HILLSBORO, ORE.: Bag&Baggage Productions (B&B) has announced its 2017-18 season, featuring six productions.
The season will open with a world premiere adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (July 20-Aug.5), adapted by artistic director Scott Palmer from Shakespeare, a fusion of the classic play with Nizami’s Layla and Majnun. The production will be staged outdoors at the Civic Center Plaza. B&B resident artist Arianne Jacques will star, and Melory Mirashrafi will assistant direct. Palmer will direct.
Next up will be Rebecca Gilman’s Spinning Into Butter (Sept. 7-24), about political and unexamined white racism through the lens of a fictional liberal arts college in Vermont that is experiencing racist attacks on a black student. B&B resident artist Kymberli Colbourne will star, and Palmer will direct. The show will be the first production to be presented at the company’s new home, the Vault Theater.
Following will be The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s production of ‘Murder At Checkmate Manor’ (Oct. 12-31), by David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin, Jr., about a group of English community theatre actors attempting to put on a high quality production of a murder mystery. The cast will include Patrick Spike and Sean Powell, and Palmer will direct.
Just in time for the holidays will be Charles Dickens Writes A Christmas Carol (Nov. 30-Dec. 23), adapted by Palmer, which imagines Dickens’s process of writing A Christmas Carol. B&B resident actor Peter Schuyler and resident artist Colbourne will star, and Palmer will direct.
Next up will be Death and the Maiden (March 8-25, 2018), a haunting mystery about revenge and politics that takes place in South America. Associate artistic director Cassie Greer will direct.
The season will conclude with Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit (May 10-27, 2018), about a novelist who summons the spirit of his dead wife to gather material for his latest book. The cast will include Jessi Walters, Greer, and Jacques. Palmer will direct.
Bag&Baggage Productions, founded in 2005, produces American classics and literary adaptations.
