School of Theatre Embraces a Season of New Work

School of Theatre’s Fall 2020 season consisted of entirely new works produced in a workshop-style format. Catch a glimpse of the works below, and stay tuned for news about what’s on the horizon for Spring 2021!

are you ready to smash white things?

are you ready to smash white things? is a break-beat Memory play about another mad woman locked away in an attic. As her Father the Doctor’s party rages on downstairs, we explore the inner-workings of her blood and the story behind each vessel. We are introduced to Esther and her hyper-poetic reality’s displacement at The Party.

Written by Ireon Roach and directed by Tatianna Jackson. Find the creative team, design team, and cast here.

honeyhole

Adapted from the myth of Icarus and set in a small town in South Georgia in the hotsweatyheat of a southern summer, honeyhole follows a young queer beauty queen’s journey with self-realization, first love, and her desire to fly away. When new-girl Ellis arrives in town, Lou begins to realize that the thing her mama has always thought would be her ticket to a bigger life outside of a few-stoplight-gossipy-sorta-town, might just be the thing that’s holding her back from becoming who she is, who she wants to be, and what she dreams of doing: hiking the Appalachian Trail like her father once did.

Playwright: Erin Davis. Director: Leila Ghaemi. See full credits here.

Jamal the Black Boy Werewolf

Jamal Cooper-Harris is just an average almost 13 year old, or so he thinks. When Jamal and his dads hit a wolf one night, everything begins to change. He starts having weird dreams about discovering blackness. But the very blackness that was becoming beautiful in Jamal’s young mind, now is being turned monstrous by those who surround him, and so is he. Jamal The Black Boy Werewolf is a story of how white people go above and beyond to see the monster in us, but the most grotesque monster of all is white supremacy.

An audio-musical comedy about race, ages 12 and up. Playwright: Khadija Bangoura. Director: Julia Ty Goldberg. See full credits here.

Pride And Pride And Pride And

“I want a Pride and Prejudice about how women can be dragons, and soft blankets, and cunning foxes, and cups of tea that never cool down. A Pride and Prejudice where women can be all of these things at once.”

For my entire existence, Elizabeth Bennet has been lauded as the feminist icon that predates feminist icons. But is she truly reflective of all the steps the world has made? And if she’s not, how much can a playwright do to bend and break a story till it loves them back?

Written by Mckayla Witt and directed by Emily Trantanella. See full creative team and cast here.

Welcome Home

Welcome Home is set in a suburban American Town in the midst of the Gore/Bush election in the fall of 2000. The story follows, Emery, a woman returning home early after a difficult first semester of college and her family, who she has not communicated with since leaving for school. As the group reconnects, Emery confronts the secrets she has hidden, her aging family, and specifically her relationship with her very strict yet supportive father. In Welcome Home, Emery comes face to face with people who once loved and idolized her, who now find her unrecognizable. Over the course of one night, she learns what it takes to grow up. What is means to be independent, take responsibility, and the ridiculousness of rules.

Playwright: Becca Freeman. Director: Sam Theobald.  See full creative team and cast here.

Wheelock Family Theatre co-production: Make Way For Ducklings 

Co-commissioned by Adventure Theatre, MTC (Glen Echo, MD) and Wheelock Family Theatre (Boston, MA) this virtual workshop of the new musical adaptation of the classic children’s book by Robert McCloskey will be shared with audiences and creatives of both theatres. On a quest for a home for their new duckling brood, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard visit one Boston landmark after another. Together, they teach their ducklings how to live in harmony with the humans of Boston Public Garden and be kind.

Written by Michael Bobbit & Sandra B. Eskin with Music & Lyrics by William Yanesh. Directed by Emily Ranii with Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez. See full credits here and read more in this BU Today feature!

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre co-production: BEASTS

BEASTS is a character driven play that explores the chaos of American womanhood through the dark underbelly of a relationship between Fran, a pregnant suburbanite and her older sister Judy, an irreverent artist with a propensity for disruption. When Judy hears that Fran’s husband, Jim is on a business trip she decides to pay Fran a visit. The friction between these siblings is palpable and continues to intensify as Judy unearths confounding secrets and infringes upon the relationship that Fran has with her Doula, Amelia, an elitist earth mama who’s been Fran’s only female friend since relocating back East. The world of the play begins in realism and ends in magical realism; as their environment starts to mirror the anarchy of their psychological labyrinthine world: a giant tree falls in the middle of the living room, the walls of the house cave in, raging wolves howl in the distance. Form and logic disintegrate into another realm as Fran and Judy unwittingly fight through pain to arrive at a moment of love which is devitalized when Jim returns home.

Director: Kelly Galvin, Assistant Director: Kevin Bradley. Playwright: Cayenne Douglas. Full credits here.

