OLE WHITE SUGAH DADDY
by Obehi Janice
directed by Caitlin Sullivan
in partnership with AYE DEFY
Live Broadcast Reading October 23 8PM ET | Rebroadcasts of recording 10/24–10/27
In Ole White Sugah Daddy, a young Black female coder and MIT grad wrestles with love, identity, and the tension between striving and thriving. Lynne is struggling to get her new app noticed when an unexpected investor appears in the form of an older white man. Set amidst Boston’s startup culture, Ole White Sugah Daddy asks, ‘What do you do when you don’t want the attention you’re getting and you’re not getting the attention you want?’
LOCKDOWN
by WP’s Mellon Playwright In Residence, Cori Thomas
directed by Kent Gash with Lillian Andrea De León, Reynaldo Piniella,Travis Raeburn, Heather Alicia Simms, Keith Randolph Smith
in partnership with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
Live Broadcast Recording December 3 at 7PM ET | Rebroadcasts of recording from 12/4 at 10am ET to 12/7 at 6pm ET
Inspired by her conversations with people serving life sentences at San Quentin Prison, the reading of this searing and beautiful play by Cori Thomas (When January Feels Like Summer) will reunite the cast and director of the acclaimed Rattlestick Playwrights Theater production. Lockdown is an authentic, intimate, and powerful examination of what life in prison is really like, and an exploration of the possibilities for transformation through human connection.
In Ole White Sugah Daddy, a young Black female coder and MIT grad wrestles with love, identity, and the tension between striving and thriving. Lynne is struggling to get her new app noticed when an unexpected investor appears in the form of an older white man. Set amidst Boston’s startup culture, Ole White Sugah Daddy asks, ‘What do you do when you don’t want the attention you’re getting and you’re not getting the attention you want?’
Written by Obehi Janice (Hulu’s Castle Rock) and directed by Caitlin Sullivan (Hundred Days, The Lucky Ones), Ole White Sugah Daddy was originally commissioned by SpeakEasy Stage Company and subsequently developed at SPACE on Ryder Farm, WP Theater, Colt Coeur, The Lark Play Development Center and AYE DEFY. The play was selected to be a part of the 2019 Parity Plays Festival reading series, produced by WP Theater in partnership with Colt Coeur at HERE Arts Center. AYE DEFY, founded by Mirirai Sithole (School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play), has been creating new models of partnering and producing work in the virtual space. Leslie Roth (co-creator of AYE DEFY) produced the July 24th 2020 benefit reading of Ole White Sugah Daddy with this same cast and creative team as part of AYE DEFY’s Kilroys Series.
For more information about AYE DEFY and their work, go to ayedefy.com.
“Lockdown is capaciously compassionate, with excellent performances. A rare night at the theater, and a valuable one.” – The New York Times
“Directed with nuance and empathy by Kent Gash for the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Cori Thomas’s beautifully structured play is a resonant demonstration of the inseparability of the personal from the political. Thomas has a great ear for prison folkways without ever seeming sociological about it.” – The New Yorker
Inspired by her conversations with people serving life sentences at San Quentin Prison, the reading of this searing and beautiful play by Cori Thomas (When January Feels Like Summer) will reunite the cast and director of the acclaimed Rattlestick Playwrights Theater production. Lockdown is an authentic, intimate, and powerful examination of what life in prison is really like, and an exploration of the possibilities for transformation through human connection.
For more information about Rattlestick and their work, go to rattlestick.org/.
PANEL: A conversation responding to LOCKDOWN
Friday, December 4 at 4PM ET
Join playwright Cori Thomas and two incredible social justice activists and writers James King and Robbie Pollock for a discussion about Lockdown and its resonance for those with lived experience with incarceration and the criminal justice system.
Additional Events:
WP Theater and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater are partnering with the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought (CCCCT) on events surrounding Lockdown, including the CCCCT’s Abolition 13/13 project, featuring blog posts written by men at San Quentin who have participated in the writing and research of Lockdown.
The mission of CCCCT is to nourish the critical examination of our present and to achieve a critical praxis for our future. The CCCCT is the home of the Initiative for a Just Society (IJS), and it is a joint project of the Columbia Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Columbia Law School. Professor Bernard E. Harcourt, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, founded the CCCCT in 2014.
