The Public Theater has added new programming to its fall season with The Politics of Now, a series of offerings planned to mark and run during the 2024 election season. The company has added two live performances and a film screening that planners hope will speak "directly to our current politics and cultural conversation," according to press ntoes.
First up will be the New York premiere of The Ford/Hill Project, A Waterwell production being presented by the Public and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company October 16-20. The work centers on the headline-making Supreme Court confirmation hearing testimonies of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford, both of which involved the women alleging past sexual abuse on potential Supreme Court justices, Hill's against Clarence Thomas in 1991 and Ford's against Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. The play, created by Lee Sunday Evans (who's directing) and Elizabeth Marvel, is made up of verbatim passages from the hearings' transcripts.
The cast will include Dylan Baker, Eric Berryman, Amber Iman, and Elizabeth Marvel.
Before the NYC performances, the work will be at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company October 7, the first day of the Supreme Court's 2024-2025 term.
Next will be a solo show from Manuel Oliver, father to Parkland shooting victim Joaquin Oliver. Co-written with James Clements and directed by Michael Cotey, Guac is the story of an immigrant family seeking the American dream and Oliver's journey from father to activist. Performances will run October 25-November 3.
The series will close with a screening of a filmed performance of Conversations in Tusculum from Theater on Podil in Kyiv, Ukraine. The work, rehearsed and performed during and around the war in Ukraine, reimagines the interaction between Brutus, Cassius, and Cicero that led to the assassination of Julius Caesar. The performance is in Ukrainian, and the film will include English subtitles. The play is by Richard Nelson, translated into Ukrainian by Valentina Zhigalova and Larisa Volokhonskaya. The screening is November 12.
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