Initial Casts Set for SUMMERWORKS at Clubbed Thumb - Featuring Three New Plays
SUMMERWORKS will run May 18 – July 1, 2023 at The Wild Project (195 East 3rd Street) and will feature productions of three new plays.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz May. 01, 2023
Clubbed Thumb has announced initial casting for the 26th SUMMERWORKS festival of new plays. SUMMERWORKS will run May 18 - July 1, 2023 at The Wild Project (195 East 3rd Street) and will feature productions of three new plays.
This summer's plays are Work Hard Have Fun Make History by ruth tang (they/them, FUTURE WIFE) and directed by Caitlin Sullivan (she/her, The Good John Proctor), Deep Blue Sound by Abe Koogler (Fulfillment Center) and directed by Arin Arbus (she/her, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune), and Grief Hotel by Liza Birkenmeier (she/her, Dr. Ride's American Beach House) and directed by Tara Ahmadinejad (she/her, Lunch Bunch).
Clubbed Thumb will collaborate with the design collective dots as a festival partner to design sets and props for all three productions. The collaboration will focus on recycled and reused materials in order to address rising costs and concerns over the ecological impact of the festival.
The cast of Work Hard Have Fun Make History will include b (they/them/b, american (tele)visions), Sagan Chen (they/he, "Survival of the Thickest"), and Susannah Perkins (they/them, The Good John Proctor). Performances will run May 18 - 30.
A catalog of all the possible phone calls that exist: customer service helplines, phone sex with strangers, warnings about events that are - oops - happening right now. A play that is not about Amazon, not about Jeff Bezos, and certainly not about Elon Musk.
Work Hard Have Fun Make History will feature costume design by Alicia J. Austin (she/her, Regretfully, So the Birds Are), lighting design by Isabella Byrd (she/her, Cabaret), and sound design by Lee Kinney (he/him, Is This A Room). Esti Bernstein (she/her, Is This A Room) will serve as Production Stage Manager and Cara Kienitz (she/her) will serve as Assistant Stage Manager.
The cast of Deep Blue Sound will include Maryann Plunkett (she/her, "Little Women") as "Ella," Thomas Jay Ryan (he/him, Dance Nation) as "John," Tala Ashe (she/her, English) as "Mary," Armando Riesco (he/him, "National Treasure: Edge of History") as "Chris," Natsuko Ohama (Out of Time) as "Joy," Brittany K. Allen (she/her, The Good John Proctor) as "Ali," Crystal Finn (she/her, Plano) as "Annie," Jan Leslie Harding (she/her, The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas) as "Leslie," and Bruce Mackenzie (Shipwreck) as "Gary." Performances will run June 5 - 15.
Ella's making secret plans. Apparently Chris and Mary split up. John just befriended a drifter. And where the hell are those whales??? On a small island, the locals confront change.
Deep Blue Sound will feature costume design by Tony Award nominee Emily Rebholz (she/her, Jagged Little Pill), lighting design by Isabella Byrd, and sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman (he/him, Fat Ham). Caroline Englander (she/her) will serve as Production Stage Manager and Matthew Pezzulich (he/him) will serve as Assistant Stage Manager.
The cast of Grief Hotel will include Nadine Malouf (she/her, Montag) as "Em," Naren Weiss (he/him, Letters of Suresh) as "Rohit," Susan Blommaert (she/her, "Dead Ringers") as "Aunt Bobbi," and Bruce McKenzie as "Asher." Additional performers will be announced at a later date. Performances will run June 21 - July 1.
A sequence of shocks sends everyone to Aunt Bobbi's house, where she tries to help them "feel better," even though her parties are cursed. A play about loss, intimacy, and the loss of intimacy.
Grief Hotel will feature costume design by Mel Ng (she/her, California), lighting design by Masha Tsmring (she/her, Evanston Salt Costs Climbing), and sound design & composition by Jordan McCree (Empathitrax).
General admission tickets are priced at $30; Reserved seats are priced at $40; Student tickets are priced at $25. Festival passes start at $75. Single tickets and festival passes are on sale now at: ci.ovationtix.com/36616. The performance schedule for SUMMERWORKS is as follows: Mondays-Saturdays at 7:30pm. Exceptions: There will be no performance of Work Hard Have Fun Make History on Saturday May 20.
Highlights from the previous 25 festivals include the NYC premieres of Gina Gionfriddo, Jordan Harrison, Lisa D'Amour, Jason Grote and Sarah Ruhl; professional debuts of Jaclyn Backhaus, Will Arbery, Clare Barron, Rinne Groff, Sylvan Oswald, Susan Stanton and Ariel Stess; and new works by Anne Washburn, Adam Bock, Gregory Moss, Jenny Schwartz, Ethan Lipton, Erin Courtney, Sheila Callaghan, Tanya Saracho, and Heidi Schreck. Many of these artists continue to make Clubbed Thumb an artistic home.
Past SUMMERWORKS directors include Pam MacKinnon, Lee Sunday Evans, Lear deBessonet, Anne Kauffman, Robert O'Hara, Davis McCallum, Leigh Silverman, and Ken Rus Schmoll.
Clubbed Thumb made its Broadway debut in 2019 with Heidi Schreck's What the Constitution Means to Me, which premiered at the 2017 Summerworks festival, in partnership with True Love Productions. Clubbed Thumb's second anthology, Unusual Stories, Unusually Told, was published in 2021 by Methuen Drama / Bloomsbury.
ABOUT Clubbed Thumb
Clubbed Thumb commissions, develops and produces funny, strange and provocative new plays by living American writers. Clubbed Thumb is a groundbreaker, with a precise curatorial vision and a remarkable track record for launching artists' careers; and an incubator, nurturing plays, collaborations, and above all artists, through thoughtfully deployed resources, opportunities, mentorship and hospitality.
Clubbed Thumb's plays vary in style and content, but are always 90 minutes or under. They feature substantial and challenging roles for all genders, are questioning, formally inventive, theatrical, and exhibit a sense of humor. Since its founding in 1996, the company has presented over 100 productions.
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