Discussing American Conservatory Theater’s 2024-25 season, Creative Director Pam MacKinnon stored utilizing variants of the phrase “see anew.”
The seven-show lineup, which the 59-year-old firm revealed Friday, March 22, opens on the Toni Rembe Theater with a remade traditional: Noël Coward’s “Personal Lives” (Sept. 12-Oct. 6), a few divorced couple who discover out they’re honeymooning with new spouses in neighboring resort rooms, however set in Argentina within the Thirties. Director KJ Sanchez’s reenvisioning, MacKinnon mentioned, “takes it out of the anticipated upper-class British blah-blah-blah,” lacing Coward’s trademark effervescent banter with tango.
Now that the corporate has retired its long-running “A Christmas Carol,” the vacation season brings one other probability to take a look at the previous with recent eyes. The world premiere of “A Whynot Christmas Carol” (Nov. 26-Dec. 24), written by Craig Lucas (“Prelude to a Kiss”), is a backstage drama a few small-town manufacturing of “A Christmas Carol.” MacKinnon, who directs, intends it to return for a number of seasons as a brand new vacation custom. The Dickens novella, MacKinnon famous, “is fairly devoid of humor,” whereas Lucas’ putting-on-a-show hijinks leaven the solemnity of the play-within-a-play.
“We see this group of theater makers who don’t even essentially like one another, can’t abide one another, however they’ve dedicated to a mission collectively, they usually learn to discuss throughout the aisle,” MacKinnon mentioned.
Then 2025 ushers within the musical comedy “No one Loves You” (Feb. 28-March 30) by Itamar Moses (“The Band’s Go to”) and Gaby Alter, who each grew up in Berkeley. MacKinnon, who directs, is working with the writers to replace the 11-year-old piece, a few actuality courting present, each to raised replicate how actuality TV has solely change into extra prevalent since then and to acknowledge the methods so many filter their love lives via screens now, because of courting apps.
“You don’t need to be a contestant on a actuality TV present to be mediating your private life, and what’s the price of that?” MacKinnon mentioned. (“Huge Information,” directed by MacKinnon and probably the most provocative productions within the Bay Space this 12 months, addressed associated issues.) “It additionally explores the notion: Are you able to be genuine if you’re performing?”
The season continues with two performs carried out in repertory, by the identical solid, hearkening again to ACT’s early years when a single actor would possibly carry out vastly totally different characters in separate reveals in the identical day.
A part of August Wilson’s Century Cycle of 10 performs chronicling African American life all through the twentieth century, “Two Trains Working,” directed by Lili-Anne Brown, is about in 1969 in a Pittsburgh Hill District restaurant slated for demolition. William Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors,” directed by Devin Mind, mines its state of affairs — two units of equivalent twins separated at beginning — for slapstick and mistaken identities. The 2 productions alternate performances April 15-Could 4 on the Toni Rembe Theater.
Subsequent up is the world premiere of hip-hop musical “Co-Founders” (Could 29-July 6) by the Bay Space’s personal Ryan Nicole Austin, Beau Lewis and Adesha Adefela, whom ACT supported with what MacKinnon known as a “ending fee” to finish the piece. Celebrating the East Bay, it juxtaposes techies who’re firmly ensconced within the trade with Esata, who has to claw her means in.
“It’s concerning the pressures of the Bay,” MacKinnon defined, “whether or not these are self-imposed or whether or not these are imposed on you.”
The season closes with “Kim’s Comfort” (Sept. 18-Oct. 19), starring playwright Ins Choi within the title position on the Toni Rembe Theater. Earlier than it grew to become a success sitcom on CBS, the stage model — concerning the generational battle between immigrant mother and father and their Western-born kids, all towards the backdrop of a fluorescent-lit comfort retailer — was a breakout star of the 2011 Toronto Fringe Competition.
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Attain Lily Janiak: [email protected]
