GEM OF The OCEAN

Chuck Smith Director August WilsonPlaywright

Tensions flare into riots across Pittsburgh’s Hill District as chaos threatens a city desperate for freedom. It’s 1904, the dawn of the new century—yet slavery’s shadow looms large. There is solace to be found at the home of 285-year-old Ester Tyler, keeper and transmitter of African American history and cleanser of souls. When a suspicious traveler appears at her door in search of a new life, Aunt Ester guides him on a journey of spiritual awakening.

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

Based on the critically acclaimed book by Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time focuses on Christopher, a young boy with an extraordinary brain and an exceptional talent for mathematics. When the neighbor's dog Wellington is found dead, Christopher launches an investigation into the mystery surrounding the dog's murder. As he searches for the truth on his first ever excursion by himself, he uncovers surprises about himself and his family, exploring the hidden secrets and challenges in everyday life.

Director Jonathan Berry

Playwright Simon Stephens

Author Mark Haddon

Scenic and Lighting Design Brandon Wardell

Costume Design Stephanie Cluggish

Sound Design and Original Music Pornchanok (Nok) Kanchanabanca

Projection Design Joseph A. Burke

Movement Creation Dan Plehal

THE GREAT LEAP

The Great Leap tells the story of Manford Lum, a local star of the sidewalk basketball courts of San Francisco’s Chinatown who strongarms his way onto an American college team travelling to Beijing for a “friendship” game. Set amidst the friction of post cultural revolution China, this Chicago premiere explores the cultural collide of identity and politics through the game of basketball. Witty and weighty, Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap keeps tensions high right up to the final buzzer.

Author Lauren Yee

Director Jesca Prudencio

Scenic Design Justin Humphres

Costume Designer Jenny Mannis

Lighting Design Keith Parham

Sound Design & Original Music Pornchanok (Nok) Kanchanabanca

Projection Design Rasean Davonte Johnson

Company Voice & Text Coach Gigi Buffington

Production Stage Manager Christine D. Freeburg

Assistant Stage Manager Kathleen Barrett

CYMBELINE

"The original music and sound design provided by Pornchanok (Nok) Kanchanabanca is an active ingredient." Review by Fred Sokol

The Creative Team

• EVAN YIONOULIS (DIRECTOR) 

• JEAN KIM (SCENIC DESIGNER) 

• ASA BENALLY (COSTUME DESIGNER) 

• ELIZABETH MAK (LIGHTING DESIGNER) 

• PORNCHANOK (NOK) KANCHANABANCA (ORIGINAL MUSIC
  AND SOUND DESIGN)

• RASEAN DAVONTE JOHNSON (PROJECTION DESIGNER) 

• GRACE ZANDARSKI (VOCAL COACH) 

• MICHAEL ROSSMY (FIGHT DIRECTOR) 

• RICK SORDELET (FIGHT DIRECTOR) 

• TAYLOR BARFIELD (PRODUCTION DRAMATURG) 

• LYNDA A.H. PAUL (PRODUCTION DRAMATURG)

• TARA RUBIN (CASTING DIRECTOR) 

• EMELY SELINA ZEPEDA* (STAGE MANAGER)

SWEAT

BY LYNN NOTTAGE | DIRECTED BY KIMBERLY SENIOR

The Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-nominated Best Play by Lynn Nottage (Ruined) comes alive in a moving and urgently relevant new production directed by Kimberly Senior (The Niceties). Based on interviews with the residents of Reading, Pennsylvania, a group of close friends struggle to stay connected when their factory is at risk of collapse. In a neighborhood bar, each of them reaches for their piece of the American dream. Can their friendships survive this test? Nottage weaves a tale of trust and doubt, longtime bonds and short-term possibilities.

2020 Norton Award Nomination-Outstanding Design, Large Theater

Two lost souls come together under most unusual circumstances in the world premiere of BE HERE NOW by Deborah Zoe Laufer. Bari is deeply cynical and woefully underemployed. Mike makes art out of garbage. When their worlds collide, they must decide what they willing to do for love and happiness and to create meaning in their lives.

Be Here Now

Be Here Now is written by Deborah Zoe Laufer and directed by Portia Krieger

By David Hare
Directed by Emily Mann

Former lovers unexpectedly reunite years after the end of their passionate affair. Intimate conversations about their past—and present—turn explosive and the two question if they can ever be together again. Experience David Hare’s award-winning masterpiece on impossible love.

