Current Projects
MY LORD, WHAT A NIGHT
MY LORD, WHAT A NIGHT
MY LORD, WHAT A NIGHT
By Deborah Brevoort
Taproot Theatre
Sept. 18 - Oct. 19, 2024
Based on the real-life friendship between famed contralto Marian Anderson and physicist Albert Einstein.
Marian Anderson is denied lodging after delighting a sold-out Princeton audience. When her long-time fan, Albert Einstein, invites her to stay in his home, the two begin a lifelong friendship. Watch as they grapple with their responsibility as an artist and scientist in a world plagued by racial segregation and a looming world war.
PEOPLE OF THE BOOK
MY LORD, WHAT A NIGHT
MY LORD, WHAT A NIGHT
by Yussef El Guindi
Urban Stages
October 4 - November 3, 2024
Jason returns from war to literary glory after writing an international best-seller, but his celebrity is underscored by his marriage to Madeeha, an Iraqi woman he saved. When he reunites with old friends, Amir and Lynn, questions emerge about the veracity of the book and its particular patriotic American gaze. Lust, jealousy, and personal politics bring things between old friends to a boiling point and we are asked “what is the expense of lies – personally and as a country?”
THE LIFESPAN OF A FACT
MY LORD, WHAT A NIGHT
THE LIFESPAN OF A FACT
by Jeremy Kareken & David Murrrell and Gordon Farrell
Based on the Essay/Book by John D'Agata and Jim Fingal
100A Productions
Tobin Center, San Antonio
Sept. 4 - 15, 2024
“…terrifically funny dialogue…once the writer and the fact-checker get into a lively debate on the ethics of factual truth vs. the beauty of literary dishonesty, it’s time to really sit up and listen”—Variety
Based on the book by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal. Jim is a fresh-out-of-Harvard fact checker for a prominent but sinking New York magazine. John D’Agata is a talented writer with a transcendent essay about the suicide of a teenage boy—an essay that could save the magazine from collapse. When Jim is assigned to fact-check D’Agata’s essay, the two come head to head in a comedic yet gripping battle over facts versus truth.
¡Bernarda!
THE ROSENBERG/STRANGE FRUIT PROJECT
THE LIFESPAN OF A FACT
by Emilio Williams
A new take on the classic by
Federico Garcia Lorca
Teatro Audaz, San Antonio
September 19 -29, 2024
Southwest premiere
After the death of her husband, Bernarda places a strict veil of mourning over herself, her four daughters, and her senile mother. As the daughters' desires and emotions clash with their mother's strict control, tensions rise within the household. Rivalries between the sisters boil over as their longing for freedom reaches a crescendo that exposes the destructive effects of Bernarda's authoritarian rule.
THE OTHER AMERICAN
THE ROSENBERG/STRANGE FRUIT PROJECT
THE ROSENBERG/STRANGE FRUIT PROJECT
By D.W. Gregory
New Jersey Repertory Company
September 5- 29, 2024
World premiere
Paris 1952. After tangling over politics with an American tourist, a promising art student spirals into a mental breakdown that derails his life. Thirty years later he discovers why: The tourist was a CIA operative, and the student an unwitting participant in one of the darkest chapters of the Cold War.
THE ROSENBERG/STRANGE FRUIT PROJECT
THE ROSENBERG/STRANGE FRUIT PROJECT
THE ROSENBERG/STRANGE FRUIT PROJECT
Written & performed by John Jiler
59E59 Theatres
July 10 - August 4, 2024
Most know of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case, but few know the story of their youngest child, Robert, orphaned at six following his parents' execution for espionage and adopted by Abel Meeropol who wrote the song “Strange Fruit” seared into America’s consciousness by Billie Holiday.
Written and performed by award-winning actor/playwright John Jiler, The Rosenberg/Strange Fruit Project plumbs America’s character and history both sweet and sour, through the telling of Robert’s remarkable story. Accompanied by clarinetist Sweet Lee Odom, Jiler weaves together strands of American history, political movements, Klezmer, and jazz.