Mosaic Theater Company to Present SATCHMO AT THE WALDORF & More During 2016-17 Season
By: Tyler Peterson Apr. 06, 2016
Mosaic Theater Company of DC announces its second season, an explosive lineup of youthful new voices, multicultural convergences, an acclaimed portrait of an African-American cultural icon, and a multi-prismatic lens trained on two global conflict zones-the Middle East and South Africa. The 2016-17 season builds on the triumphs of the inaugural year by introducing audiences to a host of bold new colors and brash tones while maintaining a continued commitment to the company's ambitious mission of thought-provoking drama and public discourse.
Mosaic's second season opens with a critically acclaimed Off-Broadway hit that has traveled the country, revealing the celebrated and embattled life of jazz legend Louis Armstrong. Later in the fall, a trio of boisterous ensembles and vibrant, early-career voices-including an irreverent world premiere from a local rising-star playwright-highlight the season's breadth. The spring brings a pair of plays running in repertory set in pre and post-Apartheid South Africa, marking the directorial return of Studio Theatre Founding Artistic Director Joy Zinoman staging her longtime hero, Athol Fugard. The season concludes with the return of the acclaimed Voices from a Changing Middle East Festival marking the 50th Anniversary of Israel's Six Day War and the start of The Occupation. The year's robust line-up also includes a new, repertoire-expanding ticketed workshop series. The ambitious second season is made possible by the recently announced one million dollar grant from The Reva and David Logan Foundation, and growing support from a widening circle of foundations and individual contributors.
"It's absolutely amazing that we can talk about a second season for Mosaic and look at the unfolding of expanded horizons," reflects Founding Artistic Director, Ari Roth. "We're a start-up that started big and with a bang that now moves forward, broadening our focus tonally and thematically, embracing the comic and the clamorous. The voices heard in Season Two are muscular and musical, with all the verve and swagger and audacity of alternative communities, which comprise an expressive part of our Mosaic. In addition to nationally produced, red-hot plays by Kirsten Greenidge and Philip Dawkins, we're ushering in the professional debut of the highly touted Catholic University graduate playwright, Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm and his urgent, irreverent play about growing up black in the fictional Baltimore suburb of Achievement Heights. In counterpoint to these youthful ensemble pieces, we're bringing in established artists like Joy Zinoman, Craig Wallace, Eleanor Holdridge, and Natsu Onoda Power to help us unearth and investigate issues of race, social inequity, and the process of seeking truth and reconciliation that is at the heart of Mosaic's focus."
The season begins with Terry Teachout's heralded SATCHMO AT THE WALDORF, directed by Eleanor Holdridge, one of the busiest directors in town, and starring local A-List actor Craig Wallace portraying the legendary trumpeter, bandleader, and balladeer Louis Armstrong, his besieged Jewish manager Joe Glaser, and his fierce artistic rival Miles Davis.
Mosaic then launches the first of three buoyant and clamorous comedies about young people of diverse backgrounds. Mosaic Theater Resident Director Jennifer L. Nelson directs the first, Kirsten Greenidge's MILK LIKE SUGAR, a provocative story of a group of very different teenage girls who enter into a "pregnancy pact" on the verge of their high school graduation.
The new calendar year brings CHARM, the Philip Dawkins comedy about the colorful inner workings of an etiquette class taught by Mama Darleena Andrews, an African-American transgender woman in an LGBTQ community shelter known as The Center. It's staged by trail-blazing, genre-crossing director, Natsu Onoda Power, whose acclaimed production THE T PARTY tackled similar themes at Forum Theatre.
Mosaic Theater Managing Director & Producer Serge Seiden directs the world premiere of HOODED: OR BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES, a cutting satire by local rising star Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm. A highly theatricalized meditation on growing up African-American in America, the play follows a suburban teen attending "Achievement Heights Prep," whose future is inalterably changed by Tru, a street savvy life coach.
In the spring Mosaic turns to South Africa with two plays running in modified repertory. Studio Theatre Founding Artistic Director Joy Zinoman helms the anchor production, Athol Fugard's 1963 classic fable THE BLOOD KNOT about two half-brothers, one black and one mixed-race. The repertory includes weekend and off-night performances of Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela's post-Apartheid interview drama, A HUMAN BEING DIED THAT NIGHT, adapted for the stage by Nicholas Wright, about an encounter that goes well past the confines of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee testimonies.
