Les Waters. © Photo courtesy of Actors Theatre of Louisville.
The Humana Festival of New American Plays will open the last week of February with five new plays and a high-flying show featuring the theater’s Acting Apprentice Company. It will be the first festival under the direction of Les Waters, who began his tenure as the theater’s artistic director last spring.
The shows are:
The Delling Shore by Sam Marks. Literary jealousy played out between two pairs of fathers and daughters. (Feb. 27-April 7)
Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. When a family gathers to liquidate the late patriarch’s Arkansas plantation, they make a disturbing discovery that changes everything. (March 5-April 7)
Cry Old Kingdom by Jeff Augustin. An artist finds himself revived and endangered in Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s Haiti. (March 8-April 7)
Gnit by Will Eno. An Americanized re-reading of Henrik Ibsen’s 19th Century Norwegian play Peer Gynt. (March 15-April 7)
O Guru Guru Guru, or Why I Don’t Want to Go to Yoga Class With You by Mallery Avidon. A young woman explains the title. (March 20-April 7)
Sleep Rock Thy Brain by Rinnie Groff, Lucas Hnath and Anne Washburn. The Acting Apprentice Company will present the show March 22 to April 7 at the Lincoln Performing Arts School. The three playwrights explore sleep with the aid of Louisville’s ZFX Flying Effects.