Set Design: Beowulf Boritt

Costume Design: Montana Levi Blanco

Lighting Design: Jason Lyons

Sound Design and Composition: Pornchanok (Nok) Kanchanabanca

The Seagull

Playwright Anton Chekhov

• Translator and Adapter Yasen Peyankov

• Director Yasen Peyankov

• Scenic Designer Todd Rosenthal

• Costume Designer Ana Kuzmanic

• Lighting Designer Marcus Doshi

• Sound Designer and Composer Pornchanok (Nok) Kanchanabanca

• Production and New Translation Dramaturg Dassia N. Posner

• Company Voice & Text Coach Gigi Buffington

• Intimacy Choreographer Jyreika Guest

• Director of Production Tom Pearl

• Casting Director JC Clementz

• Production Stage Manager Christine D. Freeburg

• Assistant Stage Manager Kathleen Barrett

Miss Bennet Christmas at Pemberley

THE Thanksgiving Play

by Larissa FastHorse

Directed by LISA PORTES

Watch as a group of liberal artists walk the fine line of political correctness in this fresh, satirical comedy. Armed with progressive lingo and questionably good intentions, they attempt to devise a culturally sensitive Thanksgiving play for local elementary schools. Slowly but surely, the well-meaning plans dissolve into an outrageous sendup of PC behavior. The Thanksgiving Play treads the minefields of appropriation to inject some laughter into activism, apathy and all the assumptions in between.

Brian Sidney Bembridge

Set and Lighting Designer

Bill Black

Costume Designer

THE WINTER'S TALE

As You Like It

Director Rosa Joshi (who helmed 2018’s widely praised Henry V) delves into the search for true love in a wondrous world of wit, transformation, and imagination. Exiled from the controlling confines of the court, Duke Senior and her daughter Rosalind seek refuge — and find much more — in the unconstrained Forest of Arden. Also fleeing danger at home, Orlando encounters a young man named Ganymede and seeks help in love — unaware that Ganymede is actually his heart’s desire, Rosalind, in disguise. “All the world’s a stage” and all society’s rules of conformity are off in this exuberant theatrical journey into one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies.

Development of As You Like It was supported by a grant from the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation.

 Creative Team

Director Rosa Joshi

Scenic Designer Sara Ryung Clement

Costume Designer Christine Tschirgi

Lighting Designer Christina Watanabe

Composer Palmer Hefferan

Sound Designer Pornchanok (Nok) Kanchanabanca

Associate Director of Movement Alice Gosti

THE WOLVES

Actors Theatre of Louisville

by Sarah DeLappe
directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh

A girls’ indoor soccer team prepares for battle. Amid warmups and passing drills, the undefeated Wolves psych each other up—and dive into rapid-fire, unfiltered conversations about the world and their places in it. What happens when life both on and off the field tests the team’s endurance? A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, The Wolves boldly celebrates the grit and grace of 21st-century American girls.

Scenic Designer: Yoon Bae
Costume Designer: Brooke Cohen Brown
Lighting Designer: Cecilia Durbin
Sound Designer and Composer: Pornchanok Kanchanabanca 
Movement Director: Rocío Mendez
Stage Manager: Kelsey Brennan York
Dramaturg: Jessica Reese

Alligator

A.R.T./New York Theaters

ALLIGATOR

by Hilary Bettis
directed by Elena Araoz

Emerald and Ty are twin orphaned teenagers wrestling ‘gators for a living in a roadside attraction in a small tourist town deep in the Florida Everglades… tussling in blood and mud, whiskey and swamp… cracking open when a deep drum, like a heartbeat, shakes the earth.

with  Dakota Granados, Lexi Lapp, Samuel H. Levine, Julian Elijah Martinez, Talene Monahon, Bobby Moreno, Lindsay Rico
…and a live band! Daniel Ocanto, Graham Ulicny & Sean Smith

CREATIVE TEAM

Sets  Arnulfo Maldonado     

Costumes  Ari Fulton

Lights  Amith Chandrashaker

Sound  Pornchanok Kanchanabanca

Original music  Daniel Ocanto & Graham Ulicny

Masks/Puppets & Animals  Jessica Scott

Props  Samantha Shoffner

Fights  UnkleDave’s Fight-House

Casting  Kate Murray Casting   

PSM  Danielle Teague-Daniels

Assistant stage manager  Genevieve Ortiz

THE ORESTEIA

Rip Van Winkle

‘Frontiéres sans Frontières’ (The Bushwick Starr)

In a year and a country so committed to deadly earnestness, Phillip Howze’s delightfully dark satire of our penchant for tragedy porn — and our self-important desire to feel like morally superior global citizens — felt like a bracing gust of wind. This story of three young siblings living in the rubble of an unnamed war-torn country was at once visually striking (director Dustin Wills and scenic designer Mariana Sanchez Hernandez made magic out of literal trash), brilliantly acted (Emma Ramos as the oldest sibling, Win, was a revelation), linguistically acrobatic, and piercingly funny. Frontiéres is a whip-smart modern burlesque that deserves a wider audience.

