It's an ambitious lineup, with yes, a majority of women playwrights and the naming of a new playwright-in-residence who is, yes, a woman. But it's most interesting for its variety and its ambition — including one of the most daunting of all American classics, Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey into Night (May 29-June 30, 2019), which features one of those mountaintop roles for women, Mary Tyrone, that's been assayed by everyone from Katherine Hepburn to Jessica Lange. At American Stage it will be tackled by Janis Stevens, whose current performance in the title role(s) of Marjorie Prime shows she can be at once addled and elegant, both of which are qualities inherent in the complicated Tyrone.
The season will open with another Pulitzer Prize-winning play, this one of more recent vintage: the 2015 winner Between Riverside and Crazy, by Stephen Adly Giurgis (Oct. 3-Nov. 4, 2018). With this play and the season's second offering, Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau (Jan. 23-Feb. 24, 2019) the company seems, admirably, to be looking for ways to carry on in the spirit of its August Wilson Century Cycle achievement. Like Wilson, both of these playwrights address minority and disadvantaged populations but with an up-to-the-minute sensibility.
The rest of the season includes what sounds like an engaging sequel to Pride and Prejudice (and a holiday play that isn't like all the other holiday plays): Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, by Lauren Gunderson (Silent Sky) and Margot Melcon (Nov. 28-Dec. 30, 2018); The Roommate, a dark comedy about two women at a crossroads in their mid-50s (Mar. 13-Apr. 7, 2019); and the wonderful Tony-winning musical about identity and family, Fun Home (July 17-Aug. 18, 2019), which was seen recently at the Straz but which Gularte looks forward to seeing in the more intimate environs of American Stage.
We're looking forward to it, too.
This article appears in Mar 15-22, 2018.
