Signature Theatre Announces Dates For 2022-2023 Season, Featuring Quiara Alegría Hudes, Samuel D. Hunter, Sarah Ruhl, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Signature Theatre has announced dates for its 2022-2023 season-from Resident playwrights Quiara Alegría Hudes, Samuel D. Hunter, Sarah Ruhl, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. While the structure of Signature's seasons-producing several plays by each resident writer-fundamentally brings audiences closer to playwrights, this season particularly offers a personal and profound view into each Resident writers' voice and vision. Often adapting their own work or using the stage to explore the imprint of places and relationships, playwrights in 2022-2023 offer works that pull from various intimate realms of experience-in textured, complex impressions of contemporary American reality. All productions will take place at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd Street).

Artistic Director Paige Evans says, "From season to season, our audiences can see a play in the context of the playwright's body of work-alongside other resident playwrights' work. This ongoing engagement with writers is specific to Signature, and finds a new resonance in a season where so many of our playwrights are telling personal stories."

The season kicks off with Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes's return to Signature for the second play in her Premiere Residency (following the 2016 world premiere of Daphne's Dive), the stage adaptation of her memoir My Broken Language (October 18-November 27, 2022). The world premiere production, directed by Hudes and colliding monologue, literary reading, music, and movement in its depiction of an author growing up in a Puerto Rican family in Philadelphia, continues a momentous moment for the playwright: in 2021, she released the acclaimed book on which the play is based, and her Tony-nominated stage musical collaboration with Lin Manuel-Miranda, In the Heights, reached audiences around the world as a beloved major motion picture. (Hudes penned the book in the Broadway production and the film's screenplay).

MacArthur Fellow Samuel D. Hunter, whose first work in his Premiere Residency-the world premiere of A Case for the Existence of God-ran at Signature to great critical acclaim, returns with the Off-Broadway premiere of A Bright New Boise (January 31-March 12, 2023). As in Case, Hunter here captures a region of his home state Idaho-in the negative space of a depersonalized work environment-through the people who inhabit it. This dark comedic work depicts a Boise Hobby Lobby thrown into chaos by the arrival of a new employee sorting through a tragic past. Like Hudes, audiences can experience Hunter's stage work alongside his unique dramatic vision on-screen: Darren Aronofsky's film adaptation of his play The Whale, starring Brendan Fraser, is expected to be released by A24 sometime in 2022.

From February 7-March 19, 2023, MacArthur Fellow Sarah Ruhl begins her Spotlight Residency with the world premiere adaptation of her 2018 epistolary book, Letters from Max: A Poet, a Teacher, and a Friendship, "a resonant and profound contribution from two fully formed artists to the literature of illness" (Slate). Ruhl, whose accomplished body of work includes Eurydice and Pulitzer Prize finalists In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) and The Clean House, here shares letters and poems passed between herself and her former student Max Ritvo, as he candidly discusses terminal illness and tests poetry's capacity to put to words what otherwise feels ineffable.

MacArthur Fellow Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's Premiere Residency culminates with his self-directed world premiere Grass (May 16-June 25, 2023). Jacobs-Jenkins-whose previous Signature Productions include Appropriate and Pulitzer Prize finalist Everybody-is currently creating a television series based on Octavia Butler's seminal classic, Kindred, for FX.

With long-term commitments to playwrights' bodies of work and amplifying the breadth of their visions, Signature Theatre's residency programs set the organization apart: the Premiere Residency (formerly Residency 5) supports the development and production of several new plays by each resident playwright, while the Spotlight Residency (formerly Residency 1) offers a deep dive into an established writer's body of work through productions of three or more plays, both new and reimagined. The newest residency program, the Launchpad Residency, offers diverse early career writers holistic and ongoing support, including two commissions, developmental opportunities, a workshop production, and a full production. The residency also supports new playwrights through mentorship opportunities, health insurance, office space, and community building, and deepens Signature's mission to produce bodies of work by exceptional playwrights at all stages of their careers. The Launchpad residency will begin with a workshop production in Spring 2023 in the Ford Foundation Studio Theatre; more details to be announced.

SigSpace-the program of eclectic work in The Pershing Square Signature Center's spacious lobby, sustaining it as a free public workspace and social hub for New York City artists-will return this season with new dynamic artistic and community centric programming geared towards the public.

The new Student Membership Program is a free program for current students from grade school through graduate school and beyond. Student Members have access to discounted tickets ($20 for students; $30 for guests), student-centered community events, and special behind-the-scenes looks at Signature programming. The Student Membership extends Signature's commitment to creating a home for storytellers, a space for all, bridging access and activation at the Pershing Square Signature Center for those navigating the educational system as students. For more information, visit the Student Membership page on Signature's website.

My Broken Language

Written and Directed by Quiara Alegría Hudes

World Premiere

Premiere Resident Writer

Oct 18-Nov 27, 2022

The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre

Blending monologue, literary reading, live music, and movement, My Broken Language is an author's recollection of life growing up en el barrio in Philadelphia during the 90s, in a Puerto Rican family held together by women: recalling the uplift, the grief, the spirits, the dance. Navigating the margins of many communities, they forge a language all their own. Premiere Residency Playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes adapts and directs her acclaimed memoir for the stage.

A Bright New Boise

Written by Samuel D. Hunter

Directed by Oliver Butler

Off-Broadway Premiere

Premiere Resident Writer

Jan 31-March 12, 2023

The Irene Diamond Stage

This 2011 Obie Award-winning dark comedy centers on Will, a lapsed Evangelical who has fled his northern Idaho hometown after a tragedy. Working at a Boise Hobby Lobby, Will forges connections with his new coworkers and struggles to reconcile his life with his faith.

Letters from Max

By Sarah Ruhl

Directed by Kate Whoriskey

World Premiere

Spotlight Resident Writer

Feb 7-March 19, 2023

The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre

Based on Letters from Max: a Poet, a Teacher, and a Friendship, MacArthur "Genius" Fellow and two-time Pulitzer Finalist Sarah Ruhl adapts her tender and inspiring correspondence with her late student, the poet Max Ritvo. A powerful intertwining of dialogue, poetry, and ritual, Letters from Max follows the journey of a poetry teacher and her talented student as they grow and learn from each other.

Grass

Written and Directed by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

World Premiere

Premiere Resident Writer

May 16-June 25, 2023

The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre

A nightmare eviction leaves an out-of-work actor with nowhere to go but his father's house on an island in southeast Texas. But in order to get there-and not get shot-he's going to have to let his mother drive. Hilarity ensues. Or doesn't. In either case, History narrates. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate, Everybody) culminates his Signature residency as playwright and director of this new play.

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