LOUISVILLE: Actors Theatre of Louisville has announced the lineup for its 43rd Humana Festival of New American Plays, featuring five world premiere plays. The festival will run March 1-April 7, 2019.

The festival will include:

We’ve Come to Believe (Feb. 24-April 7, 2019), by Kara Lee Corthron, Emily Feldman, and Matthew Paul Olmos, about the absurd and hilarious world of collective delusion. The play, which was commissioned by Actors Theatre, will be performed by the actors of the 2018-19 Professional Training Company. Will Davis will direct.

The Corpse Washer (March 1-April 7, 2019), adapted by Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace from the novel by Sinan Antoon, about an Iraqi man faced with the choice to follow in his father’s footsteps washing the bodies of the dead, or pursue his dreams of being an artist. Mark Brokaw will direct.

Lucas Hnath’s The Thin Place (March 5-April 7, 2019), commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville, an eerie exploration of the think line between this world and another. Les Waters will direct.

Lily Padilla’s How to Defend Yourself (March 13-April 7, 2019), a co-world premiere with Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater, about a college student who begins teaching her peers self-defense after fraternity brothers assault one of her sorority sisters. Marti Lyons will direct.

Everybody Black (March 19-April 7, 2019) by Dave Harris, a satire about a black historian who has never met another black person, who agrees to write the definitive version of The Black Experience™ when some wealthy white people offer a large paycheck. Awoye Timpo will direct.

The Humana Festival has premiered more than 450 plays in its 43-year history.