PORTLAND, ORE.: Profile Theatre has announced its 2019-20 season, where they will present plays from Lynn Nottage and Paula Vogel. Over two seasons, each playwright will receive three full productions, and concert stagings. The season will also include concert stagings of plays by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who will receive three productions in the 2020-21 season.
“I have loved all three of these playwrights for some time,” said artistic director
Josh Hecht in a statement. “Paula Vogel helped shape my theatrical aesthetic; Lynn Nottage opened my heart with her fierce portraits; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins continues to explode my sense of what plays can look like and speak to. I’m thrilled to share their work with a Portland audience in an extended two-year artistic conversation.”
The 2019-20 season will open with The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel, directed by Hecht (Oct. 17-Nov. 3). The Obie-winning play is set during the AIDS crisis and was inspired by Vogel’s brother, who died of the disease.
From December 5 to 15, Profile will present readings of Ruined by Lynn Nottage and Mother Courage by Brecht (the play that inspired Ruined). The Pulitzer-winning Ruined is about a group of women living in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.
Next will be a production of Sweat by Nottage (Jan. 16-Feb. 2, 2020), about a group of factory workings in Reading, Penn.
After that will be Vogel’s Indecent, directed by Hecht (Feb. 18-March 12, 2020). The play with music tells the story of the first lesbian kiss on Broadway in 1923. It will be a coproduction with the local Artists Repertory Theatre.
The season will close with By the Way, Meet Vera Stark by Nottage (May 28-June 21, 2020). It tells the story of a black maid living in the 1930s who dreams of being an actress.
The season will also include a concert staging of a Branden Jacobs-Jenkins play, which will be announced at a later date (running April 30-May 3, 2020).
During the season, Vogel and Nottage will also have a residency at the theatre. Then in the 2020-21 season, Profile Theatre will produce a play each from the two playwrights.
Founded in 1997, Profile Theatre dedicates their season to an in-depth exploration of a playwright’s work.
