Full Casts & Creative Teams Set for PIPELINE FESTIVAL at WP Theater

 WP Theater has revealed the full casts and teams for the fifth biennial Pipeline Festival. Beginning this week onApril 4 and running through May 4, 2024 at WP Theater, the festival is the culmination of the renowned two-year WP Lab residency for directors, playwrights, and producers, and provides a unique opportunity for audiences to see five new works in various stages of development, ranging from staged readings to full-length workshop productions – presented over a span of several weeks. 

The Festival, true to its name, serves as a pipeline to funnel the work of talented Women+ artists to the forefront of American theater.  Each play is created and produced by collaborative writer/director/producer teams from the WP Lab residency program. 

WEEK 1: APRIL 4 - 6 

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE, written by Amara Janae Brady, directed by Julia Sirna-Frest, and composed by Xander Browne (He/They), is produced by Praycious Wilson-Gay. The cast includes Jade Jones as Yuri/Cro, Lorinda Lisitza as Delores/As Cast, and Nora Schell as Mo.  

Production Stage Manager is Kyra Bowie (She/Her) and Assistant Stage Manager is Kacey Bradshaw (She/Her). Scenic Design is by Jiaying Zhang (She/Her), Costume Design is by Ásta Bennie Hostetter (She/Her) & Jules Kulaya (They/Them), Lighting Design is by Megan Lang (She/They), and Sound Design is by Christopher Darbassie (They/Them). 

  Mo and Yuri sit under an almost non-existent potted tree named Beckett, waiting impatiently for the next phase of their career, the next part of their journey.   Delores sings a song about the blood the land craves, a callous warning that the blood is the only thing that will allow them to ascend to the glory Mo and Yuri believe is possible. Inspired by Waiting for Godot, Malicious Compliance tells the story of two artists desperately waiting for a change that may cost more than they’re willing to give, or worse may never come. 

 WEEK 2: APRIL 11 - 13 

O.K!, written by Christin Eve Cato and directed by Jordana De La Cruz, is produced by Barbara Samuels. The cast includes Danaya Esperanza as Melinda, Claudia Ramos-Jordán as Elena, Lorena Jorge as Jolie, and SkittLeZ Ortiz as Alex/Voices.  

Production Stage Manager is Sarah Samonte and Assistant Stage Manager is Diana Valck. Scenic Design is by Brittany Vasta, Costume Design is by Somie Pak, Lighting Design is by Megan Lang, and Sound Design is by Carsen Joenk. Assistant Director isKiará Lauren and Dramaturg is Alisha Espinosa. 

It’s 90 minutes until curtain for the non-union, Latine, bilingual, production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma, playing at a regional theater in Oklahoma when Melinda receives a call. The State has banned abortion and her upcoming appointment – canceled. With the performance approaching, the cast and crew band together (with some magical guidance!) to navigate a post-Roe America. Filled with tears, laughter and jokes that are just too soon, O.K! uncovers the company's pasts, personal lives, biases, and relationships in a society desperate to discount their humanity.

WEEK 3: APRIL 18 - 20 

BLACKBIRDING, written by Queen Esther and directed by Lorna Ventura, is produced by Alverneq Lindsay. The cast includesQueen Esther, Ayodele Maakheru as The Orchestra, and Synead Cidney Nichols as Narrator. 

Production Stage Manager is Jack Meister-Lopez. Scenic Design is by Brittany Vasta, Lighting Design is by Paige Seber, and Sound Design is by Jessica Paz. 

Accompanied by banjoist/guitarist Ayodele Maatheru (Paradise Square, Shuffle Along, Lackawanna Blues) Blackbirding – a solo show steeped in lost history, ephemera, ghost stories and folklore, storytelling and original reclamation driven Americana – is a requiem for America’s neverending Civil War and the promise of Reconstruction, tangled in a Southern Black feminist vernacular. 

WEEK 4: APRIL 25 – 27 

WHEN THE OTHER MARY CELESTE SANK: A STRANGE AND UMWELTIAN TALE, written by Amina Henry and directed by Ran Xia, is produced by Emma Orme. The cast includes Avanthika Srinivasan as Annie Beard, Purva Bedi as Elizabeth Marsh, Maaike Laanstra-Corn as Valerie Marsh, Amber Reauchean Williams as Sue Collins, and Kate Benson as Angela Pullman.  

Production Stage Manager is Caroline Pastore. Scenic and Props Design is by Jiaying Zhang, Costume Design is by Olivia Vaughn Hern, Lighting Design is by Paige Seber, and Sound Design is by Julian Evans. 

In 1894, five women are marooned on an island after a shipwreck and must work together to survive in a strange, new world. While they hunt for food, battle insects and each other, and occasionally relish their unmoored reality (goodbye corsets!!!), each woman develops a sharper sense of self. Through poetic and profane language, When The Other Mary Celeste Sank: A Strange and Umweltian Tale is an anachronistic, theatrical fairy tale that explores what it means to be human.

WEEK 5: MAY 2 - 4 

THE CAUSE is written by Else Went, directed by Dina Vovsi and produced by WP BOLD Associate Artistic Director Ayana Parker Morrison. The cast includes Olivia Rose Barresi, Jovan Davis, Yansa Fatima, Delaney Feener, and Felix Teich all as themselves and Esther Williamson as Director. 

Production Stage Manager is Tyler Danhaus. Scenic Design is by Brittany Vasta, Costume Consultant is Benjamin Strange, Lighting Design is by Natasha Marie Rotondaro, and Sound Design is by Else Went. 

In this house of mirrors, a group of actors and a director gather at newly formed artist residency, The House Upstate, for a week-long workshop development of The Cause, a new play about a group of actors and a director who gather in a house upstate for a week to shoot The Cause, an experimental film adaptation of Othello. As daily rewrites from an absent playwright elevate coincidence to paranoia, jealousy and desire fill the rehearsal room thick as the nightly mist in this quiet, empty town.

The WP Playwrights Lab is led by WP Producing Artistic Director Lisa McNulty and Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence Cori Thomas; the Directors Lab is led by, Rebecca Martínez (WP: Bite Me, Sancocho, Public:  Comedy of Errors)), and Nicole A. Watson(Producing Artistic Director, The Playwrights Center); and the Producers Lab is led by two-time Tony Award Winning producer Sally Cade Holmes and INTAR Producing Director Nidia Medina.  

Previous Festival works have included Pulitzer Prize recipient Martyna Majok’s queens (subsequently produced at LCT3), Sarah Burgess’ Kings (produced at The Public Theater), Sylvia Khoury’s Power Strip (produced at LCT3), and Jonathan Larson Grant recipients Zoe Sarnak and Emily Kaczmarek’s Afloat.    

Tickets for The Pipeline Festival are now on sale via WPTHEATER.ORG. Festival passes are available for $60. The performance schedule is as follows: Thursday at 7:00pm, Friday at 3:00pm & 8:00pm, and Saturday at 8:00pm.   

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