by BWW News Desk | Published May 1, 2018
Furthering its established, 27-year reputation for best-in-class subscriber loyalty and exceptional artistic achievement, Everyman Theatre proudly announces its 2018/19 Season-a gloriously compelling showcase for the esteemed Resident Company which celebrates exciting new voices in playwriting alongside long-celebrated masters of the form.
Extended to provide a total of seven plays and a widened performance schedule including new Tuesday night previews, the 2018/19 Season features: the fourth Everyman production of work from two Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights with Lynn Nottage‘s superb Sweat and Donald Margulies‘ steadfast Dinner With Friends, revivals of Brian Friel‘s poetic Dancing At Lughnasa and Oscar Wilde‘s cherished classic The Importance of Being Earnest, the critically lauded new drama Everything Is Wonderful, by Chelsea Marcantel, and the Repertory World Premiere of the sublime Queens Girl in the World and Queens Girl in Africa by Caleen Sinnette Jennings,
The 2018/19 Season also welcomes two new additions to the Everyman Theatre Resident Company: Helen Hayes Award-winning actor Paige Hernandez (co-starring in Earnest and directing the Queens Girl rotation) and long-time stage manager Cat Wallis, whose role as the theatre’s second Resident Stage Manager will help uphold Everyman’s position in the industry as one of the top regional theatres where artists like to work.
“Everyman Theatre’s willingness to push its own boundaries and invest in artistic growth is one of the reasons I am so proud to be a Resident Company member,” said Hernandez. ” Caleen Sinnette Jennings’ Queens Girl in the World and Queens Girl in Africa represent vital and timely work, deserving of the wider audience that Everyman’s productions will offer. It’s is a wonderful honor to unite them in repertory for the first time ever in the 2018/19 season.”
“Whether as family, friends, or strangers seated beside one another, we all laugh, celebrate, and struggle together during the greatest triumphs and tragedies in life-and with this season’s expanded slate and schedule, we can laugh and celebrate even more,” said Founding Artistic Director Vincent M. Lancisi. “From the wit and humor of Oscar Wilde, to the poetic realism of Brian Friel, to the life-affirming optimism of local hero Caleen Sinnette Jennings, I have chosen six fantastic, fascinating playwrights who-each with unmistakable originality and her or his own brand of perfection-have captured those memorable moments life throws at us, and the extraordinary characters who power through.”
2018/19 Season Subscriptions ($105-329) are now available online (everymantheatre.org), by phone (410.752.2208), or at the Everyman Theatre Box Office (315 W. Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD 21201).
Dancing at Lughnasa
By Brian Friel
Directed by Amber Paige McGinnis
September 4 – October 7, 2018
Irish master storyteller Brian Friel casts a nostalgic and transportive Tony Award-winning tale of five unmarried sisters and a household framed by their strength and persistence, where “anything goes”-until it doesn’t. Step back in time to the summer of 1936, and a small Irish village, where young Michael recalls pennies pinched, hopes hindered, and love thwarted during a life-changing moment in the Mundy family’s world-where a new radio, a homecoming, and the festive season for dance conjures a ravishing spell of ritual, remembrance, and the Chekhovian riddle of whether “memory” is something one has… or something one has lost.
Sweat
By Lynn Nottage
Directed by Vincent M. Lancisi
October 23 – November 25, 2018
Having grown up side-by-side in small-town working-class America, best friends Tracey and Cynthia went from fun-loving schoolchildren to saloon-loving adults who work together on a steel manufacturing line. In a tight-knit community like this one, however, it takes but one fracture in its core for the breaking point of friendship to be seismically tested. Inspired by field research and first-person testimonials collected in Reading, PA, Lynn Nottage‘s unflinching, intensely researched, and Pulitzer-winning slice-of-life drama, Sweat, captures the pressure cooker of NAFTA-inflicted trying times-where a lethal combination of layoffs, lockouts, and picket lines sends the Rust Belt way of life into crisis.
The Importance of Being Earnest
By Oscar Wilde
Directed by Joseph W. Ritsch
December 4, 2018 – January 6, 2019
Oscar Wilde‘s much-loved tour-de-farce receives an uproarious Resident Company revival with this landmark lampoon of Victorian norms-a jovial joyride of double lives, double entendres, and labyrinthine twists and turns. Algernon’s cousin Gwendolen and her friend Cecily both fall for a man named Ernest (of whom Lady Bracknell-played by company member Bruce Randolph Nelson-disapproves), but whether wit or wisdom will prevail is anybody’s guess! Courtships, class, and convention square off with handbags, puns, and perambulators in this deliciously quotable comedy-a madcap masterpiece about marriage, morality, and mistaken identity.
