Wisconsin Wrights 2020

June 2020

WRITTEN BY Various

DIRECTED BY Various

Three New Wisconsin Plays!

Live performances postponed due to COVID-19

Forward Theater Company’s biennial Wisconsin Wrights New Play Festival is an investment in new works that awards Wisconsin playwrights the rare opportunity to develop their plays in a professional public reading series.

Three full-length plays by Wisconsin authors were be chosen to receive a week-long rehearsal process with professional directors and actors. These plays will be read before the public over a three-day weekend, giving audience members the chance to peek behind the scenes of the play development process.

Overture Center for the Arts

201 State St,
Madison, WI 53703

About the show

Runtime:
N/A

Performance Dates:
June 2020

Age Recommendations:
N/A

Accessibility

We strive to make our performances available to the entire community. This guiding principle captures the theater we aim to be.

We’re proud to be a resident company at Overture Center, which provides practical accessibility for a variety of needs.

Visit accessibility page >

The Year Without a Summer

by Greer DuBois

It’s 1816. Nina Radcliff, a young Englishwoman, goes to visit her aunt in a villa in Italy. Her vacation is interrupted by the arrival of two strange men to her aunt’s house. After a series of escalating hijinks, music, and conversations, Nina decides to remain in Italy instead of returning to her repressed life at home.

Director: Jeanne Leep

Dramaturg: Deanie Vallone

Stage Manager: Shannon Heibler

Cast:

Jessica Jane Witham
Chantae Miller
Shawn Padley
Andy White
Whitney Derendinger
Lea Hulsey

Sapiens

by Eric Schabla

A young PhD student embarks on an ambitious research project in a private wing at a zoo. What she and her colleagues discover behind closed doors leads them to questions of taxonomy, human identity, and the nature of inquiry.

Director: Jake Penner

Dramaturg: Rachel Lynett

Stage Manager: Karen Moeller

Cast:

Nadja Simmonds
Jennifer Vosters
Deija Richards
Daniel Torres-Rangel
Jonathan Wainwright
Jack Dwyer
Casem AbuLughod
DiMonte Henning

The Mytilenean Debate

by Quan Barry

Latimer is a successful heart surgeon. When his much younger wife, Nina, unexpectedly (and rather ambivalently) gets pregnant post-9/11, Latimer must break the news to his grown daughter, Mary, who is herself newly wed to Charles, a jazz musician with whom she’s trying desperately to conceive. Questions of legacy abound as well as the responsibilities inherent in bringing a black child into a complicated world.

Director: Mark H.

Dramaturg: Jen Plants

Stage Manager: Jo Chalhoub

Cast:

Gavin Lawrence
Samra Teferra
Jeb Burris
Olivia Dawson