A World Premiere Play, a New Bilingual Musical & More Join Atlantic Theater Company 2023-2024 Season

Atlantic Theater Company has revealed additional productions for its 2023-2024 season.

 

In addition to Infinite Life and Buena Vista Social Club™, Atlantic’s 2023-2024 season will include the American premiere of Lucy Kirkwood’s The Welkin, directed by Sarah Benson; the world premiere play What Became of Us written by Shayan Lotfi; and a new bi-lingual musical El Otro Oz, by Mando Alvarado, Jaime Lozano, and Tommy Newman, directed by Melissa Crespo for Atlantic for Kids.

 

ATLANTIC THEATER COMPANY 2023-2024 SEASON 

 

World Premiere Play
 

INFINITE LIFE

Written by Annie Baker
Directed by James Macdonald

Linda Gross Theater
August 18 – October 8, 2023
Opening: Tuesday, September 12, 2023

 

Five women in Northern California sit outside on chaise lounges and philosophize. A surprisingly funny inquiry into the complexity of suffering, and what it means to desire in a body that’s failing you.

 

The cast of Infinite Life will feature Marylouise Burke (True West), Mia Katigbak (Scenes From a Marriage), Christina Kirk (Clybourne Park), Kristine Nielsen (Tony Award nominee, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike), Brenda Pressley (The Lyons), and Pete Simpson (Is This a Room).  

 

Infinite Life will feature sets by dots, costumes by Ásta Bennie Hostetter, lighting by Isabella Byrd, sound by Bray Poor, makeup, hair & special effects by Alfreda "Fre" Howard, props by Noah Mease, and casting by Caparelliotis Casting, Dave Caparelliotis, CSA, Joseph Geary, CSA. Laura Smith will serve as production stage manager. 

 

World Premiere Musical
 

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB™

Book by Marco Ramirez

Music by the Grammy Award winning Buena Vista Social Club

Music produced by David Yazbek

Choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck

Directed by Saheem Ali

November 17 – December 31, 2023
Opening: Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Directed by Tony Award nominee Saheem Ali (Fat Ham), this story of the legendary artists who recorded the album features the soul-stirring music of Cuba’s golden age, with a book by Marco Ramirez (Drama Desk Award winner, The Royale), choreography by Patricia Delgado and Tony Award winner Justin Peck (Carousel, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story) and a music team led by Tony Award winner David Yazbek (The Band’s Visit).

Buena Vista Social Club™ will feature sets by Arnulfo Maldonado, costumes by Dede Ayite, lighting by Tyler Micoleau, sound by Jonathan Deans, music supervisor Dean Sharenow, music director Marco Paguia, and casting by Tara Rubin Casting, Xavier Rubiano, CSA. Amanda Michaels will serve as production stage manager.

 

American Premiere Play
 

THE WELKIN

Written by Lucy Kirkwood
Directed by Sarah Benson

Linda Gross Theater
May 16 – June 30, 2024

Opening: Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Rural England, 1759. As the country awaits the return of Halley's comet, a young woman is sentenced to death. When she tries to escape the noose by claiming she is pregnant, twelve ordinary women are gathered to decide whether she is telling the truth. A dark, fierce, funny play about democracy and housework.

Atlantic is thrilled to welcome Tony Award nominee Lucy Kirkwood (The Children) alongside Obie Award winning director Sarah Benson (Fairview).

The Welkin is made possible by a generous grant from The Roy Cockrum Foundation.

 

World Premiere Play
 

WHAT BECAME OF US

Written by Shayan Lotfi

Atlantic Stage 2
May – June 2024
Opening: TBA

 

Two siblings.

One born there. One born here.

How do they maintain their connections to The Old Country, and to This Country, and to each other?

 

Atlantic is thrilled to welcome back Shayan Lotfi (First Gen MixFest 2022) for his Off-Broadway debut. A director will be announced at a later date.

 

ATLANTIC FOR KIDS

New Bi-lingual Musical

EL OTRO OZ

Book by Mando Alvarado and Tommy Newman

Music & Lyrics by Jaime Lozano and Tommy Newman

Directed by Melissa Crespo

Atlantic Stage 2

January 13 – February 18, 2024

 

Click your heels together tres veces and take a transformative journey with this salsa, merengue, and Mexican folk-infused musical inspired by The Wizard of Oz. As her fifteenth birthday approaches, Dora, a contemporary Latiné teenager, struggles with her family’s ideas about tradition and dreads her impending quinceañera! But, when Dora gets swept away to a strange new land, she learns how to celebrate her unique rhythm and embrace her cultural identity.