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre co-production: Gone Nowhere

At an old cabin in rural Minnesota, something is lurking in the corn.  In the wake of his father’s death, straight-laced Riley has left his fiancee and the big city behind to search for peace by visiting his old friend.  Luckily Hunter knows the cure for grief — old stories, the great outdoors, and plenty of beers.  But soon, it becomes clear that Hunter is running from his own demons, and no one will be spared a battle.  They spiral through a reckoning of biblical proportions, and neither of them will emerge as the same man, if they make it out at all. They’re running from society, but something between them can’t be outrun.

Directed by Noah Putterman, written by Daniel C. Blanda. Full credits here.

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre co-production: Lorena

A Tabloid Epic spins out of the media hailstorm surrounding Lorena Bobbitt, who became a sensation after she used a kitchen knife to cut off her abusive husband’s penis in 1993. The tacky dystopia of American pop culture tumbles onto the stage in a series of funhouse vignettes that know no bounds, while The Playwright desperately tries to protect Lorena from the play which has clearly gotten out of her control. Then, a twist ending re-contextualizes Lorena’s outsized epic through the lens of a quieter sexual assault story that’s all too common. LORENA merges the personal with the political to reckon with our cultural sins, and bring Lorena’s story into the present day.

Director: Erica Terpening-Romeo, Playwright: Eliana Pipes. Find the creative team, design team, and cast here.

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre co-production: Rx Machina

Rx Machina unpacks big pharma’s impact on everyday American culture and illuminates the search for humanity in a healthcare system that views patients as consumers and pain as profitable. An ambitious pharmaceutical sales representative’s relentless pursuit of a rigidly principled pain management doctor leads to an intoxicating, forbidden relationship that comes with a cost. Ethical boundaries are blurred in a literal manifestation of doctors being in bed with drug reps that forms a love triangle fueled by money, sex, and power. Set in 2010, right before the second wave of the opioid epidemic that created the landscape of widespread addiction we know it as today, Rx Machina explores who gets to get better and who gets left behind.

Directed by Blair Cadden. Written by Caity-Shea Violette. Full credits here.

InMotion Theatre: The Poets

This fall, InMotion Theatre presented The Poets, a physical response to Nino Rota’s acclaimed score of Federico Fellini’s masterpiece La Strada, as well as other numerous acclaimed compositions from his repertoire.

The story told through the eyes of clowns, will highlight how movement — through various theatrical forms and approaches — can convey what it means to be human and find true love— in and toward life.

Conceived, written, and directed by Yo-EL Cassell. See full credits here.

Design Intensives

The Design Intensives provided opportunities for a team of designers to explore a piece, chosen by the collaborative, thoroughly in all of its aspects and do all the necessary work needed by each individual to evolve into a fully involved participant in a collaborative project.

Five collaboratives, made up of a Scenic, Costume, Lighting and Sound designer, were mentored by a practicing theatre professional from outside of the School of Theatre. The Collaborative along with their mentor created a project that the group, through discussion, spent the semester investigating and working on. The projects could involve an existing play, text of some sort, or piece of literature, as well as something devised by the students. The work chosen must have value and meaning for all participants involved, and reflect upon, examine or reveal something vital for a current audience. Final projects include: Sonderous Stories and The Kids Table.

See the design groups here.

Turn Table Project – Design Works by Hand

The Turn Table Projects challenged the craft and skill of the D&P students, designed especially for them by their primary advisor. These projects may or may not intersect with any of the above projects.

For example, some of the scenes from the new plays or moments of projects could perform on the turntable above for a “short-showing.”

See the complete list of designers here.

Aurora Borealis

Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre, in collaboration with the Department of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, presents the 19th annual Aurora Borealis: A Festival of Light and Dance. Aurora Borealis is a vibrant exploration of the relationship between light and form with a focus on collaboration and experimentation, featuring dance and movement pieces by faculty and students.

Co-Artistic Directors: Micki Taylor-Pinney and Yo-EL Cassell. Lighting Designers Kevin Dunn and Maximilian Wallace. Sound Design: Jennie Gorn.

Alternative R&P Projects

Sea Wall is a delicate monologue, completely devastating and beautifully powerful. Alex’s story, spoken directly to the audience, begins full of clear light and smiles, as he speaks about his wife, visiting her father in the South of France, having a daughter, photography, and the bottom of the sea. His tone is natural, happy and engaging, with flickers of questions about belief and religion glimpsed under the surface. But his contentment falls away into deep and heart-breaking grief, crumbling to pieces with a vividness that is incredibly moving.

Playwright: Simon Stephens. Alex: Liam Krikov. Project Advisor: Christine Hamel.

Sophomore Acting Project: Stop Kiss