Year in Review: PlayMakers in 2014

Here's a look back at some of our favorite PlayMakers memories from 2014.
(in no particular order)

1. Lisa Brescia's spirited ‘Last Midnight’ as The Witch in Into the Woods

Read more: “Becoming the Witch in Into the Woods“; Lisa Brescia, photo by Jon Gardiner

2. Roger Guenveur Smith in Rodney King, sparking community conversation during PRC² in the wake of the events in Ferguson, Missouri

Roger Guenveur Smith in Rodney King at PlayMakers

3. The elegant 1930s Café Society Supper Club set for Private Lives

Kristen Mengelkoch, Tom Coiner, Jeffrey Blair Cornell and Julie Fishell; photo Jon Gardiner

4. Ray Dooley’s Puck and Julie Fishell’s Nick Bottom as we’ve never seen them before in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Read more: A Conversation with A Midsummer Night's Dream's Ray Dooley and Zachary Fine; photo by Jon Gardiner

Julie Fishell and Ray Dooley; photo by Jon Gardiner

5. Crazy, carefree, sometimes ‘clothes-free’ Spike in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Read more: “Christian Daly makes his PlayMakers debut”; Christian Daly as Spike, photo by Curtis Brown

6. The beautiful healing and hope of Love Alone

Patrick McHugh and Jenny Wales. Photo by Jon Gardiner.

7. Associate Artistic Director Jeff Meanza trips the light fantastic in Assassins (and again as The Baker in Into the Woods!)

Jeffery Meanza; Photo by Jon Gardiner.

8. Joel de la Fuenta’s mesmerizing performance as Gordon Hirabayashi in Hold These Truths

Read more: “Meet Joel de la Fuente”; Joel de la Fuente, photo by Lia Chang

9. Mike Daisey explores America’s national obsession with guns in our commission and world premiere of The Story of the Gun

Mike Daisey, photo by Ursa Waz

10. The Summer Youth Conservatory’s Madison-dancing cast of Hairspray raises the roof of the Paul Green Theatre

"PlayMakers Summer Youth Conservatory presents: HAIRSPRAY"

And a 10 plus 1 we’ll never forget…

11. Adorable bovine Milky White stealing our hearts in Into the Woods!

Read more: “Working with Puppets” by Donovan Zimmerman, Puppeteer, Into the Woods

Creating a Dialogue with Wrestling Jerusalem

Wrestling Jerusalem is a piece Aaron Davidman has been working on for a long time. The idea was first sparked when he visited Israel for the first time in 1992. In the decades since, the central idea has had several incarnations, but after repeated trips to the Middle East, Aaron found that there were many stories to be told.

“It feels to me that the Israeli/Palestinian story is the most important story for Jews to understand, and as an American Jewish theatre artist I felt compelled to go deeply into the material to see how I could make sense of this very troubling and often confusing conflict,” Aaron explains. “I was inspired to reach beyond the headlines, beyond polemic, and understand the complexity and nuance, the history and current events, the mythology and the real politik of the ‘situation’ as they call it in Israel.”

The result is a one-man show with 18 different characters (including himself), each with a very different, but very real perspective on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The characters are directly inspired from his interviews of people living on all sides of the dispute and coming to an understanding of it from their unique perspectives.

Aaron Davidman in Wrestling Jerusalem

Though the problem has been there for generations, the “situation” is still actively smoldering, flaring up dramatically on many occasions. As it all develops, so too does the play. Since premiering in San Francisco last spring, the terrible war in Gaza over the summer brought Aaron to do a major rewrite.

“I don’t rewrite the play to speak to current events, but rather, I have to be sure that the tone of the piece remains connected to where our world is—in my subjective opinion of course—in relation to this continually evolving conflict."

