Keen Company Unveils 2023-2024 Season Featuring THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, a World Premiere & More

Keen Company has revealed details for its upcoming 2023-2024 season, which includes new partnerships with Long Wharf Theater, Working Theater, and The Drama League. 

Keen Company’s 24th season is filled with new partnerships and refocused programming. Keen’s critically acclaimed, sold-out, site specific production of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking starring Kathleen Chalfant will travel to living rooms and community spaces in New Haven, CT, in partnership with Long Wharf Theater. In March and April 2024, Keen Company and Working Theater will co-produce the world premiere of Kia Corthron’s Fish in a production directed by Adrienne D. Williams. In May 2024, Keen Company will begin a collaboration with The Drama League and present Cell by Cassandra Medley with direction by Nadia Guevara and Poof! by Lynn Nottage with direction by Ibi Owolabi as part of the newly expanded DirectorFest.

“I am proud to announce Keen Company’s 24th Season, and launch a year of opportunities,” said Keen Company’s Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein. “We are collaborating with three incredible organizations this season - Long Wharf Theater, Working Theater, and The Drama League - giving Keen an opportunity to welcome new patrons and broaden our impact. Our new work initiatives, which empower Keen to expand its mission, continue to grow and include Fish by Kia Corthorn, which was originally conceived in our Keen Playwrights Lab, three new commissions through our Keen Teens program, and our continued development of a new musical by Adam Gwon. This season, we also focus on the future, from the examination of the educational system in Fish and our innovative educational program Keen Teens, to DirectorFest where we spotlight two brilliant emerging directors. In everything we do, Keen Company is finding new ways to connect, and we are thrilled this season provides so many new opportunities.”

Keen’s Company’s 2023-2024 season kicks off on Monday, October 16 with Keen’s 24th Annual Benefit Gala which honors legendary actress and passionate advocate Kathleen Chalfant, the beloved star of three Keen Company productions. The sit-down dinner at Manhattan Penthouse (80 Fifth Avenue) will feature an open bar, thrilling auction winnings, and an evening of extraordinary performances and backstage stories.

Next up, Keen Company is proud to partner with Long Wharf Theatre to bring its acclaimed 2022 production of The Year of Magical Thinking to New Haven, CT as part of Long Wharf’s 2023-2024 season. Running November 8–December 3, 2023, this innovative site-specific production of Joan Didion’s deeply personal memoir stars Obie and Drama Desk Award-winner actress Kathleen Chalfant and is conceived and directed by Keen Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein. As in Keen’s celebrated 2022 revival, Long Wharf’s The Year of Magical Thinking will be staged in living rooms and community spaces. Long Wharf’s commitment to taking theater out of the company’s former home and into the community matches Keen’s core ethos of connection. This partnership is over two decades in the making, as Keen’s 2001 production of The Good Thief which was mounted in the company’s very first season also moved to the Long Wharf after its New York City run.

On February 12, 2024, Keen Company will present a one-night only benefit concert of Glory Days by Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner with a star-studded cast directed by Jonathan Silverstein. This cult-favorite musical premiered at Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway in 2008 and has since been performed all over the world. Keen patrons will remember composer Nick Blaemire from his star turn as Jonathan Larson in Keen’s 2016 production of Tick, Tick... BOOM! Glory Daysis a coming-of-age rock musical about friends searching for understanding and validation as they face the consequences of growing up. The Washington Post called it “fresh and vivacious...real and surprisingly moving.” Tickets on sale soon.

Further ahead in 2024, Keen Company and Working Theater will co-produce the world premiere of Fish by Kia Corthron and directed by Adrienne D. Williams. Through the interconnected stories of one vibrant high school senior and her extraordinary educator, Fish thoughtfully explores the challenges facing the New York City school system and celebrates the powerful bond between teacher and student. Performances of Fish will take place from March 19–April 20, 2024, at Theatre Row in Theatre Five. Kia Corthron was part of the Keen Playwrights Lab in 2018, during which time Fish was originally developed. Tickets are on sale now and available at a variety of price points.

In a new collaboration with The Drama League, Keen Company will bring DirectorFest to the Off-Broadway stage. Featuring Drama League Directing Fellows, DirectorFest has been a showcase for rising talent in the industry for years. With Keen’s leadership, emerging directors will have more resources and support. Running May 2–11, 2024 at Theatre Row in Theatre Two, DirectorFest 2024 will feature Cell by Cassandra Medley, directed by Nadia Guevara, along with Poof! by Lynn Nottage, directed by Ibi Owolabi. Keen is thrilled to welcome playwright Lynn Nottage back to the Keen Company stage after producing the first New York revival of her play Crumbs from the Table of Joy this past spring. Tickets are all $40.00 and are on sale now.

