Race, species extinction and a Pulitzer winner

How does a theatrical work make the journey from idea to production?

Each August, Hop audiences get a ringside seat on this fascinating process through the annual three-week Dartmouth residency by the New York Theatre Workshop, one of the nation’s leading theaters for developing new work. As it does each year, the company is bringing six theatrical works-in-progress by some of today’s most innovative professional playwrights and directors, this year presented on Saturday, August 3, 10 and 17, at 4 and 7:30 pm in the Warner Bentley Theater of the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College.

This year’s projects include a solo work by Pulitzer-winning playwright Ayad Aktar; two timely and distinctive examinations of race in America; and a musical look at species extinction, directed by Lisa Peterson, who previously collaborated with actor Denis O’Hare on An Iliad, a thrilling adaptation of the Greek classic that O’Hare and Peterson workshopped at Dartmouth as part of the NYTW summer residency and later performed in full as part of the regular Hop season. Performers include actors seen throughout Broadway, Off-Broadway and television productions.

Helped by the students in the Summer Theater Lab course of the Department of Theater, the artists dig into plays and musicals that often later make it to big Off Broadway and Broadway venues. Recent Dartmouth residency projects have included We Live In Cairo, currently in production at Boston’s American Repertory Theater, and Hadestown, now running on Broadway and recently honored with eight Tony Awards.

One Dartmouth student playing a key role this year is Maya Frost-Belansky ’20, who is assistant stage manager. A history major from Boulder, CO, she has stage-managed many shows for the Department of Theater including Cabaret, Urinetown, Hair, Glass Menagerie, Dr. Superman (Dodd Contest Winner), Intimate Apparel and Away this Night. Upon graduation, she plans to attend law school to pursue a career in civil rights advocacy.

Hop audiences have two chances to understand each work. Each Tuesday of the residency, that week’s artists talk about their projects in a free noontime discussion. Then, on Saturday, two projects each week get a staged reading by New York theater professionals.

This year’s projects are:

● Saturday, August 3, 4 pm: Buh Wha’ Trouble is Dis? (or The Exhumation of MC Spice), the tale of a first-generation Caribbean girl coming of age in the 1980s New York that tackles themes of racism, body image and show business. Written and performed by Stacey Sargeant, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III and DJ’ed by Tracy Adams.

● Saturday, August 3, 7:30 pm: You Hateful Things, a wild and terrifying play about compartmentalization, whiteness, fragility and rage involving three siblings and their white father. Written by Will Arbery, directed by Taylor Reynolds, and performed by Brittany Bradford, Juliana Canfield, Kadeem Ali Harris, Alex Herrald, Drew Lewis and Stephen Payne.

● Saturday, August 10, 4 pm: A dramatic monologue, a new solo work written and performed by Ayad Aktar, author of such vivid, award-winning and widely produced plays as Junk and Disgraced, and the author of the novel American Dervish (Little, Brown & Co.) published in over 20 languages. Dramaturgy by Lisa Timmel.

● Saturday, August 10, 7:30 pm: Look Upon Our Lowliness, the touching, unexpectedly funny story of seven men who, in the wake of a friend’s death, choose to embrace life. Written by Harrison David Rivers, directed by David Mendizábal and performed by Keith Antone, Leland Fowler, Ian Holcomb, Vishaal Reddy, Jon-Michael Reese, Justin Sams, Jose Useche and Sammy Nour Younes.

● Saturday, August 17, 4 pm: A Play for the Living in the Time of Extinction, an evening of interactive, interspecies storytelling that asks—through story, song and movement—how to be a human in an era of man-made extinction. Written by Miranda Rose Hall, directed by Lisa Peterson and performed by Eboni Booth, with additional collaborators Caitlin Nasema Cassidy and Robert Duffley,

● Saturday, August 17, 7:30 pm: The Seven Year Disappear, a tale of sudden disappearances and reappearances, and the questions they raise. Written by Jordan Seavey, directed by Carolyn Cantor and performed by Michael Cyril Creighton and an actor to be announced.

In addition, the NYTW Dartmouth residency includes some artists who come to work on projects but not present them. This year they include Sammi Cannold, a director who this fall will direct a new production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita at New York City Center; director and writer Celine Song, whose play Endlings premiered at American Repertory Theater in 2019, and who also is a writer for Amazon’s The Wheel of Time; Hungarian theater artists Tamás Ördög and Bence Biró; Chilean actress, director and theater professor Alexandra von Hummel; Italian film and theater director and author Pier Lorenzo Pisano; and New York avant garde theater veteran Lola Pashalinski, a founding member of The Ridiculous Theatrical Company where, with writer/director Charles Ludlam, she created 17 roles in 13 years.