In 2021, WP will bring you work that will explode your thinking about how theater happens in virtual space. From an immersive space of virtual healing, to a re-investigation of an Elizabethan play through the lens of gender, to a concert film of a rock opera – 2021 is going to be a blast! Here’s a little something to tantalize you about the projects to come…
THE NOURISH PROJECT
created and directed by Rebecca Martinez
Streaming Event January 25-29
What does it look like to create community in a virtual space? Using a framework built on the five senses and four natural elements, The Nourish Project explores virtual space as a means of soul nourishment and connection.
GALATEA
by MJ Kaufman
directed by Will Davis
presented in collaboration with Red Bull Theater
Live Broadcast Reading March 22
Rebroadcasts of recording 3/23-3/26
A trans love story set against the backdrop of a climate crisis. Loosely based on John Lyly’s 1585 play, Galatea tells the story of two young women from a village threatened with flooding who escape to the nearby woods disguised as boys and fall in love.
WEIGHTLESS
a new rock opera by The Kilbanes
directed by Tamilla Woodard
with support from piece by piece productions
Concert Film Streaming April & May
“Weightless has a well-crafted form, and its spoken dialogue melds beautifully with the propulsive score. Weightless is an accomplished work, and an entertaining one.” -NY Times
“[T]he Kilbanes could fly endlessly into space on a single, hypnotically executed chord… To watch this show is to be reanimated with a childlike sense that our choices have magical origins and magical ripple effects.” -San Francisco Chronicle
Sisterhood. Love. Betrayal. Weightless weaves together ancient myth with evocative indie rock to tell a story of a woman who refuses to be silenced. Inspired by the tale of Procne and Philomela from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Kilbanes have crafted an evening of intimate storytelling infused with the raucous energy of a rock show and the imaginative spirit of experimental theater.
Continuing WP Theater’s mission to foster the next generation of female artists, WP joins Brown University’s Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies in a unique residency for third-year MFA playwrights Julia Izumi and Kyla Searle. As part of the Writing for Performance program at Brown University, this partnership creates a year-long vehicle for professional support and development of these graduating writers’ thesis projects and opportunities for mentorship and collaboration with seasoned actors and directors. The Brown Playwrights at WP residency will culminate in spring 2019 with 29-hour industry readings of Julia Izumi’s (An Audio Guide for) Unsung Snails and Heroes, and Kyla Searle’s Mimi, directed by WP Directors Lab member Sarah Hughes and by Caitlin Sullivan.
This reading series is made possible through support from an endowed fund for the Adele Kellenberg Seaver ’49 Professorship in Literary Arts.
Mimi
by Kyla Searle ’19 MFA
directed by Caitlin Sullivan
Saturday, April 27 at 1pm
Monday, April 29 at 1pm
Eighty-seven year old Mimi has decided to end her life but she doesn’t want to do it alone. Her granddaughter Joi broke up with her girlfriend and now she’s drowning in regret. How do women ask each other for help when they are at their most vulnerable? Taking place against the burning backdrop of the 1980s real estate boom in San Francisco, Mimi confronts the intimacy of pain in the lives of two mischievous women.
(An Audio Guide for) Unsung Snails and Heroes
by Julia Izumi ’19 MFA
directed by Sarah Hughes
Sunday, April 28 at 1pm
Monday, April 29 at 4pm
(An Audio Guide for) Unsung Snails and Heroes is an epic yet personal play about a young girl journeying from Japan to Manchuria to retrieve her deceased father’s bones in 1945, just before the end of World War II. Inspired by a true story from the playwright’s family history, this beguiling play follows an ancestor snail and a self-guided audio tour to excavate the definition of heroism across generations and cultures.
Readings will be at WP’s rehearsal space at 55 West End Ave. (Entrance on W.62nd street)
New York Times – Critic’s Pick! “Highly entertaining—equally funny and scary—the play starts off as a hoot and winds up a primal scream. They’re throwing quite a seance at the McGinn/Cazale Theater.” –Ben Brantley
Time Out – Four Stars! “Just when you think you know where the play is heading, there’s a disorienting coup de théâtre that leaves you shaken. Our Dear Dead Drug Lord isn’t for the faint of heart, but neither is coming of age.” –Raven Snook
In this fierce and feverish world premiere comedy from WP Theater and Second Stage, a gang of teenage girls gathers in an abandoned treehouse to summon the ghost of Pablo Escobar. Are they messing with the actual spirit of the infamous cartel kingpin? Or are they really just messing with each other? A rollercoaster ride through the danger and damage of girlhood – the teenage wasteland has never been so much twisted fun.
