HIGHLAND LAKE, N.Y.: North American Cultural Laboratory (NACL) Theatre has announced its 2016 season, featuring new works exploring contemporary issues.
The season will begin with This Is Not a Conversation (May 22–23), from the Dead Sea Swimmers, an exploration of identity, memory, and guilt created by a Palestinian woman and a man born in Israel who both met in their new home of Vancouver, Canada.
Next up will be Courage, a ‘walk in progress’ (July 22–24), a multi-disciplinary outdoor performance based on Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, created by artistic director Tannis Kowalchuk, composer Rima Frand, and NACL writers.
Following will be The Lakewood House Trilogy (Oct 8–9), a site-specific performance at NACL’s historic summer boarding house that will invoke the spirits and stories of the people who once vacationed at the inn during its heyday in the 1920s. This is the third site-specific performance that the theatre has produced in the space.
The season will continue with Shakespeare’s Will (Oct. 22), by Vern Thiessen with music by Kurt Knuth, a musical about the life of Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway. Kowalchuk will star, and Mimi McGurl will direct.
Also part of the season will be The Slipper Room (July 9), a contemporary burlesque and variety show from New York City.
Next, as part of NACL’s international Deep Space Performance Residency program, will be The Terrifying (June 11) by Julia Jarcho, about two teenagers and their families who are stalked by a monster in a small village. The play will feature a score by sound designer Ben Williams. Jarcho is from Minor Theater in New York City.
The residency program will continue with Theatre Nohgaku’s Blue Moon Over Memphis (Aug. 6), written by Deborah Brevoort with music by Richard Emmert, about the spirit of Elvis and the relationship between celebrity and humanity. The play will feature Japanese Noh theatre masks, traditional Japanese music, and Jubilith Moore will star.
Next will be Re-Release Party (The Golden Record) (Sept. 10), from A Host of People from Detroit, about the Golden Record, a phonograph recording created by an astrophysicist that was launched on The Voyager as a message to communicate to extraterrestrials in 1977.
The residency program will conclude with The Chroma Key (Sept. 24), from New York City-based Title:Point, written by Spencer P. Campbell, a play in which all of its events pass through the consciousness of the female protagonist, filtered through pop culture markers and clichés that she has internalized. Theresa Bucheister will direct.
NACL Theatre, founded in 1997, is an artist retreat center and producing theatre in the Catskills.
