Studio Theatre Announces 2019-2020 Season Main Series Directors And Studio X Programming

Studio Theatre rounds out its 2019-2020 season with the announcement of its Studio X productions-characteristically edgier, immersive offerings which include cult-favorite monologist Daniel Kitson with his latest project, Keep., and the Studio-commissioned world premiere of Abe Koogler's Aspen Ideas. Created with the support of Studio R&D, the theatre's incubator for new plays, Aspen Ideas probes the nature of ideas conceived by the wealthy and elite to solve the world's ills. Kitson famously made his DC debut at Studio Theatre in 2017, his first time outside of New York and a rare US engagement. He returns with a meditation on accumulation, material possessions, and the value we assign to them.

"Keep., which welcomes the singular monologist Daniel Kitson back to Studio Theatre, and Aspen Ideas, a world premiere play by Abe Koogler commissioned by Studio, represent different strains of Studio X," says the theatre's Artistic Director David Muse. "Daniel's work, the latest in a long line of distinctive solo performances at Studio, is funny and odd and truly wonderful. Abe is a writer I've admired for some time-his dialogue is pitch-perfect and his play is sharply observed and genuinely unnerving; a great fit for us."

These productions join a Main Series season that opens with Doubt: A Parable, the incisive look at abuse and authority in the Catholic Church by John Patrick Shanley and starring DC theatre treasure Sarah Marshall; the US premiere of ascendant playwright Anchuli Felicia King and her corporate comedy White Pearl; the return of playwright Dominique Morisseau with Pipeline; the riveting 2019 Lucille Lortel Award-winning play Pass Over by Antoinette Nwandu; and Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori's Tony-winning musical Fun Home.

Studio is also excited to announce directors for its Main Series productions. The theatre's Associate Artistic Director Matt Torney opens the season at the helm of Doubt: A Parable. Desdemona Chiang and Awoye Timpo make their DC directorial debuts with White Pearl and Pipeline, respectively. Psalmayene 24 directs Nwandu's searing Pass Over. Studio's David Muse will direct the finale production of Studio's 2019-2020 season, Fun Home (previously announced).

Keep.
written and performed by Daniel Kitson
November 19 - December 1, 2019
Mead Theatre

A new show about how much past the present can usefully contain. About rigor and generosity. About postcards and hair pins and a certificate from Harry Ramsden's in Blackpool. About how long it takes to stop noticing where you are. About the compromise of a full life and the burden of a full heart and how it's impossible to know where looking back will lead. About the task of being who we are without denying who we've been. About the importance of regret and the possibility of hope and the delusional idea of starting again. About all the books I've never read and all the jam I've ever eaten and the bags of torn tickets and the drawers of empty pens and the inevitable sadness of ever holding on to anything.
About, in short, the stuff in my house and the thoughts in my head.

Aspen Ideas
by Abe Koogler
Directed by Les Waters
World Premiere June 24 - August 23, 2020 Milton Theatre supported by Studio R&D, Studio Theatre's new works initiative

Anne and Rob struggled through their artistic 20s, inherited wealth in their 30s, and are spending their affluent late-40s in a life of parties and philanthropy and ideas. Irresistible, paradigm-shaping ideas. So when they meet a mysterious young couple promising a grand theory that will explain all the world's problems, Anne and Rob don't ask many questions-they just want to continue the conversation, all the way to the cliffs of the Colorado mountains. This Studio commission is a fast-paced and darkly comedic thriller about the poisonous appeal of believing that the best ideas win, and that winners know best.

 

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