Breakout playwright Alexis Scheer joins forces with Whitney White, who “expertly directed” (New York Times) last season’s acclaimed hit What to Send Up When It Goes Down. The cast includes Carmen Berkeley, Alyssa May Gold, Rebecca Jimenez, and Malika Samuel.
Please note: Our Dear Dead Drug Lord contains depictions of graphic physical and sexual violence. Recommended for ages 13+. As sensitivities vary from person to person, if you have specific questions regarding content, please call us at (212) 541-4516.
Fri, Nov 1
Wanna meet Zoom, Pipe, Kit and Squeeze?
Join us on Friday November 1st for a post show talkback with the cast of Our Dear Dead Drug Lord:
Carmen Berkeley, Alyssa May Gold, Rebecca Jimenez and Malika Samuel facilitated by WP Artistic Producer Rachel Karpf.
Join us in the treehouse and stay for a chat with the girl gang of Our Dear Dead Drug Lord!
Thu Oct 10 The American Play: A Conversation About Identity, Art-Making, and a Changing Country Preshow happy hour drink specials and a post-show panel discussion following the 7pm performance, hosted by Latinx Theatre Commons, a national movement launched in 2012 to promote Latinx equity in American theater through convening, scholarship, advocacy, and art. LTC producer Armando Huipe will be joined by Our Dear Dead Drug Lord playwright, Alexis Scheer, Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean at the Yale School of Drama and scholar of Latinx Theater, and other special guests to address the question: What does the American play look like in the 21st century?
Thu Oct 3 The State of Play
Preshow happy hour drink specials and a post-show panel discussion following the 7pm performance will be co-hosted by The Sol Project and North Star Projects. Since its founding in 2016, The Sol Project has been working to fortify a national theater movement that brings Latinx playwrights and their stories to the forefront of the field. In this dynamic conversation, lead by one of The Sol Project founding members, Adriana Gaviria talks with Our Dead Dead Drug Lord playwright Alexis Scheer and other Latinx writers about where and how Latinx narratives are supported, produced, and presented.
“ENCHANTING LYRICS and FLOURISHES OF HUMOR! Where We Stand is a Pied Piper story that doubles as a boldfaced allegory about class and community. It is rich in its language…bouncing with rhyme, alliteration and wordplay.” —The New York Times
“Magical! A charismatic feat! Point-of-the-spear relevance.” —New York Magazine
“Grays is an extraordinary storyteller! Unassumingly spectacular.” —Theatermania
In a town running low on compassion, an exile seeks forgiveness, forcing the community to decide between mercy or justice. A storyteller spins a tale of a lonely soul tempted by the devil’s kindness on a fateful trip to the crossroads. Where We Stand is an epic fable of penance filled with humor, heart, and music. This world premiere production brings together two WP Lab alums: rising-star playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays (Last Night and the Night Before), and director Tamilla Woodard, whose smash hit 3/fifths the New York Times called “extraordinary” and “relentlessly provocative.”
Special Events at Where We Stand
WP Lab Alumni Night February 13, 7p
Black Theater Night February 19, 7p
Post Show Panel Discussion: Performance While Black
Join us for Black Theater Night at WP Theater and a special post show panel discussion hosted by Civic Dramaturg, Producer, and writer Phaedra Michelle Scott in conversation with Where We Stand Playwright and performer, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Where We Stand performer David Ryan Smith, and Playwright (Cullud Wattah, upcoming at The Public) Erika Dickerson-Despenza. As Resident Dramaturg of Black Theater Commons and New Harmony Project, Phaedra leads our panelists and audience in a conversation about theater born out of the black cultural experience and the necessity for racially diverse audiences.