 

El Otro Oz was originally commissioned, developed, and produced by TheaterWorksUSA (Barbara Pasternack, Artistic Director; Michael Harrington, Executive Director).

  

 

BIOGRAPHIES

INFINITE LIFE

 

Annie Baker (Playwright). Annie's other plays include The Antipodes (Signature Theatre, National Theatre), John (Signature Theatre, National Theatre, Obie Award), The Flick (Playwrights Horizons, Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Obie Award for Playwriting, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons, Obie Award for Best New American Play, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Aliens (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Obie Award for Best New American Play); Body Awareness (Atlantic Theater Company, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play/Emerging Playwright); and an adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (Soho Rep, Drama Desk nomination for Best Revival), for which she also designed the costumes. Other honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Steinberg Playwriting Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and the Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library. She is Associate Professor of Practice at the MFA in Playwriting Program at the University of Texas, Austin, and wrote and directed the upcoming film Janet Planet for A24 and BBC Film.

 

James Macdonald (Director). New York: True West (Roundabout Theater); The Children, Top Girls (MTC/Broadway); Escaped Alone (BAM); Cloud Nine (Atlantic Theater); Love and Information (Minetta Lane/NYTW, Obie Award); c*ck(2010 Olivier Award, 2013 Lucille Lortel Award); King Lear, Book of Grace, Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (Public Theater); Dying City (Lincoln Center); A Number (NYTW); 4.48 Psychosis (St. Ann’s Warehouse). Recent London work: What If If Only, One For Sorrow, The Children, Escaped Alone, The Wolf From the Door, Circle Mirror Transformation (Royal Court); The Welkin, John, Dido Queen of Carthage, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, Exiles (National Theatre); Night of the Iguana, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Father, Glengarry Glen Ross (West End); Bakkhai, A Delicate Balance, Judgment Day (Almeida); A Doll’s House Part Two, The Way of the World, Roots (Donmar). Film: Caryl Churchill’s A Number for HBO/BBC.

 

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB™

 

Marco Ramirez (Book). Marco’s play, The Royale, was produced at Lincoln Center in 2016 under the direction of Rachel Chavkin. It was honored with Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and the play has received over thirty subsequent productions. He's a proud Cuban American, NYU graduate, and a former Juilliard Playwriting fellow. In television, he’s a WGA and Emmy Award-nominated writer, with credits that include “Sons of Anarchy,” “Orange is the New Black,” “Daredevil,” and the upcoming “La Máquina,” starring Gael García Bernal and Luna/">Diego Luna.

 

Saheem Ali (Director) is a proud immigrant from Kenya. He received a Tony Award nomination for directing the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fat Ham on Broadway, the 2023 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Directing, as well as Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel nominations for Fat Ham’s Off-Broadway run at The Public Theater, where he serves as the Associate Artistic Director/Resident Director. His production of Merry Wives (Shakespeare in the Park) was recorded for PBS Great Performances and was the subject of the documentary Reopening Night (HBO Max). Recent productions include Goddess (Berkeley Rep), Nollywood Dreams (MCC), Romeo y Julieta, Shipwreck and Richard II (radio plays). Other productions: Fires in The Mirror(Signature Theater), The Rolling Stone (Lincoln Center Theater), Passage (Soho Rep), Fireflies (Atlantic Theater Company), Sugar In Our Wounds (MTC), Tartuffe (Playmakers Rep), Where Storms Are Born (WTF), and Kill Move Paradise (National Black Theater). He is a Usual Suspect at New York Theater Workshop, a Sir John Gielgud SDCF Fellow, and a Shubert Fellow.

