World Premiere of Michael R. Jackson & Anna K. Jacobs' TEETH & More Set for Playwrights Horizons 2023-24 Season

Playwrights Horizons has announced its 2023-24 season, featuring six premieres of remarkably wide-ranging scale, scope and form that stretch the organization toward new ways of producing. Three stylistically bold, large-scale works draw humor and music from disturbances in reality and unreality alike-whether by exploding relationships, castrating the devout, or simply sharing a meal in a restaurant at the end of the world. Alongside these productions, Playwrights Horizons presents three singularly innovative and playful solo works, each performed by their playwright and all running simultaneously in rep.

Playwrights Horizons Artistic Director Adam Greenfield says, "As the landscape of non-profit off-Broadway changes, and our theater community navigates new economic and audience patterns, we've aimed to expand in our 2023-24 season the range of works and experiences Playwrights Horizons offers. This season of premieres is an eclectic range of genres, forms and price points, actively searching for greater variety and heterogeneity in response to a culture that's searching for the same. This is what the name 'Playwrights Horizons' promises: working with the artists of today to chart a course for tomorrow."

The season kicks off with the world premiere of Stereophonic, from "virtuosic" (The New York Times) playwright David Adjmi (Elective Affinities, Stunning, Marie Antoinette; author of Lot Six: A Memoir), directed by Daniel Aukin (Catch as Catch Can at Playwrights Horizons, The Best We Could) with songs by The Arcade Fire's Will Butler. (Previews begin October 2023.) Confining the emotional vastness of a year within two California music studios, Adjmi creates a hyper-naturalistic portrait of the excruciating birth of a masterpiece album. All of Butler's original music in Stereophonic is played by the performers onstage as their characters develop it. The production will build the lived-in relationships and musical style of a band whose perfect creative cocktail makes them immortal-and is the same poison that causes their suffering.

Pulitzer Prize Winner, Michael R. Jackson (Playwrights: A Strange Loop-co-production with Page 73 Productions; White Girl in Danger) returns to Playwrights Horizons with Jonathan Larson Award-winning composer and lyricist Anna K. Jacobs (POP!, Harmony, Kansas) to create Teeth (world premiere), by special arrangement with Mark Gordon Pictures. The new musical features lyrics by Jackson, music by Jacobs, and a book co-written by the two artists, and is based on the 2007 cult classic comedy horror film of the same name. In Teeth, the tethered yet battling forces of sexuality and religion push each other towards wild theatricality, and Jackson's and Jacobs's sharp tale of revenge and transformation tears through a culture of shame one song at a time. Sarah Benson (Fairview, An Octoroon) directs, working with choreographer Raja Feather Kelly (Playwrights: A Strange Loop; Fairview), a frequent collaborator of both Benson and Jackson. (Previews begin February 2024.)

While Adjmi, in Stereophonic, writes characters who wield the profound ability to break each other, and Jackson in Teeth depicts a very physical form of interpersonal destruction, in Abe Koogler's surreal world premiere Staff Meal it's the external world that's breaking apart, as characters seek respite in new, if fleeting, connections and community. Koogler (Fulfillment Center, Kill Floor), "​​one of the best chroniclers of lower-middle-class life in America, especially in the workplace" (Chicago Tribune), sets his latest play in a restaurant, brimming with warmth and a sense of safety, with a wine cellar carved into the depths of the earth. Koogler describes, "Here, beauty and community are more important than efficiency or profit. Because this restaurant is a genuinely good place, it is also fragile." As the world ends, a group of servers works to keep service going at this strange New York City restaurant. Like so many works in the 2023-24 Playwrights season, Staff Meal captivates through musicality-a dreamlike style where the spoken text's rhythms, riffs, and recurrent melodies form a new logic. (Previews begin April 2024.)

The 2023-24 season's three writer-performed solo works running in rep all share the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. This trio of plays includes works written and performed by Milo Cramer (Playwrights: Soundstage episode Boy Factory; Cute Activist), Alexandra Tatarsky (Dirt Trip, Americana Psychobabble), and Ikechukwu Ufomadu (Playwrights: Dance Nation; Inspector Ike, Words with Ike, Ziwe); they begin previews November 2023. Each of these events features the playwright as the performer, reminding us of the essential components of drama: the storyteller and the audience. Presented together in rep, this trio of plays is a new variation on the organization's programming templates and will be offered at a lower price point.

