The Programs in Theater and Music Theater will present a full, diverse season of productions in the 2023-24 academic year. The wealth of artistic and scholarly individuality in this season will create tremendous opportunity, community and connection!
Upcoming Spring 2024 Productions
She Loves Me
Book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock, and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick
Production conceived by Casey Beidel ’24 and Madeleine LeBeau ’24
Music directed by Vince di Mura
Featuring Casey Beidel ’24, Madeleine LeBeau ’24 and Charlotte Kunesh ’24
Wallace Theater
March 29 + 30 and April 5 + 6 at 8 PM
Tickets & Details for She Loves Me
An updated portrayal of the Broadway classic She Loves Me will not only speak to the unique “virtual” realities of our class’s Princeton experience, but also will transform this golden-age Broadway musical into a modern commentary on our increasingly online world. Through updated staging, settings, and pre-show interactions, we hope to bring new life to this classic romantic comedy about connection, hard work, and vanilla ice cream.
El ritmo que nos libre
Conceived and created by Carrington Johnson ’24
Directed by Layla Williams ’25
CoLab
Performances: March 29 at 7 PM; March 30 at 3 + 7 PM
Exhibition: March 25-29, 10 AM – 6PM
Tickets & Details for El ritmo que nos libre
El ritmo que nos libre: Das almas assassinadas aos espíritos vivos (The Rhythm that Frees Us: From Murdered Souls to Living Spirits), is a new immersive theatrical installation focused on music, poetry and dance as mechanisms for political resistance and diasporic connection amongst Afro-Latinx communities.
Sisyphus, a new play
Written and directed by Jessica Lopez ’24
Drapkin Studio
April 4-6 at 7:30 PM
Tickets & Details for Sisyphus
Why do people need to die? Over two thousand years ago, Aeschylus grappled with this question in his two-part telling of the tragedy of Sisyphus. Unfortunately, those plays were all but entirely lost to time, leaving us to come up with our own answers. In this re-imagination of the classic myth, one man struggles against the inevitability of death. Sisyphus promised to make a difference in the world and is ready to throw hands with the gods to keep his word.
Theater&…math
A project explaining why 1+1 does not in fact equal 2
Written by Cooper Kofron ’24
Drapkin Studio
April 8 at 8 PM
Tickets & Details for Theater&…math
It’s 1903. Bertrand, Alfred, Alys, and Evelyn have just moved into a house together. Bertrand and Alfred are trying to prove that 1+1 is actually 2. Alys and Evelyn are trying to figure out why they married their husbands in the first place. Both of these tasks will ultimately take 10 years. Based on a true story. A reading of a play-in-progress about math, faith, and unfaithfulness.
Flight of a Legless Bird, a new play
Written and directed by Ethan Luk ’24
Berlind Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center
April 5, 11 + 12 at 8 PM; April 6 + 13 at 7:30 PM
Tickets & Details for Flight of a Legless Bird
Flight of a Legless Bird, written by Ethan Luk, follows and braids the lives of Robin and Leslie, two queer artists, from the 1980s to the 2000s. Robin, a filmmaker in New York’s West Village, confronts the reality of a HIV/AIDS diagnosis; Leslie, an accomplished Cantopop star and actor, grapples with his personal hurdles and newfound fame in Hong Kong. Robin and Leslie’s worlds collide by chance, establishing an emotional bond between the two men that defies time and space. Fusing multiple languages, geographies, and temporalities, the play’s fictional intertwining reflects a desire to forge new queer mythologies and connections, while probing the fraught relationship between art-making and times of societal crisis. Directed by Luk in collaboration with retired Program in Theater faculty member R.N. Sandberg.
Flight of a Legless Bird was developed in collaboration with New York Theater Workshop’s Mind the Gap Program, CHUANG Stage, PAO Arts Center, and Asian American Theater Artists of Boston (AATAB), and supported by the Douglas G. McGrath ’80 Fund for the Creative and Performing Arts.
Theater&…three generations of Bangladesh
Mukti and Meye-hood by Aneekah Uddin
Written by Aneekah Uddin ’24
Drapkin Studio
April 29 at 8 PM
After Nadia’s first semester at college, she clashes with her mother over values of womanhood and identity, rooted in generational trauma stemming from the Bangladeshi Liberation War (1971), a war her mother and grandmother both lived through. Maneuvering through fights over dinner, aunties gossiping, and hatching an escape plan, Nadia realizes she must reconcile rocky relationships with her tiger mom and her elderly grandmother to find self-love in her identity as a Bangladeshi-American.
This play dives into the Bangladeshi Liberation War’s impact on family, the Bangladeshi diaspora within South Asian communities, religious and cultural conflict, womanhood, and forming one’s identity.
Paivapo ’76, a new musical
Created by and featuring Tanaka Dunbar Ngwara ’24
Directed by Sabina Jafri ’24
Wallace Theater
May 3 + 4 at 8 PM
May 5 at 2 PM
Mirirai’s childhood best friend, Chamai, returns home from boarding school abroad to find his community much changed by the last few years of the war. While hiding in the forest during a raid on the village, it becomes clear that Mirirai’s spiritual beliefs clash with Chamai’s newfound view of the world. When he disregards important traditions and disappears at a sacred water site, Mirirai has to rally the community to perform the correct rituals to appease the spirits and win him back. This show is an exploration of the effects of the demonization and erasure of traditional practice during colonial rule in Zimbabwe, exploring themes of spirituality, community, first love and grief.
A new English translation of a French play
Translated by Lana Gaige ’24
In collaboration with L’Avant-Scène
TBA
Past 2023-24 Productions