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The world premiere of "War" by Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, at Yale Rep in 2014. Pictured: Tonya Pinkins and Tyrone Mitchell Henderson. (Photo by Joan Marcus)

Yale Rep to Premiere New Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Play

Jacobs-Jenkins will adapt ‘The Bacchae,’ and Will Eno will premiere a new play about land ownership during the theatre’s 2019-20 season.

NEW HAVEN, CONN.:  Yale Repertory Theatre has announced its 2019-20 season, featuring five productions.

“The distinguished playwrights and directors who will be working at our theatre represent a magnificent array of aesthetic sensibilities, personal perspectives, and cultural experiences,” said artistic director James Bundy in a statement. “The stories they will bring to life on our stages ask provocative questions about our shared human history as well as this particular moment in time.”

The season will open with the world premiere of Girls (Oct. 4-26), by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a new spin on Euripides’s The Bacchae featuring choreography by Raja Feather Kelly. Lileana Blain-Cruz will direct.

Next up will be the world premiere of Will Eno’s The Plot (Nov. 29-Dec. 21), a comedy about a tiny plot of land and the incompatible plans people have for it. Oliver Butler will direct.

Following will be Manahatta (Jan. 24-Feb. 15, 2020), by Mary Kathryn Nagle, about a securities trader on Wall Street in 2008 making connections to her ancestors whose land she works on, in the midst of the looming mortgage crisis. Laurie Woolery will direct.

Next will be A Raisin in the Sun (March 13-April 4, 2020), by Lorraine Hansberry, about an African American family living in the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. Carl Cofield will direct.

The season will conclude with Kate Attwell’s Testmatch (April 24-May 16, 2020), a time-traveling story about gender politics, set during a women’s cricket match in London today, and in Calcutta near the turn of the 19th century. Margot Bordelon will direct an all-female cast.

Founded in 1966, Yale Repertory Theatre is the professional theatre in residence at Yale School of Drama and focuses on presenting new work. Seventeen Yale Rep productions have advanced to Broadway.

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