Alexandra Tatarsky's performance has been described by The New York Times as "a slip-of-the-tongue descent into the American id." The latest work from "one of the most exciting and hilarious performance artists around" (ArtSpace), Sad Boys in Harpy Land sold out its run at Abrons Art Center earlier this year. This solo clown show-a work of "profoundly funny... funhouse-mirror horror" (The Forward)-makes its Off-Broadway premiere in Playwrights Horizons' repertory series.

After debuting at the Wilma in Philadelphia, Cramer's School Pictures-a collection of witty, candid song-poem portraits of students Cramer tutored, revealing the beauty as well as the immense inequity of the NYC education system-makes its New York premiere, directed again by the Wilma's Lead Artistic Director, Morgan Green. Cramer explains that the "de-skilled, pared-down, lo-fi, scrappy, earnest, intimate quality of the music creates an intense pathos that brings us back to childhood (a kid banging on a piano) and is worthy of the stories in these songs."

Emmy-nominated and Drama Desk Award-winning actor and comedian Ikechukwu Ufomadu brings Amusements, his latest comedy performance, to Playwrights Horizons, taking the "simultaneously deadpan and warmly funny" (Paste) singularity of his old-timey TV presenter persona to serene and subdued new heights. Ufomadu's "droll, murmuring delivery...leaves audiences in a haze of laughter" (Time Out) and earned him a place on Vulture's list of "Comedians You Should and Will Know in 2022"- where he was lauded as "that rarest of things in the world of alt-comedy: a true gentleman scholar."

Playwrights Horizons this season continues to build their partnership with The Movement Theatre Company (Deadria Harrington, Eric Lockley, Ryan Dobrin, and David Mendizábal, Producing Artistic Leaders), following their presentation of "veritable poet of a playwright" (The New York Times) Aleshea Harris' What to Send Up When it Goes Down in 2021. "If you're a lover of theater, looking for signs of fresh and original and in-the-moment life on the American stage, you need to see What to Send Up...," The New York Times wrote of that work. In The Movement @ Playwrights, The Movement Theatre Company joins Playwrights for a residency in their Mainstage Theater, where they will present a slate of new programming. (Residency begins May 2024.)

PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS 2023-24 PRODUCTIONS

Stereophonic

Written by David Adjmi

Songs by Will Butler

Directed by Daniel Aukin

Previews start October 2023

Mainstage Theater

David Adjmi's Stereophonic zooms in on a music studio in the mid '70s, where an up-and-coming rock band recording a new album finds itself suddenly on the cusp of superstardom. Will the ensuing pressures spark their breakup - or their breakthrough? Featuring original music by Arcade Fire's Will Butler, this intimate, electric play mines the agony and the ecstasy of creation.

Stereophonic has received generous support from the Mellon Foundation.

Sad Boys in Harpy Land

Written and Performed by Alexandra Tatarsky

Previews start November 2023

Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Running in Repertory with Amusements and School Pictures

Alexandra Tatarsky collages narratives of artmaking and despair into a semi-autobiographical tour-de-farce, as told by a young Jewish woman who thinks she is a small German boy who thinks he is a tree. Equal parts sad clown, demented cabaret, and extended crisis of meaning, this unhinged solo performance takes place in the hellscape of the mind.

School Pictures

Written & Performed by Milo Cramer

Directed by Morgan Green

Previews start November 2023

Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Running in Repertory with Amusements and Sad Boys in Harpy Land

Faith hates reading, Jane lost her flashcards, and Javier sees no point in studying because of climate change. This playful collection of poem-songs, written and performed by Milo Cramer - a former tutor - paints intimate portraits of ten NYC students fighting to get into competitive schools. School Pictures is a charming musical journal of keen observations which builds to a sweeping meditation on inequality, learning, parenting, and the cruelty of puberty.

Amusements

Written & Performed by Ikechukwu Ufomadu

Previews start November 2023

Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Running in Repertory with Sad Boys in Harpy Land and School Pictures

Emmy-nominated comedian Ikechukwu Ufomadu seeks to provide you, the audience, with the finest Amusements he can muster. Watch as this actor, entertainer and avant-garde soothsayer pursues this goal with serene diligence, defying genre while operating within the bounds of international law. His signature use of the time-tested tools of words, music, and light multimedia are sure to usher you oh-so-gently into a haze of mirthful absurdity.

