Plays for The Plague Year, a theatrical concert featuring both music and words by Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks, began performances November 4, for a limited engagement through November 27 in the intimate cabaret space Joe’s Pub. Get a first look at the new production below.
Parks, who makes her onstage debut as The Writer in the piece, is joined by a company that includes Tony nominee Kenita Miller, Leland Fowler, Greg Keller, Orville Mendoza, Lauren Molina, Martín Solá, Pearl Sun, Edward Astor Chin, Danyel Fulton, and Will Stone.
Take a look at the production below.
Directed by Niegel Smith, the production has costume design by Rodrigo Muñoz, lighting design by Ania Washington, sound design by Dan Moses Schrier, projection design by Peter Nigrini, and prop management by Alexander Wylie. Ric Molina music directs and contributes both vocal and instrumental arrangements. Buzz Cohen serves as the production stage manager, and Janelle Caso as stage manager.
“There is no writer in the world like Suzan-Lori Parks,” said Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis in an earlier statement. “Her brilliant and utterly unique voice is one of the mountaintops of the American theatre, and The Public is proud to have been her home for over 30 years. When the pandemic hit, Suzan-Lori began a personal practice: writing a play every day, a chronicle of the times we were living through. What emerges is a personal, intimate journal, but also a public window into that first, torturous year of the crisis. Plays for the Plague Year is funny, powerful, quirky, emotional, and deeply satisfying.”
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