Taylor Mac's HIR Rounds Out Woolly Mammoth's 37th Season

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company announces the final production of its 37th Season, Hir, by playwright Taylor Mac, directed by Shana Cooper. Hir will run May 22-June 18, 2017.

Isaac, a veteran, returns to his childhood home and discovers that his family's been transformed. His timid mother, freed from the constraints of her marriage, has begun a crusade to subvert the patriarchy, and his sister is now a genderqueer anarchist who uses the pronouns ze and hir. Meanwhile, his abusive father now wears clown makeup and downs estrogen pills...against his will.

Obie Award-winner Taylor Mac's Hir flips the script on gender power dynamics and asks a key question: how do we heal when our politics divide us? It's a sly kitchen-sink drama covered in glitter, and you'll laugh your way through to an answer.

Taylor Mac is a performance artist and prolific playwright with more than 17 plays and performance pieces, including A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, which won the 2017 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama and was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mac describes Hir as a new venture that explores "the remnants of the former body politic and the rise of a new progressive body politic." Hir received its premiere at The Magic Theatre, and subsequently ran at Playwright Horizons in New York, where the New York Times called it "a remarkable, audacious, uproarious black comedy with a daring combination of realism and madcap absurdity."

"Hir comes at timely moment," says Woolly Mammoth Artistic Director Howard Shalwitz. "It ingeniously encapsulates the current American cultural divide with the life of a single family and uses gender politics as a creative metaphor. We're excited to finally get to present Taylor's work on the Woolly stage and couldn't be happier for it to be led by an amazing team of our company members."

Woolly company members Emily Townley (The Totalitarians) and Mitchell Hébert (Clyborne Park) star as Paige and Arthur, respectively. New York based actor Joseph Parks makes his Woolly debut as Issac, and Malic White (Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind) returns and completes the cast as Max.

Woolly company member Shana Cooper (The Nether) returns to Woolly to direct Hir. Other company members on the production team include Misha Kachman (set design), Colin K. Bills (lighting design), and Ivania Stack (costume design). Rounding out the creative team are James Bigsbee Garver (sound designer) and Robb Hunter (fight/choreography).

Hir runs May 22 to June 18, 2017, with performances: Wednesday-Friday at 8 pm; Saturday at 3 pm and 8 pm (except May 27 with a performance at 8 pm only); Sunday at 2 pm and 7 pm (except May 28 with performance at 7 pm only); and Pay What You Can performances on Monday, May 22 and Tuesday, May 23 at 8 pm.

Tickets to Hir start at $35 and can be purchased online at woollymammoth.net, by phone at (202) 393-3939, via email at tickets@woollymammoth.net, or in person at the Box Office, which is located at 641 D Street NW.

Patrons who are 30-years-old and younger may, at any time, purchase Section B tickets for $20 to any performance. There are also discounts available for educators, first responder men and women and active US military personnel, spouses, and veterans. More information is available at woollymammoth.net.

Now entering its 38th season, Woolly Mammoth continues to hold its place at the leading edge of American theatre. Acknowledged as "one of the most influential outposts for the best new American plays" (Washington Post) and "known for its productions of innovative new plays" (New York Times), Woolly Mammoth is a national leader in the development of new works and one of the best known and most influential mid-sized theatres in America.

To post a comment, you must register and login.