Ancram Center For The Arts Reveals 2025 Season

Ancram Center for the Arts has announced its 2025 season which includes, in addition to its renown storytelling programs, a regional premiere, three site-specific original performances, and two staged readings developed in the Center's Play Lab Residency Program. 

“Our 10th anniversary season is bracketed by two great theater pieces that explore searching and longing, family and legacy,” said Mousseau. “In July we'll stage the regional premiere of Where the Mountain Meets the Sea, written by Jeff Augustin with music by The Bengsons (Drama Desk, Drama League, and Lucille Lortel Awards nominees). A Haitian man travels from Miami to California on a once-in-a-lifetime road trip and, years later, his gay son travels the same route in reverse. These parallel journeys allow them to forge a connection that had eluded them for years.” Where the Mountain Meets the Sea was previously produced by Manhattan Theatre Club.

“In September, we'll present Penelope, a musical retelling of Homer's The Odyssey with music and lyrics by Alex Bechtel and a book by Bechtel, Grace McLean & Eva Steinmetz,” said Ricciardi. “Penelope, the wife of Odysseus who left her alone for 20 years while he went off to fight in the Trojan War, was developed during COVID as sort of a pandemic parable. The story of her isolation and loneliness is a poignant, powerful ode to all those who wait: For someone they love, and for something they believe in.” McLean, a breakout star of Suffs who co-wrote the play, will portray Penelope, backed by a five-piece band, in this first-ever theatrical run to feature her in the starring role. Penelope was previously staged as a concert version at The Public Theater's Joe's Pub, following a premiere at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and a production at Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA.

Ancram Center's biennial theatrical triptych “Plein Air Plays” returns with three original short performances created for secret, site-specific Ancram locations where the setting becomes a character. Past Plein Air playwrights include writer, actor, storyteller, LGBTQ activist and Oscar-winner Celeste Lecesne (The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey), downtown cabaret superstar Salty Brine (The Living Record Collection), actor/writer Frank Boyd (The Holler Sessions), and other extraordinary talents.

The Center's “Play Lab Residencies” support visionary theater-makers introducing original work they've created while in residence in Ancram. 

This year's new works are Blue Cowboy, an evocative solo work about a NYC screenwriter on assignment in Idaho and his encounters with an enigmatic rancher, written and performed by three-time Obie Award winner and acclaimed monologist David Cale (Harry Clarke); and songs and excerpts from Framed, by Ancram's own Mary Murfitt, based on true events uncovering a love triangle than ends in a murder.  Past residency artists include Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith (You Don't Know the Lonely One) and Obie Award winner Heather Christian (None: A Practical Breviary), among others.

In its signature nights of storytelling where friends and neighbors share authentic personal stories, Ancram Center will start the season at Roe-Jan Park on June 28th with REAL PEOPLE REAL STORIES, and end at Ancram Center on November 22 with a second RPRS edition.

To celebrate its 10th Anniversary Season of groundbreaking original theater, authentic storytelling, and community engagement, Ancram Center will host a benefit party on Saturday, Aug. 2 featuring surprise guest performances. Tickets are available at www.ancramcenter.org.