The season closes with two new offerings in the acclaimed Voices from a Changing Middle East Festival: Gilad Evron's ULYSSES ON BOTTLES (winner of Israel Theater Prize's Best Original Play in 2012), recounting a middle class Israeli family impacted by the relationship between a lawyer and his imprisoned Palestinian client. Next in the festival is Hanna Eady and Edward Mast's THE RETURN (OVED SHABBAT) about a tense, romantic standoff set in an auto repair shop. An American premiere, this piece was the first work by an American-Israeli-Palestinian playwright to run in Hebrew at the Al-Midan Arabic Theater in Haifa.
"Season Two is every bit as bold and ambitious as Season One," says Managing Director & Producer Serge Seiden. "We've re-invested in and expanded our focus through this lineup of urgent new plays and world-class artists. With the addition of a ticketed workshop series and expanded staff, we're building an infrastructure for sustainability. Thanks to our hardworking team, committed board leadership, and generous support-especially the recent million dollar grant from the Logan Foundation-we've quickly launched from dream to reality, while laying the groundwork for many years to come."
The new, four-part ticketed workshop series, part of the Reva and David Logan Foundation Community Engagement Initiative, complements the second season's mainstage offerings. Series details will be announced later this spring, and will include two one-acts by pioneering African-American playwright, Adrienne Kennedy; a play by a deaf playwright (expanding Mosaic's partnership with neighboring Gallaudet University and Season Two accessibility initiatives); a new project by a favorite DC performance artist; and a hit Israeli comedy in conjunction with the 2017 Voices from a Changing Middle East Festival.
"Crafting our Season Two lineup has been all about defining our mosaic," shares Resident Director Jennifer L. Nelson. "Season One presented a daunting task: creating a brand new company while simultaneously building an audience. We started with plays and artists that we loved while staying focused on the community we sought to engage, and eventually created a community that is multicultural and cross-generational: Jewish, Muslim and Christian; straight and gay; black and white; hearing and Deaf; young and old. A great deal of loving energy went into crafting a second season that will build upon the enthusiasm Season One engendered. We remain confident that our audiences can expect a safe place to see their stories represented fairly on our stage."
Season Two is rounded out by free community readings, Mosaic on the Move touring presentations, a robust schedule of free community programming, student matinees, and a professional apprenticeship program to train the next generation of theater leaders from Howard University, Bowie State University, and Gallaudet University.
SATCHMO AT THE WALDORF
Directed by Eleanor Holdridge
Starring Craig Wallace
At the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lang Theatre
August 25-October 2, 2016
It's March 1971 at the Waldorf Astoria, and Louis Armstrong has just played one of the final performances of his extraordinary career. Unwinding backstage, the legendary 'Satchmo' recounts the events-and regrets-that led him to a place of stature in danger of being stripped away. Helmed by Eleanor Holdridge and starring DC-favorite Craig Wallace, this one-man, three-character powerhouse play with music dives into the complicated relationships between Armstrong, his embattled Jewish manager Joe Glaser, and his fiercest competitor and critic, trumpeter Miles Davis. "Fascinating...seamless, and full of surprises" (Chicago Sun Times), Satchmo at the Waldorf is an uplifting play about the price of success, the birth of jazz, and the soul of Satchmo-as you've never heard it before!
MILK LIKE SUGAR
Directed by Jennifer L. Nelson
At the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lang Theatre
November 2-27, 2016
What's the power of friendship in a world where young women of color have so very little? For sixteen year-old Annie Desmond, growing up in a small city is all Galaxy phones and texts from boys. But when one of her friends proudly boasts that she's expecting, the allure of Coach diaper bags and an infant's constant company propels the group into a life-altering "pregnancy pact." Torn between her allegiance to the pack, her ambitions for college, and the promise of a future with a boy named Malik, Annie must make a choice for the future she wants, even if it's not the future she's being pushed to pursue. Mosaic Theater Resident Director Jennifer L. Nelson directs a riotous tale by Kristen Greenidge about powerful young women on the brink of maturity that "balances street with sweet, to entertaining and illuminating effect" (Los Angeles Times). Winner of the 2012 Obie Award for Playwriting and 2011 San Diego Critics Circle Craig Noel Award for Outstanding New Play.
CHARM
Directed by Natsu Onoda Power
At the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lang Theatre
January 4-29, 2017
Meet Mama Darleena Andrews, a 67 year-old transgender woman and the inimitable etiquette instructor at "The Center," an organization for Chicago's homeless and LGTBQ youth. Her students are as diverse in background as they are in identity, united by a feeling of other-ness in the heart of a city that's left them behind. But for "Mama Darlin," triumph over poverty and prejudice begins with lacing up and fitting in-playing the part with class and with charm. Based on the heartwarming true story of Chicago trans icon Miss Gloria Allen of the Center on Halsted, and staged by trailblazing director Natsu Onoda Power (The T Party), this touching, enchanting story of hardship, wit, and an indomitable Mama's love is a "portrait of pain, kindness, and an LGBTQ community in transition" (Time Out Chicago).