Due to the cancellation of the 2020 Pipeline Festival, we will be highlighting each of the five Pipeline Festival creative teams each week, and the projects they were planning to share onstage in a social effort titled #PipelineOnline from March 26-April 25.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to get up close and personal with the 5 writer/director/producer collaborators of the Pipeline Festival! Follow us to meet the next generation of incredible woman+ theatermakers—you don’t want to miss these superstars! Click here to see more on #PipelineOnline!
About the 2020 Pipeline Festival
Want to catch the best new work by the most exciting new artists in town? Wondering where to meet the next generation of incredible women+ theatermakers? Don’t miss WP’s Pipeline Festival, a unique opportunity to see 5 new plays, created by 5 collaborative teams from WP Theater’s celebrated two-year Lab residency.
WEEK 1: March 26 – March 28, 2020
PHASES OF THE MOON
By Bryna Turner
Directed by Rebecca Martínez
Produced by Stephanie Rolland
Before she mastered the art of losing, the poet Elizabeth Bishop was a socialist vegetarian in a peacoat at Vassar College during the Great Depression. Following “Bishie” and her friends over a single lunar cycle during their senior year, Phases of the Moon begins with a ritual gone awry and asks us to consider what’s real under all the pretending.
WEEK 2: April 2 – April 4, 2020
SANDBLASTED
By Charly Evon Simpson
Directed by Victoria Collado
Produced by Ilana Becker
Angela and Odessa are struggling for survival in a dark present that’s being overtaken by an epidemic affecting only black women. A fabulous wellness celebrity emerges as one who could guide them—if only they trust her and follow her into the shifting sands. Will they find a cure? Can a cure even be found? sandblasted is by turns poetic and absurd; a story of waiting and hoping, and of the meaning of touch.
WEEK 3: April 9 – April 11, 2020
TOBIAS: A NOVEL IN PERFORMANCE
By C. Quintana
Directed by Arpita Mukherjee
Produced by Marie Cisco
Tobias was a real person; far more than just a footnote in one of North America’s earliest-known scandals. TOBIAS: A Novel in Performance is a hybrid theatrical experience, melding the forms of narrative-fiction and playwriting to explore a distinct connection across three backgrounds: Mohawk, African, and Dutch. Tobias, as narrator, leads the audience though a gripping examination of the often-complicated lines between power, sex, and love: both then and now.
WEEK 4: April 16 – April 18, 2020
GRACE, SPONSORED BY MONTEVERDE
By Vanessa Garcia
Directed by Sarah Hughes
Produced by Alyssa Simmons
Catherine is searching for something authentic. Frustrated by her life’s direction and haunted by her annoying ex-husband, she embarks with her f*ckbuddy, Lewis, on a Lewis-and-Clark-esque trip across America sponsored by Monteverde Moonshine. But as Catherine travels the country, posting photos and interviews of people she meets—an immigrant worker, a wayward nun, a queer homeschooled teen—she inadvertently raises more questions than answers: about “the real America,” about her own identity, and about what “authenticity” even means anymore. #ManifestYourDestiny #GraceSponsoredByMonteverde #DrinkandRideResponsibly
WEEK 5: April 23 – April 25, 2020
MY BABY
By Sukari Jones
Directed by Candis C. Jones
Produced by Lucy Jackson
Estelle discovers she cannot be a bone marrow donor for her mother Gladys, who has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Meanwhile, Tinesha is tirelessly searching the universe for her stolen baby. A complicated family drama about mothers, daughters, and the cosmic quests we undertake for the ones we love.
For the third year in a row, WP Theater will team up with Colt Coeur to present their annual Parity Plays Festival, a series of free new play readings by female and trans playwrights and directors highlighting some of the most exciting current plays-in-progress. Previous Parity Plays works have gone on to acclaimed world premiere productions, including WP and Colt Coeur’s own co-production of Rehana Lew Mirza’s Hatef**kin the 2018-19 season.
A darkly hilarious solo tour-de-force where an unnamed woman is forced into her basement when she finds herself in the path of a tornado. Trapped there, she spills over into confession, regret, long-held secrets, and giddy new love. But as the storm approaches, she becomes less and less sure where safety lies — and how best to defy the danger that awaits. Directed by the acclaimed May Adrales (Vietgone at Manhattan Theatre Club), Natural Shocks marks the highly-anticipated New York return of Lauren Gunderson, the most produced female playwright in America today.
