Aurora Theatre Company Announces 2021/2022 Season Featuring 3 World Premieres & More

Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company announced today the plays that will comprise the theatre's 30th season, with the first slot to be announced at a later date. In the second slot, opening November 2021, will be the World Premiere of Kait Kerrigan's touching tale of romance and relationships in FATHER/DAUGHTER. Aurora kicks off the new year with the World Premiere of THIS MUCH I KNOW from Eureka Day playwright Jonathan Spector. The spring will feature the World Premiere of Cleavon Smith's provocative Originate + Generate commission, THAT'S WHAT WE'RE WAITING TO FIND OUT. The season closes with the West Coast Premiere of Jaclyn Backhaus' WIVES, an irreverent celebration of female capability and power.

All shows will be presented live in Aurora's theatre in Berkeley if health conditions allow. Otherwise, they will be streamed on video.

"It is with great excitement that we announce our thirtieth season," Costello said. "If all goes well in the world, our first production will open in-person on Addison Street this September. If need be, we'll present it on video and stream it straight to your home. Either way, we'll bring five remarkable stories to life with passion and with the kind of connection that we all crave more than ever right now.

"Theatre is at its best when it brings people together and moves the conversation forward, and that's what these plays offer. Over the course of the season, you'll experience the skipped heartbeat of falling in love, the intellectual thrill of untangling a new idea, the joy of shared laughter as outdated shams are exposed, and the rousing energy of a call for revolutionary change."

Continued Costello, "We've all been through a lot in this past year. Right now, I'm feeling grateful for the support you've shown Aurora in this most difficult time. And despite all the challenges we face, I'm feeling hopeful about the future. Please join us for what promises to be a truly inspiring season. I am looking forward."

Aurora's regular season will run September 2021 through July 2022. In chronological order, the Aurora 2020/2021 season is as follows:

TO BE ANNOUNCED

Directed by TBA
September 3 - October 3, 2021 (Opens: September 9)

FATHER/DAUGHTER

By Kait Kerrigan | WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by M. Graham Smith
November 12 - December 12, 2021 (Opens: November 18)

In its world premiere, Father/Daughter by playwright Kait Kerrigan is a beautifully written contemporary romance. Two actors play both pairs of lovers in this structurally inventive play that asks how our relationships with our parents and children impact our romantic lives. In parallel stories told 23 years apart, Baldwin is Miranda's 30-year-old divorced father who is trying to forge a new relationship with a beguiling woman, and Miranda is Baldwin's 30-year-old daughter, who has found herself in her first serious relationship. What can we learn from the relationships we choose in order to repair the relationships we inherit? Kerrigan is an award winning playwright, librettist, and lyricist (We Have to Hold Hands, Mad Ones).

THIS MUCH I KNOW

By Jonathan Spector | WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by Josh Costello
February 4- March 6, 2022 (Opens: February 10)

The writer of Eureka Day returns to Aurora with an explosively theatrical interrogation of agency and culpability. Through his all-too-personal lectures on psychology, Lukesh attempts to unravel a mystery with his wife Natalya at the center. What happened to Natalya? The search for answers will launch us on a time-hopping fugue, weaving together the stories of Stalin's daughter defecting to America, the son of a white supremacist growing to doubt the beliefs he was raised with, and the secret despair of becoming an accidental killer. How do we truly make decisions? How do we change our minds? And what does it mean to be complicit?

THAT'S WHAT WE'RE WAITING TO FIND OUT

By Cleavon Smith | ORIGINATE+GENERATE WORLD PREMIERE
Directed by Dawn Monique Williams
April 15 - May 15, 2022 (Opens: April 21)

Award-winning playwright Cleavon Smith (The Flats, an Aurora audio drama) was named Aurora's Originate + Generate 2021 commissioned artist. In Smith's world premiere play, Thomas, a highly regarded public intellectual and author, is brought to the University of California at Berkeley campus to help facilitate conversations concerning extrajudicial police violence. A member of the UCB Black Student Union was violently beaten by an officer while peacefully protesting and the students find themselves rejecting Thomas' middle-ground, #NotAllCops rhetoric. Miriam and Raz, leaders of the BSU, want immediate action, radical reform, and are sick-and-tired of having to rely on a corrupt system for justice. Nina, the Vice Chancellor of the University, is caught between the demands of the students to shut Thomas down, and loyalty to Thomas, her dearest friend from graduate school.

WIVES

By Jaclyn Backhaus | WEST COAST PREMIERE
Directed by TBA
June 24 - July 24, 2022 (Opens: June 30)

From Hemingway's widow to a maharani in Rajasthan, from 16th century France to the campus of Oxbridge University today, the Great Men are left behind as their wives claim center stage in this irreverent celebration of female capability and power. Can Catherine de' Medici, queen to Henri II of France, rise above her rivalry with Henri's mistress, Diane de Poitiers? Will Hemingway's death bring his former wives together or drive them apart? Can a pact between a maharaja, his wife, and a witch survive the forces of British imperialism? Can a new student club devoted to witchcraft conjure a spell to manifest a new way of being in the world? Aurora is proud to present the West Coast premiere of this riotous and powerful story by the extraordinary playwright Jacklyn Backhaus.

Full-season, 5-play subscriptions are currently available ($200-$385) and offer priority seating, easy exchanges, missed performance and guest discounts, and more. Single tickets ($38-$75) go on sale for subscribers July 20, and on sale August 3 to the general public.

Current full-time teachers receive 20% off subscription prices, and active and retired military personnel also receive 20% off subscription prices through Theatre Communications Group's Blue Star Theatres program. Patrons 35 and under are eligible for half-price subscriptions, and deeply discounted subscriptions are available for full-time college and high school students.

For subscriptions or single tickets, the public can call 510.843.4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.

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