COLUMBIA, MD.: Rep Stage, the professional regional theatre in residence at Howard Community College, has announced its 2015–16 season. Titled “The Year of the Woman,” it will celebrate contemporary female voices in American theatre by featuring an entire season of works by female playwrights.
These will include a world premiere, two regional premieres and a 25th anniversary staging of a contemporary classic by Paula Vogel.
The season opens with Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz (Aug. 26–Sept. 13), to be directed by Suzzanne Beal. The play follows Anna and Carl, on the hunt for romance and a cure for Anna, recently been diagnosed with Acquired Toilet Disease (ATD) after using the bathroom at the elementary school where she teaches.
Then comes the world premiere of Jami Brandli’s Technicolor Life (Oct. 21–Nov. 8), to be presented as a part of the Women’s Voices Theater Festival. Maxine’s imaginary friends Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw help her make a secret profile for her sister, who has just returned from the Iraq War, and then help say goodbye to her grandmother when she announces to the family she wishes to end her life on her own terms. Joseph W. Ritsch directs.
Five female playwrights lend their talents to five different versions of Sophocles’s play in The Antigone Project: A Play in 5 Parts (Feb. 17–March 6, 2016). Tanya Barfield, Karen Hartman, Chioro Miyagawa, Lynn Nottage and Caridad Svich use settings such as World War I, an African village and Hades to tell the story of a sister’s love and devotion. Ritsch will direct.
The season closes with Brooke Berman’s Hunting and Gathering (April 6–24, 2016), directed by Kasi Campbell, about four New Yorkers looking for shelter in both the physical and spiritual sense.
