ART/WNY Announces 2024-25 Season

American Repertory Theater of WNY will celebrate the company's 17th season of being a leader in producing new works with the world premieres of four plays written by Western New York playwrights.  

Opening up the season is a production of multiple Artie Award winning playwright Mark Humphrey's “Break Song” scheduled to run October 10th - October 26th, 2024. Following is an adaption of William Shakespeare's “The Merchant of Venice” entitled “Shylock” written by Lara Haberberger scheduled to run November 21st to December 14th, 2024. In 2025, Bella Poynton's “The Mighty Massie” will start the production run on February 6th and run to February 22nd. Finishing up the 2024-25 season, is another adaption written by Artie Award winning playwright, Matthew LaChiusa, entitled “The Informer”, based on the 1920 novel of the same name written by Liam O'Flaherty. 

On the company's history and future, Executive/Artistic Director Matthew LaChiusa reflected upon ART/WNY's vision, “Since the very first season to the most recent one, ART/WNY is a forum for all 716 writers. The 2024-25 season is a continuation of the company's artistic vision”. 

In the past 17-seasons, ART/WNY has produced over 35 full-length and one-act plays, including a work that featured poets, written by regional playwrights. Of these works, 11 have been nominated for theater excellence, with 5 taking home awards. Yet winning awards is not the goal of ART/WNY, the artistic vision is to create a forum for unproven and unknown talent to show their worth. “All we strive for at The Rep is to create art and develop our crafts as performing artists.” LaChiusa explained. “Theater is a craft not a popularity contest. And all our energy is spend on shaping every aspects of theater, from actors to writers, directors to designers, and build a solid creative forum.” 

As the company goes into the 17th season of showcasing 716 playwrights, LaChiusa is both confident and dialed-in on this artistic commitment. “We've always been committed to this artistic vision since the very first play rolled out at Rust Belt Books. Despite what some people think that producing local playwrights is a financial disaster, and any theater producer that does so is bonkers, the Rep is continuing proof a theater company can produce local writers and still manage to survive.”

American Repertory Theater of WNY is one of a few Buffalo theaters that has to pay monthly rent for their space, yet LaChiusa doubles down on the notion company's can't survive by just doing local plays. “Our company continues to grow an audience base season after season. Could it be better, Hell yeah, audience attendance could be better for all theater companies, but we're managing despite the overhanging operational cost of rent and the stigma of local playwrights' work being below average”. 

Although local playwrights have been relatively absent from Buffalo theaters' main-stage, LaChiusa sees an uptick in local playwrights being produced outside ART/WNY, but sees a caveat in local theaters boasting about producing new works. “There have been some pioneers in my 20 years of producing theater in Buffalo, they've produced local writers in showcases or full productions. But the up-and-coming theaters that boast producing new works I really put an asterisk next to.“ LaChiusa said. “It's great new works are coming to Buffalo stages but they're also imports from writers with no local connections. That kinda cheapens the message, but, hey, whatever works, that's their moxie. It's not ART's.” 

The 2024-25 season tickets will go on sale July 4th, with the company's “buy a comfortable seat” season ticket program. Performance days and times will be Thurs & Fri @ 7:30 pm / Saturdays @ 5 pm. All performance will be held at 545 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo NY. Single ticket prices will range from $20 to $35.

For more information on the upcoming season please visit www.artofwny.org or join the company's Facebook and Instagram pages. 

To post a comment, you must register and login.