BROOKLYN, N.Y.: Theatre for a New Audience has announced the slate for its 2018-19 season, the company’s 39th.
In a statement, founding artistic director Jeffrey Horowitz said that all of the plays are connected through the theme of self. “In each work,” he explained, “the self is interrogated through role-playing and imaginative, compassionate channeling of alternative selves, the better to understand the world.”
The season will open with the American premiere The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuściński, and adapted by Colin Teevan (Sept. 9-30). A coproduction among the Young Vic in London, HOME in Manchester, and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, the play is about the downfall of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. Kathryn Hunter and Temesgen Zeleke will star. Walter Meierjohann will direct.
Then TFANA will present The Prisoner, written and directed by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne (Nov. 24-Dec. 16). A coproduction with National Theatre London, the Grotowski Institute Wroclaw in Poland, Ruhrfestspiele Ricklinghausen in Germany, and Yale Repertory Theatre in Connecticut, the play is about a man sitting alone in a prison.
In January, the theatre will present the world premiere of About Alice by Calvin Trillin (Jan. 8-Feb. 3, 2019). Jessica Hecht will play Alice, as she is seen in the memory of her husband Calvin. Leonard Foglia will direct. The play is based on Trillin’s memoir.
The season will end with Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (March 17-April 28, 2019). Shana Cooper will direct the tragedy about the assassination of Caesar and its tragic aftermath. Cooper’s production was originally seen at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2017.
Theatre for a New Audience, founded in 1979, is a modern classical theatre, producing Shakespeare and major authors from the world repertoire.