Everything is Wonderful
By Chelsea Marcantel
Directed by Noah Himmelstein
January 29 – March 3, 2019
Imagine a knock at the door from the hand complicit in a family tragedy: When the repentant driver in a fatal collision seeks forgiveness from the Amish family whose sons’ lives he claimed, faith guides them to welcome him into their community – and their home. But as inconvenient truths from the family’s past are discovered, can their outpouring of empathy be as limitless as it seems? Resident Company members Bruce Randolph Nelson and Deborah Hazlett plumb the depths of an outlying culture in this enthralling, critically acclaimed drama about a peaceful community wrestling regret, redemption, and contradiction.
Dinner With Friends
By Donald Margulies
Directed by Vincent M. Lancisi
March 12 – April 14, 2019
Like any culinary trend, relationships are destined to evolve over time-but can the recipe of friendship retain its zest if the key ingredients begin to change? A fabulous dinner at the home of food writers Gabe and Karen proves hard to swallow when Beth drops the bomb that husband Tom wants out of their 12-year marriage. Suddenly, both couples find themselves grappling with questions of loyalty, individuality, and commitment in Donald Margulies‘ deliciously funny, sharply observed Pulitzer Prize-winning drama-celebrating its 20th anniversary this season with the time-tested flavor and richness of a classic dish.
Queens Girl in the World / Queens Girl in Africa
By Caleen Sinnette Jennings
Directed by Paige Hernandez
May 7 – June 30, 2019
Repertory world premiere! You can take the girl out of Queens, but, as is pitch-perfectly demonstrated in the first installments from Caleen Sinnette Jenning’s vivid, multichapter memoir, the Queens Girl is-delightfully-here to stay. Helen Hayes Award winners Dawn Ursula and Erika Rose both inject shining exuberance into the unforgettable, titular role (as well as dozens more characters) in this fresh, feel-good pair of shows about an everyday hero in our midst.
Queens Girl in the World
Honest, funny, and dancing with heart, Queens Girl in the World chronicles the misadventures of bright-eyed, brown-skinned Jacqueline Marie Butler, whose sudden transfer from a protective, middle class late-1950s upbringing in Queens to a progressive, predominantly-Jewish private school in Greenwich Village, adds comical confusion to her already quizzical, fish-out-of-water adolescence. Lively and poignant-and punctuated with the irresistible sound of Motown- Queens Girl in the World tags along for a young woman’s journey of self-discovery, at the onset of Civil Rights-era social change.
Queens Girl in Africa
When her family ups and moves to Nigeria following the assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X (a close personal family friend), the infectiously spirited Jacqueline Marie Butler finds herself at a crossroads of personal and political upheaval, bearing the weight of Africa (and the world) on her slim-yet spunky-shoulders. Entertaining and uplifting, Queens Girl in Africa captures an unforgettable moment in time for a teenager abroad-when questions of self and place intertwine with the realities of homework and hormones as Jacqueline assuredly, hilariously navigates the energy, excitement and unpredictability of the 1960s.
Everyman Theatre is a professional Equity theatre company celebrating the actor, with a Resident Company of artists from the Baltimore/DC area. Founded in 1990 by Vincent M. Lancisi, the theatre is dedicated to engaging the audience through a shared experience between actor and audience seeking connection and emotional truth in performance. Everyman is committed to presenting high quality plays that are affordable and accessible to everyone. The theatre strives to engage, inspire and transform artists, audiences and community through theatre of the highest artistic standards and is committed to embodying the promise of its name, Everyman Theatre.
Everyman Theatre is supported in part by grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences.
Everyman Theatre is a proud member of the Bromo Tower Arts and Entertainment District, the Market Center Merchants Association and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.
Everyman Theatre Resident Company members include Megan Anderson, Eric Berryman, Danny Gavigan, Tim Getman, Deborah Hazlett, Paige Hernandez, Beth Hylton, Wil Love, Bruce Randolph Nelson, Carl Schurr, Dawn Ursula, Stan Weiman, and Yaegel T. Welch. Resident Artists include Daniel Ettinger (Scenic Design), David Burdick (Costume Design), Jay A. Herzog (Lighting Design), Gary Logan (Dialects), Lewis Shaw (Fight Choreography), Amanda M. Hall (Stage Manager), and Cat Wallis (Stage Manager).