It is this immediate relevancy, of course, that draws us here at PlayMakers. The mission of our PRC² series is to bring these hot issues in front of us and our community to engage us all as part of the dialogue. Producing Artistic Director Joe Haj explains, 

“In the first season that I programmed at PlayMakers (2007/08) we included When the Bulbul Stopped Singing, a solo piece that I acted in. That play was an examination of the Palestinian/Israeli divide as viewed from the perspective of a progressive Palestinian civil/human rights lawyer, Raja Shehadeh. Now, in 2015, especially given the recent events in Gaza, it is important to once again look at this area of the world, this time through the lens of a progressive Jewish artist and activist.

“As with Rodney King, which we presented only a few weeks after the events in Ferguson, Missouri, it is my hope that the theatre can be a place for community dialogue, for increased tolerance, and for healing; a safe environment in which to have difficult conversations.”

Discussion will certainly be sparked as a result of Aaron’s provocative piece, and we give our audience a forum in which to participate and process questions raised during the show. Gathering a variety of panelists ready to engage with you, we think of this post-show conversation as our “second act.”

Aaron says, “I hope my audiences come with an open heart. People are very divisive about this issue, understandably. I think we are capable of holding vast complexity and even contradiction. I think we are more connected to our own humanity when we are generous with each other, when we remain curious about the ‘other.’”

Joe is confident that Aaron’s vision will be achieved in the setting of our theatre. “I have known Aaron Davidman for many years, and his deep thinking, his honest, personal and rigorous attempt to understand the situation, gives another voice and another perspective to one of the world’s thorniest issues.”

There are only six performances of Wrestling Jerusalem, January 7-11. Call our Box Office at 919.962.PLAY (7529) or Click Here to buy tickets and find out more.

Regional Premiere of Wrestling Jerusalem

Turning our attention to a new year and a new show, Aaron Davidman brings us his one-man show Wrestling Jerusalem January 7 to 11. We are proud to be the first stop on his national tour, which will go to Los Angeles, Boston and New York City.

Wrestling Jerusalem grapples with identity, history and social justice, exploring the competing narratives at the center of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict that has lasted generations. The San Francisco Chronicle calls it a “remarkable solo performance” [of] “yearning beauty … deep sadness and wistful hope.”

Aaron describes it as following one man’s travels to Israel and Palestine “to try to understand the nuance and complexity that lives in the hearts of the human beings at the center of the conflict. Part personal memoir, part transformational theatre, in addition to myself, I play 17 different characters whom I meet along the way, each with his own story and perspective to share.”

We strive to bring you innovative, topical performances in our PRC² series. Earlier this season, we presented Roger Guenveur Smith’s Rodney King, which was highly relevant given the events in Ferguson, Missouri. The generations-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is the focus of Wrestling Jerusalem, remains fresh with the current situation in Gaza. The questions and dialogues these shows spark are the hallmark of PRC² enhanced by their "second act" of our engaging post-show discussions with the creative artists and expert panelists following each performance.

Performances of Wrestling Jerusalem will be 7:30 pm nightly plus 2pm on Sunday, Jan. 11 in the Kenan Theatre.

For tickets, contact the Box Office at 919.962-PLAY (7529).

“Rodney King” wraps up at PlayMakers

Roger Guenveur Smith in Rodney King at PlayMakers

PlayMakers kicked off the 2014/15 Season with its first PRC² show, Rodney King, to much acclaim. Roger Guenveur Smith explored the man behind the myth and why his plaintive "Can we all get along?" remains an open question in America's complicated relationship with race.

In The Five Points Star, Kate Dobbs Ariail wrote that, “in the manner of a jazz musician, Smith modulates and segues, again and again, through 65 minutes of variations in a minor key on the theme of the man’s life and actions. He dwells, naturally, on the horrific beating and the terrible trial, but he weaves in strand after strand of fact and makes the man, the human, more whole than 10,000 news reports could do.”

Congratulations to Roger and PlayMakers for performing this moving and timely piece.

If you missed Roger's interview on The State of Things, you can hear it here.