In April of 2018, 107 theaters in 45 states, plus the District of Columbia, and 5,000 audience members came together nationwide to hear public readings of Natural Shocks, raising more that $50,000 for charities dedicated to addressing the issues of guns in America. WP is excited to continue this national conversation with the World Premiere of Natural Shocks.
“With a title borrowed from Hamlet and A THEME WRESTED FROM THE HEADLINES, Lauren Gunderson’s new play, directed by May Adrales, stars Pascale Armand as a woman preparing for a tornado that may not be all it seems.”
“HAUNTING! Natural Shocks is a character play — led by a GRADE-A, TONY-NOMINATED actor Pascale Armand! She is warm and charming and the person with whom you’d gladly wait out a storm with a bottle of wine and a game of Monopoly.”
“Lauren Gunderson’s Natural ShocksRAISES IMPORTANT POINTS ABOUT THE NEED TO TAKE ACTION in times of crises. Actor Pascale Armand reveals Angela’s ebullient personality, makes some attempts at jokes, discusses her professional expertise and love of statistics, probability, and dice, then slowly begins to get to the heart of the real imminent danger, recounting memories from her life, confessing her increasing distress and regrets, and exposing the MOMENTOUS SECRETS she’s been hiding. Her performance transitions from the chatty energy of a woman determined to find shelter, to her increasing fear and panic with the realization that she might not, shifting her emotions with the UNEXPECTED TWISTS AND TURNS of the plot.”
“ASTONISHING & HILARIOUS. A perfect storm of timely tragicomedy.” -New York Times
Meet Diane, a permaculture gardener dripping with butch charm. She’s got supernatural abilities owing to her true identity—the Greek god Dionysus—and she’s returned to the modern world to gather mortal followers and restore the Earth to its natural state. Where better to begin than with four housewives in a suburban New Jersey cul-de-sac? Pulitzer Prize finalist Madeleine George pens a hilarious evisceration of the blind eye we all turn to climate change and the bacchanalian catharsis that awaits us, even in our own backyards. Tony nominee Leigh Silverman (WP Theater’s Bright Half Life) directs.
“FANTASTIC, HEARTBREAKING and Dionysus be praised!—it’s a comedy. Hilarious, shattering, and full of keen observation and profound human affection, the play both lifts us up and wrings us out.” -New York Magazine
“BRILLIANTLY IMAGINATIVE! Dionysus never really left us—she’s traveled to New Jersey to save humanity from itself. That’s the starting point of Hurricane Diane, the uproarious queer riff on Euripides’s The Bacchae, a play that was already pretty queer to begin with.” -Theatermania
“Complex and provocative! Fun to watch! ” -Timeout
“Magnetic tension that draws us in!” -Theatermania
“Taut and tart. A smartly and wittily written play!” -News India Times
WP Theater teams up with Colt Coeur to present the world premiere of the 2017 Kilroys List play Hatef**k. Passions ignite when Layla, an intense literature professor, accuses Imran, a brashly iconoclastic novelist, of trading in anti-Muslim stereotypes. But as their attraction grows into something more, they discover that good sex doesn’t always make good bedfellows. Conflicting cultural identities collide in this thornily clever antidote to a “meet-cute” romance, which reunites Heroes stars Kavi Ladnier and Sendhil Ramamurthy. Adrienne Campbell-Holt (WP Theater’s What We’re Up Against) returns to WP Theater to direct this bracinglyinsightful new play by Rehana Lew Mirza.
As part of our “ruby anniversary” season, WP Theater will be launching our Fortieth Anniversary Reading Series to take place this Spring. Past meets present as WP shares staged readings of five extraordinary plays from throughout its history, directed by recent alums and current members of the WP Theater Directors Lab…
Monday, March 25 at 7:00pm
Antigone Project
conceived by Sabrina Peck and Chiori Miyagawa
by Tanya Barfield, Karen Hartman and Chiori Miyagawa, Lynn Nottage and Caridad Svich
directed by Victoria Collado and Rebecca Martinez (2018-2020 WP Lab Directors)
Originally produced in 2004Produced at WP Theater in 2004, Antigone Project is a collection of short plays written by 5 celebrated women playwrights. Inspired by Sophocles’ Antigone, these plays examine moral courage in the face of unbridled power and tackle themes of civic, state and familial responsibility through the lens of one of dramatic literatures most well known heroines.