 

David Yazbek (Music Producer). A varied career as a recording artist, Emmy Award-winning TV and screenwriter, music producer, and pianist has somehow led Yazbek to become one of Broadway’s preeminent composer/lyricists. The Band’s Visit earned him a Tony Award, Obie, New York Drama Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle and two Drama Desk awards. The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Tootsie have received a combined 35 Tony Award nominations, including four for Best Score. As a recording artist, Yazbek is responsible for five albums: The Laughing Man, Tock, Damascus, Tape Recorder and Evil Monkey Man. He has written and/or produced for such acts as XTC, Ruben Blades, The Persuasions, Joe Jackson, Tito Puente and many others. He also produced the original cast albums of his Broadway shows. He has three Grammy Award® nominations. In recent years, he has scored the final season of HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire,” composed music for Larry David’s Fish in the Dark and written songs and music for Much Ado About Nothing at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, all while opening productions of Scoundrels and Women on the Verge in London’s West End. In past lives, he has written dozens of scripts and many songs for television and film, won an Emmy Award® for his stint on “Late Night with David Letterman” and wrote the unrelenting theme song for “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?”

 

Patricia Delgado (Co-Choreographer), Cuban-American, born in Miami, Florida was a principal dancer with the Miami City Ballet, where she performed works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, among others as well as the classical works, Coppelia, Giselle, and Don Quixote, and the role of Juliet in John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet. She has created feature works with choreographers Alexei Ratmansky, Justin Peck, Pam Tanowitz, Jamar Roberts, John Heginbotham, among others. She performed in the musical Brigadoon, directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon at Encores! She starred in the music video “The Dark Side of the Gym” for The National and has appeared as a guest performer on “The Tonight Show”. As a repetiteur for Justin Peck, she staged In Creases on Boston Ballet, Ballet Arizona, and for members of ABT and Heatscape in Dresden, at the Semperoper Ballett. She is the Associate Choreographer on Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. She was an Associate Producer on the 2020 Broadway revival of West Side Story. She is a member of the dance faculty at The Juilliard School and Artistic Advisor of Adriana Pierce’s Queer The Ballet.

 

Justin Peck (Co-Choreographer) is a Tony Award winning choreographer, director, filmmaker, and dancer based in New York City. He is currently the acting Resident Choreographer of New York City Ballet. Justin choreographed the 2018 Broadway revival of Carousel. In 2014, Justin was the subject of the documentary BALLET 422, which presents Justin’s craft and creative process as a choreographer, as he creates New York City Ballet’s 422nd commissioned dance. Peck choreographed the feature films Red Sparrow (2016) starring Jennifer Lawrence and directed by Francis Lawrence; West Side Story (2021) in collaboration with director Steven Spielberg; and Maestro (2022) in collaboration with Bradley Cooper. In 2018, Justin directed the New York Times GREAT PERFORMERS Series. Justin’s honors include: the National Arts Award (2018), the Golden Plate Honor from the Academy of Achievement (2019), the Bessie Award for his ballet Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes (2015), the Gross Family Prize for his ballet Everywhere We Go (2014), the World Choreography Award for West Side Story (2022), and the Tony Award for his work on Broadway’s Carousel (2018).

 

 

WHAT BECAME OF US

 

SHAYAN LOTFI (Playwright) is a writer whose work has been developed and presented at Atlantic Theater Company, Roundabout Theatre, South Coast Repertory, The Lark, and Boston Court. He is a member playwright at New Dramatists, has been a member of The Working Farm Writers’ Group at SPACE on Ryder Farm, and Page 73’s I-73 Writers Group. He has held residencies at MacDowell, Millay, and Marble House, and is currently under commission from Atlantic Theater Company and South Coast Repertory. 

 

 

THE WELKIN

 

Lucy Kirkwood (Playwright). Theatre includes: Rapture (Advertised as That Is Not Who I Am), Maryland, The Children, NSFW (Royal Court); Like Rabbits (Brighton Festival); Chimerica (Almeida/Headlong/West End); Hansel & Gretel, Beauty & The Beast (National); Housekeeping (Theatre Uncut/Southwark/Latitude); Small Hours (Hampstead); Bloody Wimmin (Tricycle); It Felt Empty When the Heart Went at First But it is Alright Now (Clean Break/Arcola); Psychogeography, Guns or Butter (Union); Tinderbox (Bush); Hedda (Gate). Awards include: Olivier Award for Best New Play (Chimerica); Evening Standard Award for Best New Play (Chimerica); Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (Chimerica).
 

