Soho Rep. to Return to Walker Street with Two World Premieres

Soho Rep. has announced its 2017-18 season, which marks the return of the beloved New York City theater to the Lower Manhattan storefront it has called home for over 25 years.

After completing renovations in the fall of 2017, and, shortly thereafter, resuming activity in the space with its Writer/Director Lab, Soho Rep. will present two world premieres that epitomize the "indispensable" (New York Magazine) institution's role in the American theater landscape and harness the singular venue for the simultaneously intimate and expansive theatrical experiences that are Soho Rep.'s signature.

Soho Rep.'s theater, at 46 Walker Street in TriBeCa, has long been a cornerstone of the company's identity, and of the cultural map of New York City. Described by Hilton Als of The New Yorker as "a 70-seat house filled with big ideas," the small but flexible space has served as a platform for vastly diverse artists to realize their boldest visions, in productions that are regularly among the most ambitious and acclaimed offerings of the theater season. In Sarah Benson's first decade as Artistic Director, Soho Rep. has produced a body of work that is consistently big in scope, formally challenging and socially relevant, including Sarah Kane's Blasted, Annie Baker's Uncle Vanya, Lucas Hnath's A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney, debbie tucker green's generations and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon, to name a few. For each show, Soho Rep. gives artists the freedom to radically reconfigure the space.

Soho Rep.'s return to Walker Street is a triumph over considerable odds. The organization closed the theater in September 2016 upon discovering that the company had been producing in the space, since moving into the building 1991, without having obtained the proper Certificate of Occupancy. The anticipated legal, administrative and construction costs of doing so in 2016 were prohibitive for Soho Rep., and their longtime home seemed destined, like so many downtown cultural landmarks, to succumb to the ever-growing pressures of the real estate market. However, thanks to a citywide effort including the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment and the Department of Buildings, Soho Rep. has resolved the bureaucratic issues and made the modest renovations required to move back in, having successfully completed a $500,000 building fundraising campaign led by Executive Director Cynthia Flowers and the Soho Rep. Board with leadership support from The Tow Foundation. Julie Menin, commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, told The New York Times, "It would have been a travesty if Soho Rep. would have had to leave that location after 25 years. They are a downtown beacon."

The first activity in the theater this fall will be the return of the Soho Rep. Writer/Director Lab, which fosters collaborations between writers and directors in the beginning stages of the creative process. The Lab returns with new co-chairs: WilLiam Burke, a Brooklyn-based playwright and director who co-curates the Starr Reading Series at the Bushwick Starr and the Little Theatre at Dixon Place, and whose next piece, untitled american flag craft project, opens at The Brick in December; and the playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury, whose new play, Fairview, makes its world premiere at Soho Rep. this season, and whose breakthrough, We Are Proud to Present..., Soho Rep. presented to widespread acclaim in 2012.

The season begins with Aleshea Harris's Is God Is, a work that is emblematic of Soho Rep., February 6 - March 11, 2018.While Harris is an increasingly celebrated playwright, screenwriter and poet-Is God Is won her the American Playwriting Foundation's 2016 Relentless Award-this world premiere is the first New York production of one of her plays. Harris joins a history of playwrights whose first significaNT Productions have happened at Soho Rep., including César Alvarez, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Young Jean Lee, Lucas Hnath and Dan LeFranc. Directed by another acclaimed early-career artist, Taibi Magar (Ars Nova's Underground Railroad Game, The Foundry Theatre's Master), Is God Is is a modern myth that follows twin sisters as they sojourn from the Dirty South to the California desert to exact righteous revenge. At the heart of Is God Is is a quality that has been a hallmark of Soho Rep. under Sarah Benson's leadership: fiercely unique writing. Taking its cues from the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the Spaghetti Western, hip-hop and Afropunk, the play irreverently explodes notions of morality-as well as genre-while traversing a darkly-comedic landscape.

Of Is God Is, Benson says, "I could not think of a more perfect play with which to welcome audiences back into our theater. When I was sent two of Aleshea's plays I began reading one of them late at night, and before I knew it I had stayed up for hours immersed in her work. I emailed her the very next morning to find a time to meet, and invite her to work with us on a production of Is God Is. Aleshea's writing is a force. In Is God Is she has created nothing short of a new theatrical landscape populated by some of the most stunning roles for actors I've ever encountered. I cannot wait to share it with our audiences-especially under the direction of Taibi Magar who I know will summon everything in her brilliant theatrical arsenal to bring this extraordinary play to the stage."

