The Wilbury Group Sets 2015-16 Season: DRY LAND, Jez Butterworth's JERUSALEM & More

The Wilbury Theatre Group's Founding Artistic Director Josh Short has announced the Group's 2015-16 season, including a new drama from one of New York's most promising young playwrights, the world premiere of a new play by Wilbury playwright-in-residence Ben Jolivet, two of the most acclaimed off-Broadway musicals of the last few years, an irreverent new adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, and the New England premiere of Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem.

The Wilbury Group's 2015-2016 season starts in September with the New England premiere of Dry Land, a new play by 21 year-old rising star and undergraduate at Yale, Ruby Rae Spiegel. A recent nominee for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in Drama, Dry Land takes place inside a high school girls' locker room. "I was sent this play last fall by one of the bigger theaters in town who felt that it was more 'Wilbury' than anything else and I fell in love with it immediately," says Short. "I've spent the last 6 months going back and forth with the powers that be trying to secure the rights to do it, and today we have them. It's a beautiful piece of work, and easily one of the most exciting and heartbreaking new plays that I've read in years. After its successful New York run we're extremely lucky to be one of the first theaters in the country to produce it, and I think Providence audiences will respond to its incredibly human story."

Following Dry Land The Wilbury Group's New Works program will produce the world premiere of Cain + Abel, a new play by the Wilbury's Playwright-in-Residence Ben Jolivet directed by Susie Schutt. "We presented Cain & Abel as a staged-reading last fall and audience reaction was huge. It's the edgy, contemporary reimagining of a tale that we all think we know so well, and Ben's brought these characters to life in such a way that for the first time the underlying themes of jealously, love, and seduction ring loud and clear."

2015 ends with the Rhode Island premiere of one of the most exciting rock musicals of the last 20 years, Passing Strange by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, directed by Brien Lang. "Passing Strange has been on my wish list of great plays I'd like to produce since the Wilbury Group was founded," says Short. "As a jazz-blues style musical that's outside anything we've done, every year for the past few years I've included it in drafts of the season lineup and then taken it out. This year though, with Brien at the helm, we're finally ready to give it the production it deserves."

In January 2016 the Wilbury Group kicks off the New Year with the Rhode Island premiere of Aaron Posner's Stupid f-ing Bird, originally developed by Posner at The Woolly Mammoth Theater in D.C. and 'sort of adapted from The Seagull by Anton Chekhov.' "I think it's a real challenge for theatres to produce Chekhov sans the preciousness that can keep audiences from relating to it. Posner's adaptation stays true to the story of one of Chekhov's greatest works, while giving it the bite and verve that it warrants in a 21st century production."

Coming out of the Winter into Spring is the New England premiere of the off-Broadway rock musical by Julia Jordan and indie rock singer/songwriter Juliana Nash, Murder Ballad. Directed by Wendy Overly, Murder Ballad is an immersive tale of sex, betrayal, and love in a rock and roll style. "It's smart, sexy, and it's a hell of a lot of fun. It's a play that's written to be experienced so viscerally by its audience, and under Wendy's direction it won't disappoint."

To close the season The Wilbury Group goes out with a bang by presenting the New England premiere of Jez Butterworth's Tony Award nominated play, Jerusalem. "Jerusalem is the quintessential Wilbury play to me; it demands excellent ensemble work, it's as gritty as anything, and it balances comedy and pathos beautifully. And like many of the plays that have been my favorite over the years, it's a great challenge for a small company like ours to do."

In addition to its mainstage season, The Wilbury Group is responsible for producing the Providence Fringe Festival, FringePVD, and a New Works program which presents workshop productions of 1-2 new plays per season, and 5 staged-readings from its New Play Reading Series. New Works programming for the 2015-16 season will be announced this summer.

Memberships for the 2015-16 season start at just $50 and are available online at www.TheWilburyGroup.org/membership, or by calling the box office at (401) 400-7100.

Need more Rhode Island Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...