Second Stage Theater's upcoming 45th anniversary season will see a Broadway playwriting debut for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, along with world premieres from Jen Silverman and Paula Vogel.
Kicking off in November, the season will begin Off-Broadway with the world premiere of Guggenheim Fellow Silverman’s play Spain, directed by Tyne Rafaeli at the company's Tony Kiser Theater. Set in 1936, the work follows two filmmakers working on a sweeping epic about the Spanish CIvil War that happens to be bankrolled by the KGB.
Next up will be a new Broadway production of Obie winner and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Jacobs-Jenkins' Appropriate at the Hayes Theater, also starting in November. The work centers centers on a white family who, while closing out the estate of their late father, discover some disturbing artifacts that force them to confront their family's past. The play was previously produced in 2014 Off-Broadway at Signature Theatre. Lila Neugebauer is helming the upcoming Broadway bow. The production will mark Jacobs-Jenkins' full Broadway playwriting debut, following a credit in 2022 for contributing additional material to Lincoln Center Theater's revival of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth.
Moving into 2024, the company will give a world premiere to a new play by Pultizer Prize-winner Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive), to be directed by Tina Landau (The SpongeBob Musical) at the Hayes. The currently untitled work follows Phyllis, a mother struggling with her pre-conceived dreams for her teenaged children and the paths that they would prefer to take in the changing world of 1962.
Casting and full creative teams for each production will be announced at a later date, along with additional programming for the season.
“It’s been 45 years since Second Stage Theater was launched in a small loft space on the Upper West Side and I couldn’t be prouder to announce this trio of plays, including two we commissioned, as part of our 45th Anniversary Season,” says Second Stage Founder and Artistic Director Carole Rothman. “I’m thrilled to celebrate this milestone with these superlative playwrights and directors, continuing Second Stage’s mission of producing plays exclusively by living American writers. We look forward to welcoming audiences to what we know will be a season of world-class productions.”
For more information, visit 2ST.com.