The season continues with Jackie Sibblies Drury's Fairview, directed by Sarah Benson, May 29 - July 1, 2018. Soho Rep. introduced New York audiences to Sibblies Drury's work with the premiere of her exhilaratingly irreverent We Are Proud to Present...In that play, a troupe of American actors stumbles over questions of authenticity and appropriation as they attempt to reconstruct the little-known first genocide of the 20th Century and land in an exploration that hits closer to home. In Fairview, Sibblies Drury cracks open the form of the naturalistic family drama to examine the ways in which we watch and judge each other everyday and to question the impact of those actions on individuals and society at large. Like We Are Proud to Present..., Sibblies Drury's latest workis by turns funny and unsettling.

Benson says, "We Are Proud ... remains one of my all time highs at Soho Rep and I am delighted to be welcoming Jackie back and directing her play. Jackie's work engages with some of the thorniest questions in a thrilling theatrical form. She collides intimacy and civic scope to ultimately invite an audience to complete the experience of the play. Never has that been truer than in her new play Fairview."

Fairview illustrates the value of two programs through which Soho Rep. nurtures playwrights of promise: the Writer/Director Lab, through which Sibblies Drury first came to the organization; and Soho Rep.'s Studio program, where the play was workshopped after being co-commissioned with Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Soho Rep. is expanding the Studio to encompass the commissioning, development and production of at least nine new plays between 2018 and 2022, by artists including Carmelita Tropicana & Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; Alice Birch (recipient of a Berwin Lee New Play Commission); Becca Blackwell; Narcissister; and Kate Tarker. As a result, the creation of new work will be a primary activity of the theater in the years ahead.

The Studio is distinctive within the theater community in that it fully supports the development of new work, from first impulse through full production, over the course of several years. In the past four seasons, 75% of the company's productions have been commissioned or developed in the Studio, including Futurity, 10 Out of 12, An Octoroon and more.

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Soho Rep. 2017-2018 PRODUCTIONS:

Soho Rep. Presents
Is God Is (World Premiere)
By Aleshea Harris
Directed by Taibi Magar

February 6 - March 11, 2018
Soho Rep. (46 Walker Street)
Tickets: $35 general admission tickets, $65 premium seats
99-Cent Sundays: February 25; March 4, and 11, 2018
sohorep.org or 212.352.3101

"You so mad.
Ain't you? I wanna step on something for once. See what it feel like. Must feel good."

Is God Is is a modern myth about twin sisters who sojourn from the Dirty South to the California desert to exact righteous revenge.

Winner of the 2016 Relentless Award, Aleshea Harris collides the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the Spaghetti Western, and Afropunk in this darkly funny and unapologetic world premiere.

Aleshea Harris is a playwright, performer and educator who received an MFA in Writing for Performance from California Institute of the Arts. Most recently, she was named the winner of the American Playwriting Foundation's 2016 Relentless Award for her play Is God Is. Her work has been presented at the Costume Shop at American Conservatory Theater, Playfest at Orlando Shakespeare Theater, VOXfest at Dartmouth College, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Theatre @ Boston Court, L'École de la Comédie de Saint-Étienne, National Drama Center in France and in the 2015 anthology The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. Harris is under commission from Denver Center Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theater and CalArts' Center for New Performance/La Comedie de Saint-Etiénne. She is a MacDowell Fellow and a Hedgebrook alum.

Taibi Magar is an Egyptian-American director based in New York, and a graduate of the Brown/Trinity MFA program. Most recently she directed the critically acclaimed Master at the Foundry Theatre (New York Times Critics Pick). Other recent projects include Underground Railroad Game (Ars Nova, New York Times Critics Pick, OBIE Award for Best New American Work), Dry Powder (The Alley) and We Are Proud to Present...(The Guthrie).

In New York, Magar has directed and developed work for The Foundry, New York Theatre Workshop, Ars Nova, TFANA, the Women's Project Theatre, Rising Phoenix Rep and INTAR Theatre. She is the recipient of a Stephen Sondheim Fellowship, an Oregon Shakespeare Festival Fellowship, a Public Theater Shakespeare Fellowship and the TFANA Actors and Director Project Fellowship, and is an alumna of Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Most recently, she received the Kaplan Fellowship for young artists. She has directed and taught at many academic institutions, including Juilliard, Fordham University, Brown University and New York University.

Magar is currently developing Patrick and Daniel Lazour's We Live in Cairo (2016 Richard Rodgers Award) with New York Theatre Workshop. Upcoming projects include Familiar (The Guthrie and Seattle Repertory Theatre), Sense and Sensibility (Playmakers Rep) and Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare Festival St. Louis).