MATT & BEN

Two best friends, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, sit down to write their first screenplay, an adaptation of Catcher in the Rye (obviously) when suddenly a fully realized script falls from the sky. The name on that script: Good Will Hunting. What will these two friends do? Can fame literally land in your lap? Written by Mindy Kaling (of NBC’s The Office) and Brenda Withers, the gender-bending Off-Broadway hit Matt & Ben is a sharp skewering of celebrity culture and an affectionate look at favorite one of Hollywood’s favorite bromances. Bring a friend. Some things are meant to be shared.

Creative Team

Directed by Kate Bergstrom 

Scenic designer: Brian Dudkiewicz

Costume designer: Ntokozo Fuzunina Kunene

Lighting designer: Jen Rock

Sound designer: Pornchanok Kanchanabanca 

A Map of VIRTUE

A Map of Virtue is a symmetrical play guided by a bird statue, pivoting around an encounter with and dissection of evil. Part interview, part comedy, part middle-night-middle-forest horror story.

"The play was haunting me - like it was stuck in my gut, for a long time. I described it to my friends as a lover and a kidney stone," said director Kate Bergstrom '18. "America is full of unresolved, chilling-horribly traumatic events happening all of the time and people are finding themselves unable to effectively act on or talk about them- myself included. I think A Map of Virtue speaks to me because it deeply, personally holds a kind of love mixed with a loss of innocence, a kind of secret, childlike belief in fate and also a sense of needing to and being unable to talk about trauma."

WANDER-WONDER

“Wonder/Wander: An Interactive Tarot Card Reading” is a multimedia adventure into and through the Tarot. Of the 22 cards from the Major Arcana, only 5 will be drawn at each performance. Will it be The Moon? The Lovers? The Wheel of Fortune? Or something else? Each show will be a one-of-a-kind experience where the chosen cards invite us to reflect, reimagine, and perhaps-- rejoice, together. Directed by Nana Dakin.

The creative team

Scenic designer: Kim Powers

Lighting designer: Shawn Irish 

Costume designer: Ruby Kemph 

The Humans

by Stephen Karam

The most acclaimed and awarded American play in recent memory will have its first independent production in Northwest Arkansas following its record-breaking Broadway run. After a sleepless night, Mr. Blake brings his family from Pennsylvania to his daughter’s new apartment to celebrate Thanksgiving. As darkness falls outside the ramshackle pre-war duplex, mysterious things start to go bump in the night, secrets are revealed, and family tensions reach a boiling point. Directed by Shana Gold.

Sound designer: Pornchanok Kanchanabanca 

Properties master: Brodie Jasch

Production stage: manager Shannon Jones

The ENCLAVE

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater's production of Arthur Laurents's The Enclaveis nearing the end of its sit-down at Rattlestick. Under the direction of Victor Cervantes Jr., the revival is presented by the company's Middle Voice program

OXYGEN

Oxygen, the final part of Teerawat Mulvilai's unsettling political trilogy, proves to be the quietest and most abstract instalment

FOOL ALRIGHT

Fool Alright', the second part of the performance created in this present year, is a reflection of where we stand one year later. 'Fool Alright' communicates serious content with biting humor through meaningless conversations with clear intentions, thrilling motion graphics, and extreme body language by Thailand's leading performing artists.

I was asked to composed a new piece for the conclusion scene. I first watched the rehearsal and determined the length of the song at roughly 3 minutes. The concluding image was positive, involving hope, life, awakening, and rebirth, all of which were to come after everything was destroyed.  The music that I composed is based on the concept of a growing tree, a new birth. I used the sound of bells, xylophone and string instruments to create a bright and positive atmosphere. A sound of chorus was also used in the song to represent the hopeful prayers of human being.

TASTE OF CURRY

PARADISE LOST

With a father who owns his own business, a daughter who was a protégée of a famous pianist, a son who is an Olympic champion, and another son who is just breaking into banking, the Gordon family has cultivated a comfortable middle-class life for themselves. But it’s 1933, and not even New York City can escape the crisis of massive unemployment, a still-floundering economy, and a brewing storm in Europe. Clifford Odets's Paradise Lost is a vibrant and philosophical exploration into a middle-class home, as its inhabitants work to maintain all they had gained in the early twentieth century at a moment when the very tenets of American life are being challenged.
 

Damage Joy

‘Damage Joy’ invites audiences into a dark fantasy / fairy tale world where they will meet 4 characters who like to hurt each other and destroy things for fun. The show was inspired by the German word "shadenfreude," which is used to specifically describe the kind of joy you feel when you see someone slip and fall on a banana peel, or if you saw a bride fall into a pond at her wedding. It's taking pleasure in the misfortune, or sometimes the pain, of others. Slapstick comedy is another example of this. Why is it funny to see someone being hit on the head with a bat?

The performance explores what our tolerance for violence and cruelty is in society. If we're laughing at the damage or cruelty done to other people, that must mean it's acceptable. So the question is, at one point, and under what circumstances, do we stop laughing?