HOODED: OR BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES
World premiere by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm
Directed by Serge Seiden
At the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Sprenger Theatre
January 25-February 19, 2017
This irreverent world premiere comedy set in Achievement Heights, Maryland follows Marquis, a book smart prep-schooler and Tru, a street savvy drop-out from inner-city Baltimore. Their worlds overlap in a holding cell where both are being detained. Tru observes that Marquis seems to have lost his "blackness" and pens a how-to manual entitled "Being Black for Dummies," assuming the role of professor, courtship counselor, and hip-hop advisor. Marquis returns to school ready to make his mark as he and Tru continue to butt heads, debate, and ultimately prove that Nietzsche and 2pac were basically saying the same thing. Serge Seiden (When January Feels Like Summer, Bad Jews) directs this urgent world premiere by local rising star Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm.
SOUTH AFRICA: THEN & NOW
THE BLOOD KNOT (in rep with A HUMAN BEING DIED THAT NIGHT)
By Athol Fugard
Directed by Joy Zinoman
At the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lang Theatre
March 29-April 30, 2017
The first show in Mosaic Theater's South Africa repertory, this landmark classic from South Africa's most acclaimed playwright, Athol Fugard, is a harrowing fable of two brothers bound by blood and separated by color. The light-skinned Morris and his darker-skinned brother Zachariah share a one room shack in Port Elizabeth, where their childhood memories form a bond that runs deep. But when Zachariah's pen-pal, a white woman, announces her intention to meet him in person, it is Morris who cloaks himself in the clothes and mannerisms he learned while "passing" in white society in order to pose as his brother. Helmed by Studio Theatre founding artistic director Joy Zinoman, The Blood Knot is "a contemporary classic...as both a deeply human experience and a symbolic statement on the anguish of Apartheid" (New York Times).
A HUMAN BEING DIED THAT NIGHT (in rep with THE BLOOD KNOT)
From the book by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
Adapted for the stage by Nicholas Wright
At the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lang Theatre
April 7-30, 2017
The second part of Mosaic Theater's South Africa repertory, this tense confrontation recounts the black, African psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela's gripping interrogations of Apartheid-era torturer and assassin Eugene de Kock, known by many as "Prime Evil." Adapted for the stage by Nicholas Wright from Gobodo-Madikizela's best-selling 2003 book, this taut cross-examination is "a scorching look at Apartheid guilt" (The Guardian) in a deeply wounded South Africa, and the pained negotiations between past and future in a country aching to move on.
VOICES FROM A CHANGING MIDDLE EAST FESTIVAL
ULYSSES ON BOTTLES
By Gilad Evron
At the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Lang Theatre
May 18-June 11, 2017
Launching the 2017 Voices Festival marking 50 years of The Occupation, the Israeli playwright Gilad Evron's poetic and poignant play recounts the fallout when an Israeli-Arab ex-teacher, nicknamed Ulysses, attempts to sail into Gaza on a raft made of plastic bottles, bearing with him a cargo of Dostoyevksy's Crime and Punishment. Paired with a successful Israeli-Jewish attorney who takes his case pro bono, Ulysses on Bottles is a tale of two worlds colliding over Gaza, in which the profound implication of privilege and access in one of the hotbeds of the world intersect with surprising sympathy and humor. This captivating story is "an allegory on the definition of freedom-what it means, what it entails and what it demands" (The Jerusalem Post). Winner of Israel Theater Prize's Best Original Play in 2012.
THE RETURN (OVED SHABBAT)
American premiere by Hanna Eady & Edward Mast
At the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Sprenger Theatre
June 8-July 2, 2017
A gripping mystery set in a run-down automobile repair shop in old Herzliya, this American premiere by Palestinian playwright Hanna Eady (with Edward Mast) elegantly dramatizes the smoldering tension between a Palestinian mechanic and an attracted, conflicted Israeli Jewish woman from his past. Four Pinteresque scenes deftly unfold a story of love, betrayal, guilt, and challenge.
TICKETS: Tickets the Second Season are $40-$60, plus applicable fees. For information on savings programs such as student discounts, neighborhood nights, community nights, military and first responder discounts, and others, visit mosaictheater.org/tickets. Tickets may be purchased online at mosaictheater.org, or by phone at 202-399-7993 ext. 2, or at the Atlas Performing Arts Center Box Office at 1333 H Street NE, Washington DC 20002.
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