The Keen Teens program will continue in Season 24 with world premiere one-acts by Dennis A. Allen II, Laura Neill, and Jesús Valles taking place May 17–19, 2024, at Theatre Row in Theatre Five. Keen Company is the only professional theater actively creating new work for high school students. Since its launch in 2007, Keen Teens has served over 450 NYC teens and commissioned over 45 new plays which are currently being performed around the world. Tickets are all $20.00 and are on sale now.

In January 2022, Keen began the process of commissioning and developing a new intimate musical by Adam Gwon. Keen collaborated with Gwon on its 2018 revival of Ordinary Days (2019 Drama League Award Nomination for Outstanding Revival of a Musical) and will now reunite with him for the first full-length musical commission in the company’s history. Readings and workshops will take place through to January 2024 with a possible mainstage production mounted as part of Keen Company’s 25th Anniversary Season running 2024-2025. The new musical commission is partially being supported by The National Endowment for the Arts and the Shen Family Foundation’s Musical Theater Composers Initiative.

Keen Company is also pleased to announce the appointment of Zachariah Ezer as its new Director of New Work. Ezer is charged with reimagining Keen’s model of supporting mid-career playwrights and will lead Keen’s new work initiatives. Over the past decade, Keen has welcomed 27 playwrights into the Keen Playwrights Lab. However, the needs of playwrights have changed over the years. Keen is currently refocusing its resources and will shift the Playwrights Lab away from its current format to a new model that better serve the needs of mid-career playwrights.

Please visit www.keencompany.org for more information on Keen Company’s 24th season.

About the Artists

In a career spanning more than five decades, Kathleen Chalfant’s performances on stage, screen and television have garnered her praise and acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Perhaps best known for her shattering portrayal of Vivian Bearing, a scholar battling cancer, in Wit, she received the Obie, the Drama Desk, the Lucille Lortel, the Outer Critics Circle, the Ovation, Connecticut Critics Circle, the Garland and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for her work. Broadway credits include Angels in America (Tony and Drama Desk nom.), Racing Demon, Dance With Me. She most recently appeared Here There Are Blueberries with Tectonic Theatre Project, as well as the upcoming film Familiar Touch. Off-Broadway credits include The Year of Magical Thinking, A Woman of the World, Wit(Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Connecticut Critics Circle, Obie Awards), For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, A Walk in the Woods(Drama Desk nom.), Tales from Red Vienna, Miss Ovington & Dr. Dubois, Talking Heads (Obie Award), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Nine Armenians (Drama Desk nomination), Henry V (Callaway Award).

Kia Corthron’s Tempestuous Elements will premiere at Arena Stage in February. Other plays, including A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick, Breath, Boom, and Force Continuum, have been produced in New York by Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club; regionally by Eclipse Theatre, Yale Rep, Goodman Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Center Stage, Hartford Stage, Children’s Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, New York Stage and Film; in London by The Royal Court Theatre and Donmar Warehouse; and elsewhere. Awards include the Windham Campbell Prize, Horton Foote Award, Flora Roberts Award, USA Jane Addams Fellowship, McKnight National Residency. Moon and the Mars, her second novel, was published in 2021. Her debut, The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter, won the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice. Edgar and Writers Guild Outstanding Series awards for The Wire. She serves on the Dramatists Guild Council, is a New Dramatists alumnus, and is a member of the Authors Guild.

Adrienne D Williams. Credits include The Gospel Woman (National Black Theatre), A Limbo Large and Broad (The Playroom Theatre), She Kills Monsters (Yale Repertory Theatre), Crumbs From The Table Of Joy, Angela's Mixtape (Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse), Nora (Juilliard Drama Theater), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Zooman and the Sign (The Paul Walker Theatre), Luck of the Irish (Atlas Theatre NYU), Trouble in Mind, Paris (The Acting Company AADA). Other titles include Uncle Vanya, Antigone, Iphigeneia at Aulis, Dream of the Burning Boy, Picnic, Electra, Bus Stop, Pipeline, A Raisin in the Sun, The Colored Museum. Member: SDC, AEA, SAG-AFTRA, NYSTU, League of Professional Theatre Women.

Jonathan Silverstein’s work as Keen Company Artistic Director: This Space Between Us, Hear/Now: LIVE!, 1993, Molly Sweeney, Ordinary Days, Later Life, Lonely Planet, When It’s You, Tick, Tick…Boom!, Travels  With My Aunt, John & Jen, Middle of the Night, The Film Society, The  Old Boy, Marry Me a Little. Also with Keen: Lemon Sky, The Dining Room (Drama Desk Award: Outstanding Ensemble), I Never Sang For My Father, Tea and Sympathy, and The Hasty Heart. Selected Off-Broadway: The Temperamentals (Drama Desk Award: Outstanding Ensemble), Red Herring (FringeNYC; Outstanding Direction Award), Blueprint (Summer Play Festival), and The Train Play (Clubbed Thumb). Regional: Buck’s County, Huntington, Old Globe, Cleveland Play House, Merrimack Rep, Dorset Theatre Festival, Cape Rep Theatre. Alumnus, The Drama League Directors Project. MFA, UCSD. Member, SDC.

