Off-Broadway's Bedlam has announced casting for its forthcoming season, which will include two new musicals, a renewed collaboration with playwright Tina Packer, and a solo performance focused on addiction and redemption in the LGBTQ+ community.

Wake Up, written and performed by Spencer Aste, will launch the season, playing a two-week engagement at the West End Theatre beginning September 10. Artistic Director Eric Tucker will direct Aste's autobiographical play that examines a Mormon-raised artist’s self-destructive journey from religious orthodoxy, to drug addiction and dealing, to love and forgiveness. Kim Tobin is the assistant director.

Bedlam will head downtown with a return to the Sheen Center beginning September 12 for the world premiere of Medea: Re-Versed, Luis Quintero’s rap battle reimagining of Euripides’ tragedy. The co-production with Red Bull Theater and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (the play is running at the latter through August 30) will be directed by Nathan Winkelstein, who co-conceived the project. The cast features Sarin Monae West (The Skin of Our Teeth) in the title role, Siena D’Addario, Melissa Mahoney, Mark Martin, Lucille Lortel Award winner Jacob Ming-Trent (Father Comes Home from the Wars), Luis Quintero as Emcee, and Stephen Michael Spencer (Clyde’s).

Tucker will then reunite with his mentor, Tina Packer, to present a new production of her critically acclaimed play Women of Will September 28-October 20 at the West End Theatre. The work, which traces the chronological evolution of Shakespeare’s female characters and examines the Bard’s own journey and growth as a writer, will be performed by Ella Loudon and Nigel Gore.

Previews for the New York premiere of Music City will begin October 27, also at the West End Theatre. Tucker will direct the new musical featuring seven original songs by J.T. Harding plus tunes made famous by Darius Rucker, Keith Urban, Blake Shelton, Uncle Kracker, Dierks Bently, and Florida Georgia Line as well as a book by Peter Zinn. The cast will feature Drew Bastian, Jonathan Judge-Russo, Julianne Merrill, Leenya Rideout, Andrew Rothenberg, Casey Shuler, and Stephen Michael Spencer.

Music City, which is set set in the early 2000s in a Nashville fractured by the American methamphetamine crisis and the Global War on Terror, follows a hardscrabble band of songwriters who struggle to leave their mark on one of America’s wildest music scenes. The production will also have choreography by John Heginbotham and musical direction by Julianne Merrill.

Visit Bedlam.org.