Sarah Benson (Director) is an Obie award-winning theater director based in New York City. Recent credits include: Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview (Soho Rep, TFANA & Berkeley Rep) the play won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Benson was nominated for a Drama Desk for direction; Suzan-Lori Parks’ In The Blood (Signature Theater). At Soho Rep: Richard Maxwell’s Samara with music by Steve Earle; César Alvarez and The Lisps’ Futurity (ART, Walker Arts Center and in New York with Ars Nova) Callaway Award; Lortel Award for Best Musical; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins An Octoroon (Soho Rep & TFANA); Lucas Hnath’s A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney; Sarah Kane’s Blasted (OBIE award, Drama Desk nomination); David Adjmi’s Elective Affinities featuring Zoe Caldwell (site-specific). Benson also directed the award-winning Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical (Townhall) for the 2019 Super bowl. Upcoming: César Alvarez’s Noise. Benson is a Vilcek Foundation awardee and moved to New York from London on a Fulbright. Benson served as an Artistic Director of Soho Rep from 2008 to 2023; during her tenure the theater garnered fifteen OBIE Awards and the Drama Desk Award for Sustained Artistic Excellence.

 

THE Roy Cockrum FOUNDATION (Production Support). Founded in 2014 by Roy Cockrum and Benita Hofstetter Koman with winnings from Mr. Cockrum’s Powerball lottery jackpot, the Foundation’s mission is to award grants to support world-class performing arts projects in not-for-profit professional theatres throughout America. Since 2014, 38 flagship American theatres and performing arts organizations have received major grants from the Foundation. Inspiration for its mission derives from a Camus quote: “Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.” ― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays.

 

 

EL OTRO OZ

Mando Alvarado (Book) is an award-winning playwright/screenwriter from Pharr, Texas. His play Living and Breathingmade its world premiere at Two River Theater in New Jersey. His play Parachute Men had its world premiere at the Victory Gardens Theater with Teatro Vista. His plays Basilica and Post No Bills received their Off-Broadway premieres at RattlestickPlaywright's Theater. He was a Co-EP on "Iron Mike" for HULU and a Consulting Producer on "Washington Black" for HULU. He's written on "Brande New Cherry Flavor," "Vida," "Greenleaf," and was a Co-Producer for "Seven Seconds". His first feature film, Cruzando, which he co-wrote and co-directed with Michael Ray Escamilla is available on Amazon. He is an alum of INTAR’s Hispanic-Playwright-in-Residence Laborator and a graduate of The University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

 

Jaime Lozano (Music & Lyrics) is a Mexican multi-hyphenate musical theatre storyteller considered by Lin-Manuel Miranda as the “next big thing” on Broadway. American Theatre Wing’s Jonathan Larson Grant 2022. Joe’s Pub Working Group 2020-2022. The Civilians R&D Group 2020-2021. JACK Resident Artist 2021. Selected works: El Otro Oz -formerly The Yellow Brick Road- (Off-Broadway & National Tour), Carmen La Cubana (European Tour), Children of Salt (NYMF 2016 “Best of Fest” Production), A Never-Ending Line (Comédie Nation in Paris, France & Off-Broadway), Savage (UAB at Birmingham), Present Perfect (Live & In Color), Desaparecidas (JACK). Albums: “A Never-Ending Line,” “Jaime Lozano and the Familia: Songs by an Immigrant” released by Broadway Records. Film: In The Heights (orchestrations), Tick, Tick… Boom! (cameo in Broadway composers scene). His project Jaime Lozano & The Familia has performed sold out concerts at venues such as Joe’s Pub, 54 Below, The Green Room 42, Two River Theater, and more recently as part of the prestigious Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series. Currently working on: “Songs by an Immigrant Vol. 2,” “Broadway en Spanglish,” and Frida, The Musical. BFA: Music & Composition, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León; MFA: NYU/Tisch, Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program (Full Tuition Scholarship); part of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America, AFM Local 802, BMI and GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY member. 