Zachariah Ezer is a dramaturg and playwright based in Brooklyn, NY. He has served as a dramaturg for The National Black Theatre, Breaking the Binary, The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, The Cohen New Works Festival, foolsFURY, Merde, Awoye Timpo and The Workshop Theater, where he was Dramaturg-in-Residence. As a playwright, Zachariah has developed work with Playwrights Horizons, American Conservatory Theatre, The Playwrights Center, and more. MFA: The University of Texas at Austin. BA: Wesleyan University.

About Long Wharf Theatre

Founded in 1965, Long Wharf Theatre (Jacob G. Padrón, Artistic Director; Kit Ingui, Managing Director) is a Tony Award-winning company of international renown. It was founded with the mission of creating an accessible theatre culture unique to the Greater New Haven community. Recognized for a historic commitment to commissioning, developing, and producing new plays to expand the legacy of storytelling in the American theatre, more than 30 of its productions have transferred to successful Broadway or Off-Broadway runs and countless others have inspired artists and audiences at theatres across the country. Guided by three core pillars of artistic innovation, radical inclusion, and kaleidoscopic partnerships, the company aspires to nurture and produce boundary-breaking theater. Long Wharf Theatre is entering a bold new chapter, moving beyond its home for nearly 60 years to activate venues, neighborhoods, and public spaces throughout Greater New Haven, underscoring its commitment to equity, inclusion and belonging in every aspect of its work.

About Working Theater

Working Theater believes the transformative experience of live theater should not be a privilege or a luxury, but a staple. Now in its 39th season, Working Theater continues its mission to produce theater for, with, and about working people—the essential workers of any city or town—and to make play-going a regular part of our audiences' cultural lives. Through an active commissioning pipeline, our sliding scale ticketing initiative, a successful grassroots audience engagement program, and a pioneering arts-in-education program, our work remains relevant, accessible, and affordable to all, regardless of geography or socio-economic status. Working Theater has commissioned and produced over seventy culturally diverse world-premiere plays, with subjects and themes ranging from the struggles of women working in poultry plants (Lisa Ramirez’s TO THE BONE) to the plight of the uninsured in America (Michael Milligan's Mercy Killers), to the shared journey of undocumented immigrants crossing the United States border, staged inside an actual 18-wheeler (Ed Cardona, Jr.’s La Ruta). The company has presented its work in 15 American cities, earned 2 Drama League Nominations, 6 Drama Desk Award nominations, a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble for Rob Ackerman’s Tabletop, and 3 Audelco Awards. www.theworkingtheater.org

About The Drama League

The Drama League advances the American theater by providing lifelong artistic resources for directors and a platform for dialogue with audiences. Founded in 1916, we are one of the longest-running arts service organizations in the country. We enable directors to make the most powerful, impactful work possible across multiple mediums reaching ever-wider audiences, and build sustainable careers. Uplifting directors of all economic classes, races, abilities, genders, and identities is a cornerstone of this mission. We provide support to directors throughout their artistic life, and our work in education offers both continued learning to professionals and introduces the skills of directing to young people. Underpinning our work is the support of our members, a community of ardent theater fans and industry professionals whose commitment to advancing the art form helps develop the careers of the talented directors we champion. More information about The Drama League’s programs, alumni, and the Awards history can be found at www.dramaleague.org.

About Keen Company

Keen Company creates theater that connects. In intimate productions of plays and musicals, we celebrate the complexities of hope and the joys of the human condition. Keen has brought such wholehearted productions to the Off-Broadway stage as Crumbs from the Table of Joy by Lynn Nottage (First NY Revival), The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (First NY Revival), This Space Between Us by Peter Gil-Sheridan (World Premiere), Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage (NY Premiere, AUDELCO and Antonyo Nomination), Surely Goodness and Mercy by Chisa Hutchinson (NY Premiere), Ordinary Days by Adam Gwon (Drama League Nomination), Tick, Tick...BOOM! by Jonathan Larson (Drama Desk Nomination), Boy by Anna Ziegler (World Premiere, Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award), and Marry Me a Little by Stephen Sondheim (Drama League Nomination). Through our unique education program, Keen Teens, we raise the quality of plays written for the high school students and provide a free professional mentorship opportunity for teens. Through the Keen Playwrights Lab, we foster mid-career playwrights to develop new work and facilitate that work's exposure to a greater audience. In everything we do, Keen Company thrives through our welcoming ethos and community commitments. www.keencompany.org

 

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