Soho Rep. Presents
Fairview (World Premiere)
By Jackie Sibblies Drury
Directed by Sarah Benson
Commissioned by Soho Rep. and Berkeley Repertory Theatre

May 29 - July 1, 2018
Soho Rep. (46 Walker St.)
Tickets: $35 general admission tickets, $65 premium seats
99-Cent Sundays: June 17, 24; July 1, 2018
sohorep.org or 212.352.3101

"Who cares what Tyrone think? Don't matter what he think.
I mean, he can have an Opinion, sure,
about who he is, who his family is, what typa man he is,
everybody entitled to they own opinion. This America. It's a free country.
But that goes for everybody, you know, free is free,
everybody free to draw they own conclusion
about who you is and who you ain't."

The Frasier family hasn't been the same since Braden died, and Beverly needs this dinner to be perfect. But the silverware's wrong, the radio's on the fritz, Keisha is late, Jasmine is drinking, Dayton isn't helping, and Mama won't come downstairs.

Following her "inventive," "pulse-pounding" We Are Proud to Present...(The New York Times, Time Out New York, and New York Magazine Critics' Picks), Jackie Sibblies Drury returns to Soho Rep. with a well-made(ish) play directed by Sarah Benson.

Jackie Sibblies Drury is a Brooklyn based playwright. Her plays include We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915, Really, and Social Creatures. Sibblies Drury's plays have been presented by New York City Players and Abrons Arts Center, Soho Rep., Victory Gardens, Trinity Rep, Matrix Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Undermain Theatre, InterAct Theatre, Actors Theater of Louisville, Available Light, Company One and The Bush Theatre in London, among others. Her work has been developed at Sundance, The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova, A.C.T., The Soho Rep. Writer/Director Lab, New York Theatre Workshop, PRELUDE.11&14, The Civilians, The Bushwick Starr, The LARK, The Magic Theatre, The Bay Area Playwrights Festival and The MacDowell Colony. Sibblies Drury was a dramaturg for Futurity by César Alvarez and The Lisps, Zero Cost House by Pig Iron Theatre Company & Toshiki Okada, and The Garden by Nichole Canuso Dance Company. She received a 2015 Windham-Campbell Literary Prize in Drama, a 2012-2013 Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists, and was the inaugural recipient of the 2012-2014 Jerome Fellowship at The LARK. She is a NYTW Usual Suspect and a 2015 United States Artists Gracie Fellow.

Sarah Benson has been Artistic Director of Soho Rep. since 2007. For Soho Rep., she has directed Richard Maxwell's Samara, Cesar Alvarez and The Lisps' Futurity (Callaway Award), Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's An Octoroon, (Soho Rep. & Theatre for a New Audience), Lucas Hnath's A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney, David Adjmi's Elective Affinities and Sarah Kane's Blasted (OBIE Award, Drama Desk nomination). She has also directed at A.R.T., Woolly Mammoth and M.T.C. She holds a MFA from Brooklyn College, where she studied with Tom Bullard. In 2016, Benson won a Vilcek Foundation Prize for Creative Promise. Her upcoming projects include Suzan-Lori Parks' In The Blood at Signature Theatre.

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Founded in 1975, and in its theater on Walker Street since 1991, Soho Rep. has built an outstanding reputation for being at the forefront of new and innovative theater, serving as a vital center for contemporary theatre artists.

Soho Rep. is dedicated to cultivating and producing visionary, uncompromising, and exuberant new plays, performing to one of the youngest adult audiences in New York City, with over half aged 18-40.

Critics continue to herald Soho Rep. as a go-to theatre destination for new and original works. New York Magazine says, "this indispensable theater offers more excitement per chair than any space in town," Time Out New York says, "Soho Rep is the best theater in NYC," and The New York Times declares Soho Rep. to be "a first-class downtown company" and says, "The downtown powerhouse...regularly outclasses the work done on many of the city's larger stages." In 2015, The Village Voice named Soho Rep. the "Best Off-Broadway Theater Company," and the company was listed in Travel Magazine's 2016 "10 Essential Off-Broadway Theaters."

In 2014, Soho Rep. was honored with a Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement. Over the last decade, Soho Rep. productions have garnered 18 OBIE Awards; the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical; 13 Drama Desk nominations, two Kesselring Awards, The New York Times Outstanding Playwriting Award for Dan LeFranc's Sixty Miles To Silverlake and, a special citation in The New York Drama Critics' Circle's 2012-13 awards. In recent years, Soho Rep. has presented plays by established and emerging theatre artists such as David Adjmi, Annie Baker, Alice Birch, Lucas Hnath, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sarah Kane, debbie tucker green, Young Jean Lee, Nature Theater of Oklahoma and Anne Washburn.

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