Wilbury Theatre Group Reveals 2023/24 Main Series Season

Wilbury Theatre Group has announced the Main Series productions for their upcoming 2023/24 Season. Productions include the include the world premiere of JaMario Stills' 22/16: The Remix of a Global Experiment, the return of Indecent from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, the Rhode Island premiere of Taylor Mac's Hir, Hansol Jung's Wolf Play and the eight-time Tony Award-winning musical Once, with book by Edna Walsh and music/lyrics by Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová.

More info about the productions and season memberships are available online at thewilburygroup.org/2023-24

Providence-based artist JaMario Stills' 22|16: The Remix of a Global Experiment will have its world premiere at Wilbury Theatre Group. The production is an immersive and thought-provoking theatrical experience that weaves together personal narratives, historical truths, and futuristic possibilities. 22|16 explores the lives of a diverse ensemble of actors representing nationalities around the globe as they create and reenact a new world doctrine that connects and transcends time, and invites the audience to reflect on their own roles in shaping the groups experience and challenges them to actively participate in a hilarious, and sometimes tragic, ongoing journey. JaMario Stills is a multidisciplinary artist and producer from Jacksonville, FL. He received his B.F.A from The Juilliard School and is currently an M.F.A directing candidate at Brown University/Trinity Rep. As a professional actor he has performed at The McCarter Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. JaMario has directed at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville as year-long resident artist, and performance curator for Art Republic. His work as a creative entrepreneur has been featured in Arbus Magazine and Innovate Jax.

Due to popular demand, Wilbury Theatre Group will remount its recent production of Indecent by Pulitzer Prize Award-winning playwright Paula Vogel. Indecent tells the true story behind Sholem Asch's God Of Vengeance - a Yiddish play that transferred to Broadway in 1922 and was shut down by the police, six weeks after opening at the Apollo Theater on 42nd Street, for offensive content. God of Vengeance, written by Asch when he was in his 20's, tells the story of a bourgeois brothel owner whose daughter falls in love with one of his prostitutes. Indecent tells the behind-the-scenes story of the courageous artists who risked their careers and lives to perform a work deemed "indecent." Broadway World called Wilbury's production, "Truly magical and undeniably unforgettable," and Edge Media says, "[Indecent] is a powerful indictment of oppression and censorship."

MacArthur Genius Award-winner, Taylor Mac is the innovative theater-maker behind A 24-Decade History of Popular Music and Holiday Sauce. Mac's 2014 play Hir is a family drama that doubles as a depiction of America in the midst of reassessing itself: Somewhere in the suburbs, Isaac has returned from the wars to help take care of his ailing father, only to discover a household in revolt. The insurgent: his mom. Liberated from an oppressive marriage, with Isaac's newly out transgender sibling as her ally, she's on a crusade to dismantle the patriarchy. But in Taylor Mac's sly, subversive comedy, annihilating the past doesn't always free you from it. The New York Times calls Hir, "A remarkable, audacious, uproarious black comedy with a daring combination of realism and madcap absurdity." Vulture adds, "Smart. Dark. Difficult. Deliberately disorienting. If you don't know whether to laugh or cry at this spectacle, I suspect that's how Taylor Mac likes it."

Hansol Jung's Wolf Play, the 2023 Lucille Lortel Award-winner for Outstanding Play, is a mischievous and affecting new work about the families we choose and unchoose. Wolf Play revolves around the experiences of an 8-year old Korean child called Wolf who was adopted by a white heterosexual couple. Engaging audiences in conversation about transnational adoption, custody rights, LGBTQ+ parenting and an adopted child's sense of belonging as it is continuously stripped away during the adoption process, The New York Times calls Wolf Play "Thrilling...probing and playful...suggests there's an animality connecting us that transcends gendered social scripts; kinship and love are wild and don't play by any rules." TheatreMania said, "Emotionally gripping...leaps through time and space, bringing the audience with it at every step."

Once, with book by Edna Walsh and music/lyrics by Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová, is an eight-time Tony Award winner, including Best Musical. Based on the 2007 film of the same name, and including the Academy Award-winning song "Falling Slowly", Once tells the enchanting tale of a Dublin street musician who's about to give up on his dream when a young woman takes a sudden interest in his haunting love songs. As the chemistry between them grows, his music soars to powerful new heights. London Theatre Guide said of the production: "What makes this musical really special and puts it in a different league to other offerings is the captivating, magical quality of the songs. Almost from the first note, you realize you are listening to music that is extraordinarily distinctive, powerfully emotional and hugely affecting - in a word...stunning."

"Our 2023/24 season will see the artists of Wilbury Group doing what they do best: bringing groundbreaking new work by local artists to the stage, and reinvigorating established works with the dynamic energy that we've come to be known for," says Artistic Director, Josh Short. "It's an honor to be introducing our audiences to the singular talent that is JaMario Stills and his new work 22|16 this fall, a thrilling new work which promises to challenge our audiences' conceptions of the bounds of theater. And I couldn't be more excited to be reuniting the brilliant team behind our record-breaking production of Indecent this fall to meet popular demand! In 2024, we kick off the New Year with the professional Rhode Island premiere of Taylor Mac's biting family drama Hir, and then continue that dissection of the modern American family from a new angle with Hansol Jung's incredibly moving Wolf Play. In May 2024, we'll conclude the season with an immersive production of Once, one of the most moving musicals of the last 20 years that began its journey in a small theater, just like ours. Individually and together, these works do what theater does best: engage our community of artists and audiences to push the boundaries of live performance to new heights. We couldn't be more excited to bring it to the stage, and in line with our commitment to accessibility, our 2023/24 seasons will maintain our 'Pay-What-You-Will' pricing so that we can expand access to the community-building power of live theater."

Additional special events and performance announcements about Wilbury Theatre Group's 2023/24 season to follow - including the limited engagements of Jesse Hawley and James Stanley's music performance piece CVK: Clever and Vainglorious Kings, and guest performances by The Empire Revue and Motion State Arts.

Plays and dates are subject to change. Performance schedules will be announced at a later date. For information on purchasing a Membership for Wilbury Theatre Group's 2023/24 Season, visit: thewilburygroup.org/membership

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