Off the heals of announcing the cast for its remount of the Bard SummerScape production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! this fall, St. Ann’s Warehouse has added two new productions to its upcoming season.
Joining the 2018–2019 lineup are The Wooster Group's production of The B-Side: “Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons,” A Record Album Interpretation, starring co-creator Eric Berryman; and Wayward Productions’ Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter, adapted and directed by Enda Walsh, and starring Cillian Murphy.
The B-Side, an original performance based on a 1965 LP of work songs, blues, and spirituals recorded by inmates in Texas’ segregated agricultural prison farms, will return for a limited run at St. Ann's March 1–24, 2019. The LP, recorded in 1964 by folklorist Bruce Jackson, is played live onstage and channeled by Berryman.
The show made its critically acclaimed debut last season with The Wooster Group, who created it in collaboration with Berryman. The B-Side is directed by Kate Valk and features design by Wooster Group Artistic Director Elizabeth LeCompte. Performers Jasper McGruder and Phillip Moore will also return for the St. Ann's run.
Also joining the season next spring: Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, which reunites Murphy (Inception, Batman Begins) with playwright and director Walsh (Disco Pigs, Ballyturk). Adapted and directed by Walsh from Porter's novel, the play follows a widower and his two young boys, who face the sadness of their mother’s sudden death. Through their grief they are visited by Crow—an antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter—who threatens to stay until they no longer need him.
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers received its world premiere at Galway's Black Box Theatre earlier this year. The Off-Broadway premiere will play at St. Ann's April 20–May 12.
As previously announced, St. Ann's new season will kick off in September with Oklahoma!, starring the recently announced Rebecca Naomi Jones and Ali Stroker. Directed by Daniel Fish, the acclaimed production returns to the stage for the first time since playing to sold-out audiences at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in 2015. Performances will begin September 27. Read more here.
The season will continue in December with the acclaimed, immersive production of The Jungle, transferring Off-Broadway from London's West End.
