New Brooklyn Theatre Announces Summer 2014 Season

Last month New Brooklyn Theater concluded their seven-week run of Edward Albee's The Death of Bessie Smith at Interfaith Medical Center. Approximately 1800 people saw the show, 22 of 28 performances were sold out, and, thanks in part to renewed public pressure, the hospital has been given a new lease on life: Interfaith is expected to emerge out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings on May 14, 2014.

Inspired by that experience, New Brooklyn Theater has been hard at work developing new relationships in order to continue its exploration of the unique power of theatre to push forward much-needed conversations in the public interest. New Brooklyn Theater is proud to announce three exciting projects for its summer 2014 season.

Ibsen's Enemy of the People in West Virginia
On January 9, 2014, an estimated 10,000 gallons of a toxic chemical leaked into West Virginia's Elk River. The result: 300,000 West Virginians were warned by their governor not to drink their contaminated water. In association with Boston University's Professional Theatre Initiative and sponsored by Kanawha Players Theater, New Brooklyn Theater will be staging An Enemy of the People, Ibsen's classic play of poisoned water and poisoned politics, in Charleston this summer near the site of the spill. By doing so, the company hopes to provoke a conversation about science, industry, the environment, government, public safety, and democracy.

Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard in Istanbul
Protests broke out in Turkey in May 2013 over plans by the government to replace Istanbul's Gezi Park with a new shopping mall and apartments. In July 2013 elsewhere in the city the government began bulldozing the Yedikule gardens which line the fifth-century Byzantine walls of old Constantinople. In the eyes of the protestors, the government's plans put development at odds with historical memory and preservation.

In association with Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, New Brooklyn Theater will be travelling to Turkey this summer to stage a site-specific production of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchardin Turkish in Istanbul. The Cherry Orchard is Chekhov's classic play of the decline of one class, the rise of another, and how an ancestral estate changes hands from one to the other. The play is an apt choice for the Yedikule gardens, and its orchards, as it faces new questions of development. The production aims to provoke a conversation about development, preservation, historical memory, democracy, and the conflicts that arise between them.

Four great but neglected plays by African-American playwrights
On May 25, New Brooklyn Theater will launch its new monthly series of readings of great but neglected plays by African-American playwrights. The oldest known play by an African-American writer wasExperience; or, How to Give a Northern Man a Backbone (1856) by William Wells Brown, of which no copy survives. Brown's second play The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom (1858) survives but has fallen into neglect, as have many of the plays by great writers better known for their novels, like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.

It is time to revisit these lost treasures and, in the process, raise critical questions about the construction of the canon of American theatre. What did these plays mean in their time? What do they mean to us today? And how might our theatrical practices and assumptions be transformed by engaging these forgotten chapters of our collective past? Each reading will be performed in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Tickets will be available free to the public online. Play titles, casting, and dates for the summer will be announced in early May.

New Brooklyn Theater's relaunched website (www.newbrooklyntheater.com) has more information on all of their upcoming shows. The Ibsen and Chekhov productions will be directed by Jonathan Solari, artistic director of New Brooklyn Theater. The creative team for An Enemy of the People is Brandon Bagwell, Marthe Hoffmann, Courtney Nelson, Liz Panneton, and Jeff Strabone. The creative team for The Cherry Orchard will be led by Gwendolyn Collaco and Courtney Nelson. Performances of both productions will be followed by post-show talkback discussions between the audience, the cast, and invited leaders from government, activism, the arts, and the academy.

In keeping with the company's history and mission, all shows will be free to the public.

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