SHEPHERDSTOWN, W. VA.: Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University has announced its 2020 summer season, featuring six plays in rotating repertory July 10- Aug. 2.
“What’s at stake if we don’t take action? The Fifth Domain puts a spotlight on our national security,” said Ed Herendeen, founder and producing director of the Contemporary American Theater Festival, in a statement. “Ushuaia Blue demands we take action to preserve the environment. The other plays this season beg us to pay attention to government accountability, incarceration, genetic manipulation, racism, homelessness, freedom, and more. I’m excited to have conversations with the audiences about the potent and relevant themes in these plays.”
The repertory season will kick off with the world premiere of Chisa Hutchinson’s Whitelisted, about a woman experiencing supernatural disturbances after she moves into and renovates a brownstone without embracing her new neighbors.
Next will be Victor Lesniewski’s The Fifth Domain, a thriller about a former employee of the National Security Agency who finds himself in a cyberwar.
The lineup will also include Jacqueline Goldfinger’s Babel, a National New Play Network rolling world premiere, about two couples expecting babies who must be pre-certified in utero to ensure they have the purest genetic traits.
Next up will be the world premiere of Ushuaia Blue by Caridad Svich. Inspired by marine biologist James McClintock’s research, the play follows a married couple, who are both scientists, as they travel from the U.S. to Ushuaia in Argentina to research climate change.
The summer festival will also include the world premiere of Terence Anthony’s The House of the Negro Insane, a historical drama about a psychiatric patient at the Tate State Hospital whose path to survival is interrupted by two new patients in 1935.
Also in the season will be Sheepdog by Kevin Artigue, about a Black woman police officer grappling with the reality that her lover, a white cop, has shot and killed a Black man.
Founded in 1991, the Contemporary American Theater Festival produces provocative new plays and world premiere productions in rotating repertory each summer.
