The Contemporary American Theater Festival Reveals July 2024 Season

The Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) has announced its 2024 July season, featuring three new plays and an offering in two parts. In addition to these five mainstage experiences, the Festival is co-producing a bonus multidisciplinary experience. CATF is also hosting more than 30 special events led by industry experts and artists, including lectures, post-show conversations, and discussions that surround the themes explored in the plays. CATF will run from July 5 through 28 at four venues across Shepherdstown, West Virginia. 

“When I first selected the season, I started talking to some of the artists who were going to help bring these plays to life and the word ‘brave’ kept coming into the conversations. But when I think about this season, I really think that it is about different types of love. In these four scripts, I read stories about loving each other amidst incredible challenges and how that love is healing, noble, and hopeful,” stated Peggy McKowen, CATF’s Artistic Director.

Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting by Harmon do aut was selected as one of three plays across the country to receive the Venturous Playwright Fellowship Grant. CATF partnered with Harmon to submit the grant proposal for consideration as part of the 2024 season and will present its world premiere. Set in rural Kansas against the backdrop of a looming tornado, audiences are introduced to Chantal, a non-binary tween/teen with synesthesia. Chantal dreams of becoming a filmmaker and their loving parents offer support and guidance along this poignant and humorous journey.  

Written as an offering to the community of Black individuals living with HIV/AIDS, Donja R. Love’s What Will Happen to All That Beauty?follows the couple Max and J.R. during a trying time in their relationship. As the relationship unfolds, Max dedicates so much time fighting for her husband’s life, that she suddenly discovers she must soon fight for her son. What Will Happen to All That Beauty? will be performed in two parts and dinner will be available for purchase during selected performances.

McKowen first came into contact with Donja R. Love’s epic at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago. “The first time I heard the play, I was struck by it. I felt connected to it because I really do believe that life is about love and beauty, and that is what this play embodies.” 

CATF presented a staged reading of Enough to Let the Light In by Paloma Nozicka in 2023 as part of its Fall Reading Series. 

“The response from our audience was tremendous. There were so many varying and spirited perspectives and ideas about the relationship between Marc and Cynthia that I knew it had to be included in our 2024 July season,” McKowen shared.

Paloma Nozicka’s play is both a love story that twists and surprises, and a psychological thriller that will leave the audience with more questions than answers. When a couple spends the evening together, they slowly start to reveal secrets about themselves that ultimately test their relationship.

The Happiest Man on Earth by Mark St. Germain recently had its world premiere at Barrington Stage in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Based on the memoir by Eddie Jaku, the play recounts the true-life story of a Holocaust survivor. The tale references the escape from terrifying experiences and ends with the joy of love, marriage, and fatherhood. It is both challenging and uplifting — a reaffirmation of life. This small, intimate play balances the season’s more epic productions.

In addition to the plays and two-part offering presented at the Festival this year, CATF has partnered with the Appalachian Chamber Music Festival to produce A Mother’s Voice, featuring Musici Ireland. This multidisciplinary concert/production is a commemorative dedication to women affected by the mother and baby homes in Ireland during the 1900s. This is a special event with a limited run that will only occur in the second part of July. 
 

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