Playwrights Horizons

By special arrangement with Mark Gordon Pictures presents

Teeth

Book by Anna K. Jacobs and Michael R. Jackson

Music by Anna K. Jacobs

Lyrics by Michael R. Jackson

Choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly

Directed by Sarah Benson

Previews start February 2024

Mainstage Theater

Dawn O'Keefe is an evangelical Christian teen with a powerful secret not even she understands - when men violate her, her body bites back. Literally. From Pulitzer Prize and Tony-winner Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop) and Anna K. Jacobs (POP!), Teeth, based on the cult classic film of the same name, is a fierce, rapturous, and savagely entertaining new musical crackling with irrepressible desire and ancient rage - a dark comedy conjuring the legend of one girl whose sexual curse is also her salvation.

Staff Meal

Written by Abe Koogler
Directed by Morgan Green

Previews start April 2024

Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Outside, the world is breaking apart. But in here, a group of lonely city dwellers gather to find comfort and connection. Abe Koogler's Staff Meal is a kaleidoscopic comedy about a mysterious and beautiful restaurant, where the food is delicious, the service is warm, and some strange power keeps the darkness at bay. You are safe here - at least until closing time.

Ticketing Information

Flex Passes (customizable bundle, starting at $188 for 4 tickets) and Memberships ($60 to join, $25 preview tickets with discounts thereafter) are available here.

For the 2023-24 season, Playwrights introduces Playwrights Horizons Access Passport, a package designed to meet the needs of our accessible patrons, providing early booking and discounted tickets for select shows with accessibility offerings including ASL-interpretation, Audio Description, Touch Tours, Relaxed Performances, and select GalaPro performances. Available for purchase here.

Patron packages start at $900.

All packages and tickets can be purchased at www.phnyc.org.

Tickets for individual performances in the season will be available for purchase approximately one month prior to the start of each production.

About Playwrights Horizons

Playwrights Horizons is a 52-year-old writer's theater dedicated to centering and advancing the voice of the contemporary American playwright, and to the production of innovative new work. It's a mission that is always timely, and one that's necessary in the ongoing evolution of theater in this country.

Playwrights Horizons believes that playwrights are the great storytellers of our time, offering essential contributions to civic discourse and illuminating life's greatest paradoxes. And they believe in the singularity of a writer's voice, valuing the broad, eclectic spectrum and diversity of American writers. At Playwrights Horizons, writers are supported in every stage of their growth through commissions (engaging several of today's most imaginative playwrights each year), New Works Lab, Soundstage audio program, and Almanac, the organization's literary magazine.

Playwrights Horizons presents a season of productions annually on their two stages, each of which is a world, American, or New York premiere. Much like Playwrights Horizons' work, their audience is risk-taking and adventurous; and the organization is committed to strengthening their engagement and feeding their curiosity through all of its programming, onsite and online.

About The Movement Theatre Company

The Movement Theatre Company creates an artistic social movement by developing and producing herculean new work by artists of color. Under the leadership of Deadria Harrington, Eric Lockley, Ryan Dobrin, and David Mendizábal, their work engages multicultural audiences in a rich theatrical dialogue, enlightens communities to the important issues affecting our world, and empowers artists to celebrate the many sides of their unique voice. Founded in 2007, The Movement has established itself as an artistic staple in New York theater, championed by community and acclaimed by the industry (OBIE Award Winner, Drama Desk and Drama League Award nominee). As an organization run by producers of color, The Movement is passionate about shifting the status quo of American Theatre both on-stage and behind the scenes. Past productions include:The Cotillion written and directed by Colette Robert, choreographed by nicHi douglas, co-produced with New Georges (2023); What to Send Up When It Goes Down by Aleshea Harris, directed by Whitney White (NY Premiere and Northeast Tour, 2018 - 2021); 1MOVE: DES19NED BY... (2020); Harrison David Rivers' And She Would Stand Like This (2016) choreographed by Kia LaBeija, and Look Upon Our Lowliness (2014), both directed by David Mendizábal; Bintou by Koffi Kwahulé, translated by Chantal Bilodeau, directed by David Mendizábal (2010); and Hope Speaks devised and directed by Jonathan McCrory (2008). Over their 15-year history they've featured work by Dominique Morriseau, Christina Anderson, Colman Domingo, Danielle Brooks, Xosha Roquemore, Joél Pérez, Jesca Prudencio, Jonathan McCrory, Ebony Golden, Taylor Reynolds, Rebecca Martinez and many more! For additional info on The Movement visit www.themovementtheatrecompany.org or follow The Movement on Facebook at "The Movement Theatre Company" and on Twitter and Instagram @TMTCHarlem.