NYC's 2019-20 Lark-Developed Plays in Production
Lark-developed plays take flight! We've scoured the season announcements, cracked open all the brochures, and rounded up a list of when and where all the New York City productions of Lark-developed plays are happening this season! Check out the plays you heard here in process, now in the next phase of their journeys. (Based outside of New York? Check out our "What's Happening" page for more Lark-developed work happening all over the country!)
September 17 – October 19
THE NEW ENGLANDERS by Jeff Augustin
Manhattan Theatre Club
In a mixed race family, a teenaged daughter and her dads are each trying to find happiness. Eisa wants to be the next Lauryn Hill and is struggling to break free of her sleepy New England town where she feels hopelessly trapped. Her fathers are each being pulled in different directions of their own, one trying to re-connect with an old love, the other clinging to the path he always believed would be their future.
October 2 - 27
GEORGIA MERTCHING IS DEAD by Catya McMullen
Ensemble Studio Theatre
Gretchen, Emma and Whitney set off on a road trip south - with homemade female urination devices, too much pie, and ill-advised sexual escapades - to celebrate and mourn a figure from their past.
October 3 – November 10
SEARED by Theresa Rebeck
MCC
Brilliant, hot-headed chef Harry scores a mention in a food magazine with his signature scallops, and his business partner Mike finally sees profits within reach. The only problem, Harry refuses to recreate his masterpiece for the masses.
October 5 – November 17
POWER STRIP by Sylvia Khoury
LCT3
A young Syrian refugee spends her days tethered to an electric power strip in a Greek refugee camp. Once a middle-class student in Aleppo whose life was dictated by the expectations of men, her sheltered existence has been shattered by a brutal civil war.
October 29 – December 18
ON THAT DAY IN AMSTERDAM by Clarence Coo
Primary Stages
Two young men wake up in the Dutch city after a one-night stand: one is a refugee from the Middle East, the other an American backpacker who is himself the son of immigrants. With only a day before they must part ways, they set off on a romantic journey through the city.
November 14 – January 19
GREATER CLEMENTS by Samuel D. Hunter
Lincoln Center
The once-proud mining town of Clements, Idaho is rapidly disintegrating. As Maggie prepares to close one of the town’s last remaining businesses, a visitor arrives on her doorstep, resurrecting long-buried hope and shame rooted in her family’s past and the town’s history.
November 19 – December 29
ONE IN TWO by Donja R. Love
The New Group
Three young men. One of them will be chosen. They will tell ‘his’ story. A story they’re forced to tell over and over again about his new reality and how he lives with it – until he can’t.
November 22 – TBD
THE THIN PLACE by Lucas Hnath
Playwrights’ Horizons
Everyone who ever died is still here, just in a different part of here. Linda can communicate with them. And if you believe, she can make you hear them, too — in the thin place, the fragile boundary between our world and the other one.
February 4 – March 18
CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND by Lauren Yee
Signature Theater
This electric new play with music tells the story of a Khmer Rouge survivor returning to Cambodia for the first time in thirty years, as his daughter prepares to prosecute one of Cambodia's most infamous war criminals. Backed by a live band playing contemporary Dengue Fever hits and classic Cambodian oldies, this thrilling story toggles back and forth in time as father and daughter face the music of the past.
February 6 – March 15
ALL THE NATALIE PORTMANS by C.A. Johnson
MCC
Sixteen year old Keyonna and her older brother Samuel are living on the brink of eviction while dreaming of a better tomorrow. Too smart, “too gay”, and too lonely to fit in, Keyonna escapes by writing to her muse (or muses) Natalie Portman in her most iconic roles. When “all the Natalie Portmans” start talking back to her, Keyonna finally has to face her own off-screen drama.
March 17 – April 26
THE VAGRANT TRILOGY by Mona Mansour
The Public Theater
In 1967, Adham, a Palestinian Wordsworth scholar, goes to London with his new wife to deliver a lecture. When war breaks out at home, he must decide in an instant what to do. The two parts that follow explore alternate realities based on that decision.
March 19 - April 11, 2020
THE ANTELOPE PARTY by Eric John Meyer
The Wild Project
Five friends gather weekly to revel in their love of the children's cartoon "My Little Pony." But they soon find themselves caught between their innocent Brony role playing game and an increasingly dangerous outside world that keeps changing the rules.
April 15 - May 10
REDWOOD by Brittany K. Allen
Ensemble Studio Theatre
Meg and Drew are a young interracial couple, very much in love and moving in together. But when Meg’s Uncle Stevie sets out to chart his ancestry online, he unwittingly discovers that Meg’s family was owned by Drew’s in the antebellum South. Surprise!
May 12 – June 14
CONFEDERATES by Dominique Morisseau
Signature Theatre
Sara, a savvy slave turned Union spy, and Sandra, a brilliant professor in a modern-day private university, are facing similar struggles, though they live over a century apart.
June 4 – TBD
PERRY STREET by Lucy Thurber
MCC
Phil and Maggie live a life of leisure in their West Village brownstone. They find joy bringing aspiring artists into their home and making them part of the family, with a few strings attached. But when their daughter returns from Brown with her new girlfriend, the family is challenged by a series of startling and unsettling events.
July 7 - August 16
culld wattah by Erika Dickerson-Despenza
The Public Theater
It’s been 936 days since Flint has had clean water. Marion, a third generation General Motors employee, is consumed by layoffs at the engine plant. When her sister, Ainee, seeks justice and restitution for lead poisoning, her plan reveals the toxic entanglements between the city and its most powerful industry, forcing their family to confront the past-present-future cost of survival.
Dates TBD
SANCTUARY CITY by Martyna Majok
New York Theatre Workshop
DREAMers. Lovers. Life-long friends. Negotiating the promise of safety and the weight of responsibility, they’ll fight like hell to establish a place for themselves and each other in America.
Dates are subject to change. List will be updated throughout the year to reflect additional or updated productions.
If you're a playwright who has a Lark-developed play being produced in New York City in the 2019-20 season that you don't see on this list, email olivia@larktheatre.org!