Monday, April 1 at 7:00pm
Still Life
by Emily Mann
directed by Arpita Mukherjee (2018-2020 WP Lab Director)
Originally produced in 1981
First produced at WP Theater in the 1980 season, Emily Mann’s Still Life went on to win the Obie for Best Production. Inspired by interviews Mann conducted at the conclusion of the Vietnam War, Still Life remains a layered masterpiece and potent interrogation of love, family, home and war as seen through the intertwined lens of a Combat Veteran, his wife and his Mistress.
Monday, April 22 at 8:00pm
Abingdon Square
by María Irene Fornés
directed by Melissa Crespo (2016-2018 WP Lab Director)
Originally produced in 1987
María Irene Fornés’ Abingdon Square, first produced by WP Theater in 1987, remains a relevant exploration of passions that erupt from a marriage between a young girl and an older man. Set in pre-WW1 Greenwich Village, this play exhibits a rich and incisive study of a young woman’s sexuality.
Friday, April 26 at 7:00pm
Aye Aye Aye I’m Integrated
by Anna Deavere Smith
Originally produced in 1984
&
Chain
by Pearl S. Cleage
Originally produced in 1992
In a reading of their little known short plays, Anna Deavere Smith’s Aye, Aye, Aye, I’m intergrated and Pearl Cleage’s Chain, one evening will celebrate the voices of two powerful African American Women of the theater.
Friday, May 3 at 7:00pm
The Exact Center of Universe
by Joan Vail Thorne
directed by Sarah Krohn (2014-2016 WP Lab Director)
Originally Produced in 1999
“I never interfere! I intervene!” insists Vada Love Powell – Southern doyenne, adoring mother, and force of nature. Vada’s small-town universe is shaken to its core when her devoted son Apple follows his heart instead of mother’s expectations. Gossip whirls, barbs fly, and secrets emerge in this comedy, first produced at WP Theater in 1999, about a mother, a son, and the woman who dares come between them.
The Parity Play readings are free and open to the public.
All readings will take place at HERE Arts Center.
For the second year in a row, WP Theater will team up with Colt Coeur to present their annual Parity Plays Festival, a series of new play readings by female and trans playwrights and directors. Inspired by advocacy groups like #MakeItFair, The Kilroys and The Lilly Awards, WP Theater and Colt Coeur are committed to the promotion of gender parity in programming, staffing, and representation within theatrical narratives.
February 1 at 4:00pm
Love
by Kate Cortesi
directed by Jenna Worsham
Five former employees. One great love. Thorny, uncomfortable, funny and surprising (and… sexy?) LOVE asks what accountability looks like when an abuser of power is one of our favorite men of all time and dares us to get to the other side of accountability and hashtags together.
February 2 at 4:00pm
Ole White Sugah Daddy
by Obehi Janice
directed by Caitlin Sullivan
A young Black female coder wrestles with love, identity and the tension between striving and thriving as she tries to get her startup off the ground. How can you fully be yourself in spaces where no one can see all the sides of you?
February 8 at 4:00pm
(w)holeness
by Lily Padilla
directed by Orion S. Johnstone
A diverse support group for sex and love addicts meets weekly to “heal in community.” Every Monday at group, they breathe in, breathe out, and try to love in a world that’s taught them hate – especially the kind turned inward. But is communal healing possible when each person carries different wounds, legacies and privileges?
February 9 at 4:00pm
The Place Women Go
by Sylvia Khoury (2016-18 WP Lab Alum)
directed by Maggie Burrows
Late at night in a Texas immigration detention center, three Guatemalan mothers keep watchful eyes on their sleeping children. Tomorrow, they must face the immigration judges, who will grant or deny them asylum in America. In THE PLACE WOMEN GO, these mothers quietly rehearse the stories of their trauma to make them palatable and convincing, while encountering new, daily traumas within the detention center itself.
“ASTONISHING & HILARIOUS. A perfect storm of timely tragicomedy.” -New York Times
