PLAYBILL NEWS: WP Theater Announces 2017–2018 Season
The lineup includes a world premiere, a sold-out hit, and the return of the Pipeline Festival.
WP Theater has announced its 2017–2018 lineup of productions. The 40th anniversary season will consist of the world premiere of Monica Bill Barnes & Company’s One Night Only (running as long as we can); a return engagement of Kate Bensons’ sold-out hit [Porto], co-produced with The Bushwick Starr and New Georges; and the second biennial Pipeline Fesitval of new plays by WP Lab artists.
WP Theater has also teamed up with fellow Off-Broadway company Colt Coeur to present the Parity Plays Reading Series, which will celebrate new work by female and trans playwrights and directors this fall.
The season will kick off in September with One Night Only, marking the Off-Broadway debut of dance group Monica Bill Barnes & Company. The new piece is co-created by Barnes and Anna Bass, who also perform, and Robert Saenz de Viteri. Barnes choreographs with design by Kelly Hanson and Jane Cox. In One Night Only, everyday movement is taken to monumental new heights as longtime performing partners Bass and Barnes explore the ephemeral nature of life onstage.
Also slated for the fall will be the Parity Plays, created by WP Lab alum Adrienne Campbell-Holt. The annual play reading series will present four new works co-curated by Campbell-Holt’s company Colt Coeur and WP Theater.
In January 2018, WP Theater will team up with The Bushwick Starr to present the Off-Broadway debut of [Porto], which debuted at the Bushwick Starr earlier this year and sold out its premiere engagement. Directed by Lee Sunday Evans, the play sees a woman walk into a Brooklyn bar; when a handsome stranger arrives, disruption ensues. The show will be presented in association with New Georges.
The season will conclude next March with the return of the WP Pipeline Fetival, which will feature five new works written, directed, and produced by the 2016–2018 WP Lab artists. The current lab artists are playwrights Donnetta Lavinia Grays, MJ Kaufman, Sylvia Khoury, Zoe Sarnak, and Leah Nanako Winkler; directors Melissa Crespo, Morgan Gould, Ellie Heyman, Tyne Rafaeli, and Mo Zhou; and producers Roxanna Barrios, SallyCade Holmes, Nidia Medina, Laura Ramadei, and Yuvika Tolani.