Tommy Newman (Book, Music & Lyrics) is a published playwright, composer, and lyricist and a 2013 ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award Winner. Three of his shows have participated in the annual NAMT Festival in New York. He is a recipient of an Anna Sosenko Assist Trust Grant, and a 2014 Kennedy Center ACTF National Musical Theatre Award Winner. Productions include: Band Geeks! (Published by MTI, Goodspeed Musicals, NAMT Fest '09). The Single Girl's Guide with Gordon Greenberg, (Capital Repertory Theatre and NAMT Fest '13). Tinyard Hill with Mark Allen (Theatreworks Silicon Valley, NAMT Fest ‘07). Off-Broadway: We the People: America Rocks (Theatreworks, USA, NY Times Critic Pick, Lortel Nomination 2010), El Otro Oz with Jaime Lozano (Theatreworks, USA, NY Times Critic Pick), "29" with Gaby Alter (NYU Steinhart); The Teacher from the Black Lagoon and Other Stories (Theatreworks, USA). Recent works include: With Bells On (world premiere Theatre Network, Christmas 2023 in Edmonton, Canada— created with Dev Janki and Darrin Hagen, developed with Live and In Color), Savage (created with Karla Koskinen, Quinton Cockrell, and Jaime Lozano, commissioned by UAB), and Jenny's Damned Ex(with Jessica Mazaheri). Tommy Newman is a professor of playwriting and musical theatre performance at Troy University. http://www.tommynewman.com.

 

Melissa Crespo (Director) is a multi-hyphenate theater maker based in NYC. As a director, she has made a career of developing new plays, musicals, and opera around the country and abroad. Favorite credits include: Bees and Honey by Guadalis Del Carmen (MCC Theater), Espejos: Clean by Christine Quintana (Hartford Stage & Syracuse Stage), and form of a girl unknown by Charly Evon Simpson (Salt Lake Acting Company). As a playwright, her play Egress co-written with Sarah Saltwick, had a world premiere at Amphibian Stage and won the Roe Green Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting at Cleveland Playhouse. As a producer, she is one of the Founding Editors of 3Views on Theater, an online publication conceived by The Lillys. Fellowships and residencies include: Time Warner Fellow (WP Theatre), Usual Suspect (NYTW), The Director’s Project (Drama League), Van Lier Directing Fellow (Second Stage Theatre), and the Allen Lee Hughes Directing Fellow (Arena Stage). Melissa received her M.F.A. in directing from The New School for Drama and she is currently the Associate Artistic Director of Syracuse Stage. https://www.melissacrespo.com

 

ATLANTIC THEATER COMPANY 

(Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Jeffory Lawson, Managing Director). At Atlantic, our aim is singular—to empower simple and honest storytelling that fosters greater understanding of our shared world. We are a family of artists dedicated to exploring essential truths onstage, be it a show at Atlantic Theater Company or a class at Atlantic Acting School. As a producer, presenter, and educator of theater, we are driven by the belief that theater can challenge and transform our ways of thinking and urge us to reflect on our role in society. From our Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning productions to our community-based education programs, we are committed to uncovering and celebrating the stories of our varied human existence. Founded as an ensemble of impassioned artists in 1985, Atlantic Theater Company has grown into a powerhouse Off-Broadway company. We challenge, inspire, and awaken audiences with truthful storytelling presented across our two venues, the Linda Gross Theater and the intimate Stage 2 black-box. As a producer of compelling new works, we are committed to championing the stories from new and established artists alike, amplifying the voices of emerging playwrights through our deeply collaborative programs and initiatives. We have produced more than 200 plays and musicals including Tony Award-winning productions of Kimberly Akimbo (David Lindsay-Abaire, Jeanine Tesori), The Band’s Visit (David Yazbek, Itamar Moses), Spring Awakening (Steven Sater, Duncan Sheik), and The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Martin McDonagh); Pulitzer Prize recipients Between Riverside and Crazy (Stephen Adly Guirgis) and English (Sanaz Toossi); New York Drama Critics’ Circle winners for Best New Play The Night Alive (Conor McPherson) and Best Foreign Play Hangmen (Martin McDonagh); Obie Award winners for Best New American Play Guards at the Taj and Describe the Night (Rajiv Joseph); and Obie Award Special Citation recipient Skeleton Crew (Dominique Morisseau).

 

ATLANTIC THEATER COMPANY’S LINDA GROSS THEATER is located at 336 West 20th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues).

 

ATLANTIC STAGE 2 is located at 330 West 16th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues).

 

Atlantic memberships start at $50. To lock in savings of up to 40% and exclusive access including a priority-booking period, and unlimited exchanges, join online by visiting atlantictheater.org/join/membership or calling 646.452.2220.

 

For information on Atlantic memberships, visit atlantictheater.org/join/membership or email membership@atlantictheater.org.