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As Working Theater, New York City’s trailblazing working-class theater company, celebrates its 40th season, it is thrilled to announce a landmark year of programming, taking its mission “to make theater work for people who work,” further than ever before. Themed “The People, The Party, The Protest: 40 Years Towards a Working Theater,” this season doubles down on the company’s legacy of creating groundbreaking access to the arts, bridging theater and the labor movement, and stakes the claim that—now more than ever—working people are the audience of the American Theater’s future.
Elise Goyette, the new President of the Board of Directors of Working Theater, says, “I am thrilled to help usher in our 40th season, which promises to build on the powerful legacy of Mark Plesent. Under Colm Summers’ leadership, we are committed to continuing our mission of telling compelling stories for and about working people. Now more than ever, these stories need to be heard!”
The season kicks off with their annual Community Open Mic Night We Got the Power on September 24, 2024 at Solas Bar. This celebration will open the stage to its community members to share original music, poetry, storytelling, and more. The night will also feature special performances by actress and musician, Katie Horner, and an excerpt from an original Working Theater commission, The Blue Parts, performed by Dina Vovsi.
In October, they will present invited readings of new plays from the fourth year of the Mark Plesent Commission Fund, showcasing works by this year’s talented recipients, AG Norton and Alex Rodriguez. The Mark Plesent Commission Fund, one of the only programs of its kind, exists to support writing by playwrights excluded by the broader theater industry. The readings, directed by Liz Peterson and Kelly O’Donnell respectively, will highlight the next generation of bold, socially engaged playwrights. This year, Working Theater is honored that its Mark Plesent Commission Fund recipients have been mentored by luminaries Kristina Wong and John J. Caswell, Jr.
Working Theater’s season staples return with their ongoing core education programming of TheaterWorks! with partners 32BJ SEIU Training Fund, who will also host an Open-Access cohort of the program open to all working people; as well as a second iteration of bilingual TheaterWorks! with People’s Theatre Project; a special post-show community event with Playwrights Horizons centered around Playwright’s Horizons’ production of In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot; the continued development of The Blue Parts in collaboration with The Drama League and their Directors Project; and the annual Bridge Awards and Benefit. These programs make good on Working Theater’s mission to circulate theater training for all—free of charge, to champion access through a diversity of languages, to support audience development in the wider theater community, to bridge labor and the arts, and to make theater in community, for community.
Last but not least, Working Theater, will celebrate its 40th season with Stage Left, a festival of new plays from the labor movement, highlighting issues facing working people and the contemporary labor movement, while building impactful partnerships with affinity groups and grassroots organizations from across the country. The festival will be a springboard for seven playwrights whose work is deeply embedded in organizing efforts. In addition, the festival will include surround events which engage labor organizers, union leadership, legislative bodies, and cutting-edge theater-makers. The festival, scheduled for Spring 2025, will take place across New York City, with exciting partners to be announced.
This milestone season introduces new partnerships, for a new era at Working Theater, including an anchor partnership with The Action Lab, launching Alex Lin as Working Theater’s inaugural Playwright-in-Residence, where she will develop a new play, American Steel, about the American steel industry. This partnership will deepen Working Theater’s engagement with labor organizing and ensure theater continues to be a tool for change within our communities. Additionally, the Company created a new fellowship with University of North Carolina School of the Arts and the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, supporting La Dureza, a new project by Ed Cardona Jr., created in solidarity with Los Deliveristas Unidos.
Working Theater’s 40th season is a groundbreaking celebration of the people at the heart of their mission, a promise to continue fortifying the connection between art and labor, and a commemoration of four decades of making theater work for the people who work. Artistic Director, Colm Summers, shared that “The 40th season is our response to a sector that is not working, or only works for the very few. At Working Theater, we’re trying to imagine an alternative, towards a theater, and theater ecology, that works for everyone.”