ArtsWest Unveils 2024-2025 Season: The Family of Things

ArtsWest has revealed their 2024-2025 Season: The Family of Things. The title of the season is drawn from Mary Oliver's powerful poem Wild Geese, which reminds the reader of the role of love on the path to belonging. The five titles chosen this season seek to do the same through explorations of love in all forms, spanning genres, cultures, and time. The season begins with Guards at the Taj, a co-production with Pratidhwani, Seattle's premiere South Asian Performing Arts company, about two best friends who are sworn to protect beauty at all costs; for the holidays, a new holiday tradition returns with audience favorite Snowed In (Again); in February, Covenant brings a family full of secrets and a play full of haunts, horror, and thrills; Athena transports audiences to the piste as fencers and frenemies go head-to-head; and finally, The Effect brings sci-fi and romance to ArtsWest's stage.
 
“In curating this season, the team and I talked a lot about what role theater can play in the lives of everyday folks in the world today,” says Artistic Director, Mathew Wright. “We've always felt that it should be rich and experiential – that we go the theater for the experience of being alive.  Last season, we started to find a groove in which we could do our mission while simultaneously bringing hope and some healing laughter in a moment we need it the most, and the community we're building around that work is incredible.” In last year's record-breaking season, ArtsWest welcomed over 2,000 new patrons and celebrated 33 sold out performances.
 
ArtsWest will host FIRST LOOK: The Season on Monday, August 5th, 2024. This annual, free event is a look behind the curtain at how the upcoming season came together and what audiences can look forward to. Part TED Talk / part live podcast, FIRST LOOK features special guests, musical moments, and more. Free tickets can be reserved at artswest.org.

Guards at the Taj

by Rajiv Joseph
Directed by Samip Raval
A Co-Production with Pratidhwani
September 12th - October 6th
 
Winner, 2016 Obie Award for Best New American PlayWinner, 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play
 
In 1648 India, two Imperial Guards watch from their post as the sun rises for the first time on the newly-completed Taj Mahal—an event that shakes their respective worlds. When they are ordered to perform an unthinkable task, the aftermath forces them to question the concepts of friendship, beauty, and duty, and changes them forever.  GUARDS AT THE TAJ is one of Pulitzer Prize Finalist Rajiv Joseph's seminal works.
 

Snowed In (Again)

by Corinne Park-Buffelen & Mathew Wright 
Directed by Kelly Kitchens
November 21 - December 22
 
ArtsWest Audience Favorite! Last year, a new holiday tradition was born as ArtsWest sent four of Seattle's hottest musical theater stars on a cozy retreat to write the most perfect holiday show the world had ever seen.  But when a blizzard hit, tensions rose and the crumpled-up notebook pages began to pile up even faster than the snow. This year, four more stars scramble to remount last year's holiday hit.  With hindsight on their side, the process should be foolproof.  What could possibly go wrong?
 
Inspired by classic holiday TV specials and musicals about putting on a musical, witness this new Seattle theater tradition as four of the city's most beloved musical theater stars take you on a journey of song, dance, friendship, family, and the true meaning of the holidays.
 

Covenant

by York Walker 
February 6 - March 2
 
NY Times Critic's Pick! When a struggling guitarist returns to his small Georgia town a blues star, rumors begin swirling that he may have made a deal with the devil to attain his musical genius. Before long, however, it becomes clear he's not the only one with a secret. A mythic and suspenseful new play that delivers one devilish twist after another, York Walker's COVENANT explores the power of belief and the thin line between rumor and truth.

Athena

by Gracie Gardner
In Collaboration with Salle Auriol
April 10 - May 4
 
NY Times Critic's Pick! ADVANCE. PARRY. REPEAT. Mary Wallace and Athena are both seventeen-year-old fencers training for Nationals. Mary Wallace lives in a house in New Jersey, loves marine biology and practices at home. Athena lives in an apartment in New York City, takes acne medication and Athena is not her real name. Follow their journey from competitors to confidantes as they form a bond navigating the milestones of adolescence, training together only to learn the future is only certain for one of them.
 

The Effect

by Lucy Prebble
Directed by Mathew Wright, Artistic Director
June 19 - July 13
 
NY Times Critic's Pick! In this thrilling play by Lucy Prebble (HBO's Succession), two young volunteers, Tristan and Connie, agree to take part in a clinical drug trial. Succumbing to the gravitational pull of attraction and love, however, Tristan and Connie manage to throw the trial off-course, much to the frustration of the clinicians involved. This funny, moving and perhaps surprisingly human play explores questions of sanity, neurology and the limits of medicine, alongside ideas of fate, loyalty and the inevitability of physical attraction.

Additional Season Information
https://www.artswest.org/subscriptions/

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