#CHARLOTTESVILLE World Premiere to Open at Keegan Theatre in March
Performances will run from March 22-April 13.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Mar. 13, 2025
The Keegan Theatre will present the world premiere run of Priyanka Shetty’s solo play #CHARLOTTESVILLE, directed by Yury Urnov and presented in partnership with Voices Festival Productions. An urgent and personal exploration of how a town and the nation grapple with white supremacy, #CHARLOTTESVILLE is constructed verbatim from interviews with over a hundred local residents, court transcripts, and news reports – and now makes its world premiere at the Keegan Theatre, March 22-April 13, 2025.
“We are honored to support and premiere Priyanka Shetty’s #CHARLOTTESVILLE,” explains Josh Sticklin, Keegan Associate Producer and Artistic Director of Keegan’s Boiler Room Series new works initiative, which has collaborated closely with Priyanka since 2020, “because now, more than ever, we need bold, unflinching storytelling. In an era where extremists are emboldened, where revisionist history and censorship are being used as tools to distort truth and silence artists, this new work stands as an urgent act of resistance.”
"Charlottesville marked a pivotal moment in our country’s political and social landscape,” explains playwright and performer Priyanka Shetty, “with consequences that continue to resonate today. The events of 2017 laid bare the depth of division and hate that still threaten to tear apart our communities, and #Charlottesville remains as urgent now as it was when I first began working on it in 2019. This is a story that speaks to the core of who we are as a nation and the work we must still do to confront hate, intolerance, and violence. Under Yury Urnov’s visionary direction, #CHARLOTTESVILLE honors the voices of the local residents who were interviewed for this project, while exposing the hateful ideology that fuels the Alt Right.”
“As an immigrant, much like Priyanka,” adds director Yury Urnov, “I bring a perspective to this production that is part-outsider, part-insider. Both of us, like so many others, arrived in this country with a magical image of the ‘city upon a hill,’ and over time, we’ve seen how those images evolve, often revealing deep cracks. My own perception of Charlottesville’s events has changed dramatically since 2017. Back then, I was still able to believe the torch-bearing rally was just the actions of isolated individuals. But now, in 2025, the political reality shows us that those forces have broken out of their basements and are threatening the very foundations of the country. The necessity of this play for me lies in not just exploring how it all began but also asking a pressing question: What are our fates — both in this country and in the world — as we confront the forces that have broken free from the shadows and now threaten our shared future? I hope our exploration offers something valuable to the ongoing conversation.”
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