NEW YORK: The Drama League has announced the dates and lineup for DirectorFest, a multi-week festival honoring the 2020-21 Directors Project fellows. Five Directors Project fellows will direct new productions to be filmed and released online this spring and summer.
“This year’s Drama League directing fellows have responded to this extraordinary year with grace, innovation, adaptability, and deep curiosity,” artistic director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks said in a statement. “I can’t wait for audiences and the industry to see these talented artists working in this new way so beautifully.”
Productions directed by fellows Cristina Angeles, Signe V. Harriday, Taylor Haven Holt, and Cait Robinson will premiere in June. A benefit reading of John Lyly’s Gallathea, directed by fellow Emma Rose Went, will premiere March 15, in collaboration with Red Bull Theater. First performed in 1588, Gallathea is a queer love story set in the landscape of classical myth.
All June productions will be filmed at the A.R.T./New York Theatres by Daniel Feighery. First up, Harriday will direct the bull-jean stories (June 7-14) by Sharon Bridgforth. Set in the rural South in the 1920s, the bull-jean stories uses nontraditional verse to chronicle the course of love in the lifetime of a woman named bull-dog-jean.
Following will be Laura Schellhardt’s The K of D (June 9-16), directed by Robinson. The play follows a young Charlotte McGraw as she learns to fear the literal kiss of death and the eerie power it bestows on her.
Next, Angeles will direct the world premiere of Eliana Pipes’s play Unfuckwithable (June 14-21). The story follows a Black lifestyle influencer who moonlights as an Amazon drone shooter.
Finally, Haven Holt will direct Enda Walsh’s A Girl’s Bedroom (June 16-23), a short play about a six-year-old girl who leaves her family.
The Drama League has also announced that the ceremony for the Drama League Awards will be pre-recorded and streamed on May 21. The nomination process is currently underway, and will focus on extraordinary digital productions. Special recognition award recipients will be announced at a later date.
The Drama League strives to advance the American theatre by providing an artistic home for directors and a platform for dialogue with and between audiences.
