TheaterWorks Hartford Brings 12 Shows & Big Ideas To Their Virtual ’20-’21 Season
Like most companies across the country, TheaterWorks Hartford in Connecticut spent their summer reconfiguring everything about their upcoming ‘20-'21 season. Part of that was due to the COVID-19 pandemic and figuring out ways to safely create the kind of high-quality, professional theater TheaterWorks is known for. They had originally envisioned a typical six-show season, but then, according to Producing Associate Taneisha Duggan, "the social uprisings and We See You American Theater happened, and that had us re-investigating what we were doing and who we were placing in the forefront."
What emerged was a virtual season with twelve plays, many of which are in-development new works created by BIPOC artists. "We knew that the world was shifting," Duggan said in an interview over Zoom, "We, like many places in America, are struggling with how to move forward in an equitable way. This is our answer."
Besides being a Producing Associate ("I deal with the work of getting the project from idea to execution"), Duggan is also the director for the first show of the season, a new musical play called "At The River I Stand." Written by Alani iLongwe, who starred in TheaterWorks' 2017 production of "Sunset Baby," this developmental workshop "follows an eclectic group of Negro musicians who travel to Memphis to produce a benefit concert in support of local workers in the throes of a racially charged labor dispute." It is based on the real Sanitation Workers Strike of 1968. The show, which features music and lyrics by Rowen Casey, is intended to be an immersive musical with onstage musicians and dancers. Trying to translate that sense to a streaming production has been a learning curve.
"This is a whole new medium," she says, "The product will be very theatrical and incredibly satisfying to our audiences but making it is distinctly different. It's really television production. I was directing for the camera. It's different to market it, it's different to build for it, it's different to light it, it's different to act in it, but I think the results are going to be really exciting and new. We are really innovating what theater can be in the future, considering the conditions." “At The River” will be available September 27-October 10.
There are three ways TheaterWorks Hartford is planning on broadcasting their shows. Some productions, like "At The River I Stand," will be filmed without a live audience either at a specific location or on TheaterWorks’ newly renovated stage. While still paying attention to social distancing guidelines, they are bringing in a small group of actors and creative team members onsite to produce the show. While the style of the broadcast will depend on the production, Duggan says that they "want to be creative in the ways we film, so it may not necessarily look like an archival recording."
Sarah Gancher's "incredibly fresh, hilarious, insightful" 2016 election comedy "Russian Troll Farm," another play in-development, premieres in October. Even though that play was written to be performed on Zoom and is being produced fully remotely, it has a full creative team with a lighting designer, costume designer and set designer. "We've been thinking about Zoom as the workshop space or the studio space," Duggan says, "but 'Troll Farm' also functions as a test in case quarantine guidelines grow more rigid over the winter."
On the other hand, COVID-permitting, there are also plans to start including live audience members for future productions. "Our hope is that we can have people performing live for a small audience and we'd do a simulcast where you would buy a ticket to that night's performance, so you'd be watching live theater happening on the screen."
The rest of the season includes Ayad Akhtar's "The Who & The What" (about the universal struggles of a Palestinian family) and Adam Rapp's "The Sound Inside." There will also be workshopped productions of Melinda Lopez's "Mr. Parent" and yet undecided plays by James Anthony Tyler and Harrison David Rivers. The Tony-winning musical "Fun Home" will receive an "Encores-like" concert staging in April while TheaterWorks' annual holiday show "Christmas On the Rocks" returns, digitally, in December.
TheatreWorks has yet to unveil the last few shows in their season, but Duggan hints at exciting things to come: "It will be a new kind of partnership for us in terms of the playwright we're working with. I think it's going to be really transformative for Hartford, something that hasn't really been done on the scale that TheaterWorks can bring."
While the pandemic and civil unrest has brought many challenges to TheaterWorks Hartford, it also brings new opportunities. Productions can now be streamed to audience members across the country for a much lower price. "For $20, they can come and check us out," Duggan explained, "that's obviously much more accessible than it was last season at $55 or $65 and we are talking about additional discounts as well."
"We want to make art," Marketing Associate Michael McKiernan added, "It's what we are. It's what we do. We want to be a representative of that accountability to stand up in public and say, 'the old way can't be, here's the new way."
To learn more about TheaterWorks Hartford’s upcoming season or to purchase tickets, visit: https://twhartford.org.
Photo: A production meeting for “At The River I Stand” on a rooftop in downtown Hartford, CT. L to R: Alani iLongwe, Rowen Casey, Taneisha Duggan