Soho Rep will give Nia Akilah Robinson's The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar) a U.S. premiere as the second production in their 2024-2025 season. The Off-Broadway company has also announced a new cohort of artists for its Writer Director Lab, as well as three new commissions to be produced in future seasons.
The Great Privation will begin performances February 26 at Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater, with Evren Odcikin directing. The production will be Soho Rep's first in its previously announced space-sharing partnership with Playwrights Horizons, which is set to continue for the next two to three years.
Set in 1832, The Great Privation follows a mother and daughter keep vigil behind the African Baptist Church in Philadelphia at the grave of a recently deceased loved one. Today, on the same grounds, another mother and daughter (alike yet not the same) work as counselors at what is now a sleep-away camp. Timelines collide, revealing roots to our ancestors that are not as long as we may think.
“We flip through two time periods because of my own hope for a greater good," Robinson said in a statement. "I had learned that ‘I might not live to witness the change which I seek,’ but in my own mind, in the future ‘someone will.’ And in The Great Privation, we flip between 1832 and modern day because in each time period there is a separate relationship to autonomy and power and I was excited to explore how both worlds compliment and differ from one another…Evren Odcikin and I bonded over how grave robbing is universal, it is horrific, and we agree that so many folks carry its rippling effects. We also bond over how love carries us all through life. He is a dream collaborator, and I cannot wait to dive into rehearsals with him.”
"I spend my days as an artist searching for big-hearted and brave collaborators like Nia, and I am so thankful to be in her orbit," added Odcikin. "It was an honor to help develop this exceptional play at last year’s Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and it’s humbling to be asked to helm this production. We will take a sober look at the violence of our past and present and hold space for liberation and healing through the power of comedy and love, and I cannot imagine a more supportive and artist-centered space than Soho Rep to help us do that. New York audiences better be ready for this genre-defying, bold, new work!”
Soho Rep has also announced it will depart its home of 30 years at 46 Walker Street in January, and take temporary residence at Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The move will allow Soho Rep to double its audience capacity and offer a fully accessible space. The company's 2024-2025 season will end with a co-production with Playwrights Horizons, with details to come.
The newest cohort for Soho Rep's Director Lab has also been announced. Four total projects will be produced by the cohort, which is led by co-chairs Jackie Sibblies Drury and William Burke, and consists of Jean Carlo Yunén and Iraisa Ann Reilly, Zahra Budhwani and Salwa Meghjee, Iris McCloughan and Alex Tatarsky, and Jisoo Hope Yoon and Chloe Chow.
The Off-Broadway company has also named three new commissions, with a commitment to production in a future season. These will include works from Anne Gridley, Ife Olujobi, and Sunny Jain.
“Since announcing our departure from Walkerspace, we’ve spent a lot of time meditating on displacement," Soho Rep Director Eric Ting said in a statement. "It’s in the loam of Nia’s play—displacement from our homeland, displacement from our families, displacement from our very bodies. But perhaps more importantly, there is a strength in the four women of The Great Privation that hints at the path through such uncertainty—one rooted in recognition and resilience. Displacement and resilience. Twin themes of our season. Soho Rep is honored to be lifting up the work of these two mighty artists.”
Visit SohoRep.org for more information.
