Dorset Theatre Festival Launches Free Audio Plays with REDEEMED by Chisa Hutchinson

Dorset Theatre Festival will welcome their 2021 summer season with the release of their StageFree Audio Plays Series, beginning with Redeemed by Chisa Hutshinson, directed by Dorset's resident artist, Jade King Carroll.

The audio drama stars actors Vanessa Kai (Kung Fu, New Amsterdam) and Michael Esper (Nurse Jackie, Broadway's A Man For All Seasons), and the production team includes Justin Ellington as composer, Twi McCallum as sound designer, and recording engineering by Uptown Works. Dorset Theatre Festival is releasing Redeemed with Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV.

Dorset commissioned award-winning writers Theresa Rebeck and Chisa Hutchinson as the inaugural playwrights of the series, with Hutchinson's Redeemed premiering first. "We are so excited to launch this free and accessible series with this terrific new play by one of the country's top playwrights, Chisa Hutchinson, and we are thrilled to be doing so with our new partners at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia," said Dina Janis, Dorset's artistic director. "In these times, it felt more important than ever to find ways of collaborating with and supporting artists while demonstrating our commitment to producing theatre that is accessible and available to all," said Janis.

REDEEMED, which will launch Dorset's Stage Free Audio Plays Series, is available this week on podcast platforms. The play tells the fictional story of convicted murderer Trevor Barlow, who killed Claire Yiang's brother nine years prior and has written to Claire begging her to visit him in prison. When Claire arrives, the killer claims he's a changed man thanks to the help of her brother's ghost. Now Claire must decide whether her brother's murderer is capable of redemption, or just attempting to impress the parole board. A riveting exploration of domestic terrorism, Redeemed is a chilling and surprising audio drama.

"It's a kind of morally muddy play. My hope is that folks will feel compelled, inspired, and challenged by the humanity of the characters, who each take their turn showing us the most unsavory bits," said the playwright, Chisa Hutchinson.

Sound production for Redeemed was done by Uptown Works' lead recording artists Daniela Hart, Bailey Trieweiler, and Noel Nichols, recording engineers Stan Mathabane, Joe Krempetz and Bryn Shcharenberg, and dialogue editor Stan Mathabane. Olivia Louise Tree Plath was the stage manager.

The second audio play of the series, Theresa Rebeck's Nightwatch, a fictional true-crime podcast, will debut later in 2021. Dorset's StageFree Audio Plays are funded in part by the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. Support for Dorset Theatre Festival's 44th season is provided by the Rodgers Family Foundation, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, and members of the Dorset Theatre Festival World Premiere Circle.

For more information, visit dorsettheatrefestival.org.

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