we allow to play God to
future generations?
Phindie: How challenging was it to explore moral questions around eugenics within a narrative play?
Jacqueline Goldfinger: There are so many moral and
ethical questions around eugenics that I needed to narrow the scope of
the conversation in order to create a compelling story that engaged
with, but was not overwhelmed by, the intellectual issues at hand. So, I
narrowed the conversation to one procedure that will be available in
the future, which is in utero genetic testing. By narrowing the scope of
the eugenics conversation, I could really have two pregnant couples
wrestling with the specifics of genetic testing results for their
babies—and also dive into the bigger questions, like, even if you know
what each gene can do, you don’t know what it will do, which will
predominate. What do we do with folks who have a predisposition to, say,
extreme violence? Do we regulate how they live, just to be safe, to
make sure they can’t hurt anyone? But what if they wouldn’t hurt anyone?
Can we judge and regulate people’s behavior based on what might happen?
The play doesn’t necessarily answer all of these big questions,
although we do follow a complete story with the couples. But the play
does encourage the audience to think about these questions for
themselves – because we are going to face them, sooner rather than
later.
Actors Frank Nardi, Jr. and Bi Jean Ngo in rehearsal for the production of BABEL at Theatre Exile.
Phindie: BABEL is being produced across the country and
won the Smith Prize for Political Theater. How do you, personally, judge
success as a playwright?
Jacqueline Goldfinger: My metric for judging success
as a playwright is, do I reach the audience? Do I make them laugh, cry,
think, hope, dream… in all the right places? With this play, folks seem
to be enjoying the balance between comedy—like, ya’ know, a six foot
talking stork who wants to be a stand-up comedian—and the harder,
serious questions of the play.
Phindie: What would you like the audience to take from seeing the play?
Jacqueline Goldfinger: First, I hope they are
entertained. While the play does tackle serious issues, it also embraces
love, hope, dreams, and laughter. Second, I hope that they go home
talking about the quandaries posed by reproductive technologies which
could, very easily, stray down the unenlightened path of the tragedy of
eugenic testing in the past.
Phindie: Thanks Jackie!
BABEL runs February 13 to March 8, 2020, at Theatre Exile, 1340 S. 13th Street. It’s produced at Theatre Exile as a part of a National New Play Network rolling world premiere, with dates at Unicorn Theatre (Missouri), Good Company Theatre (Utah), Contemporary American Theater Festival (West Virginia), Passage Theatre Company (New Jersey), Florida Studio Theatre, and one other venue TBA.
Article by Christopher Munden for Phindie, Independent Coverage of Philadelphia Theatre and Arts
National New Play Network, the country’s alliance of nonprofit theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays, announces the launch of its 91st Rolling World Premiere (RWP): ALABASTER by Audrey Cefaly.
The Roll continues with this production’s opening night on Saturday, January 26th at Capital Stage (running through February 23rd). This production opens as the first production in the RWP at Florida Repertory Theatre comes to a close the same night. The play will continue to travel across the country to 16th Street Theater (Berwyn, IL), Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas, TX). Shrewd Productions (Austin, TX), Know Theatre of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH), Phoenix Theatre (Indianapolis, IN), Williamston Theatre (Williamston, MI), New Jersey Repertory Company (Long Branch, NJ), Salt Lake Acting Company (Salt Lake City, UT), and Oregon Contemporary Theatre (Eugene, OR). NNPN Rolling World Premiere (RWP) models a process for developing and producing new plays that results in stronger work overall and the momentum needed for a play to join the repertoire of frequently produced new American works. Each Rolling World Premiere connects three or more NNPN Member Theaters that choose to mount the same new play within a 12-month period, allowing the playwright to develop the work with a new creative team in each theater’s community. To date, NNPN has championed RWPs with over one million dollars in financial support. Alumni plays have received hundreds of subsequent productions, recognition in markets across the world, been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, won Steinberg/ATCA, Stavis, PEN and Blackburn awards, and been adapted into feature films.
ALABASTER is an all-female darkly comic southern drama about women on the verge, art, and the power of human connection. After a tornado barrels through a North Alabama town leaving nothing but death and destruction, only June and her pet goat Weezy live to tell the tale. When Alice, a prominent photographer, arrives to take pictures of June’s scars, every living soul on the farm is tipped to the breaking point in this epic tale of life after death.
Audrey Cefaly is a southern writer and Alabama native based in the DC region. Her plays include The Gulf (Edgerton Award, Lammy Award, Samuel French OOB Fest Winner, Charles MacArthur Award Nominee); Alabaster (2019 NNPN Record-Breaking Rolling World Premiere, 2019 Kilroys, 2018 NNPN Showcase, David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize, BAPF Semifinalist); Maytag Virgin (Women’s Voices Theater Festival); The Last Wide Open (Cincinnati Playhouse commission); The Story of Walter (adaptation of her podcast by the same name); and Love is a Blue Tick Hound (a collection of award-winning one-acts).
Cefaly has developed plays with the National New Play Network, Everyman Theatre, Signature Theatre, Vermont Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, About Face, Florida Rep, Kitchen Dog Theatre, Circle Theatre, Serenbe Playhouse, Aurora Theatre, Theater Alliance, Quotidian Theatre Company, University of Alabama – Birmingham, and Contemporary American Theater Festival. She is published by Samuel French, Smith & Kraus (two volumes of Best American Short Plays), and Applause Books. Cefaly is a member of the 2019 Playwrights’ Arena cohort at Arena Stage and was recently named a Traveling Master by the Dramatist Guild Foundation.
She is an outspoken proponent of silence in storytelling and has authored numerous articles on the topic of playwriting for HowlRound and Samuel French’s Breaking Character Magazine. Cefaly is a recipient of grants from the Boomerang Fund for Artists as well as the Alabama and Maryland state arts councils. audreycefaly.com
