by Team Actors on September 15, 2021
Autumn is around the corner, and we wanted to update the Actors Theatre of Louisville community about our latest plans. Our staff has been busy working to reincorporate live, in-person productions as soon as it’s safe to gather. Read on for many exciting details about the shows that are upcoming.
With Kentucky currently in the midst of a deadly COVID-19 surge due to the Delta variant that is expected to peak this fall—and local healthcare systems already under enormous strain—Actors Theatre anticipates that December 2021 will be the earliest that it is feasible to offer in-person/indoor-theatre performances. As always, we will calibrate our plans in alignment with current scientific and public safety guidance to keep theatre workers and theatre fans safe. To learn about our current COVID-19 safety protocols, click here.
As an interdisciplinary laboratory, Actors Theatre of Louisville will continue to explore innovative multiplatform storytelling onstage, online, and beyond. There’s much to look forward to on the horizon.
Dracula news
You can get a taste of not only one, but two virtual Dracula experiences in 2021–2022!
Join us for In the Lab: A Look Inside the Dracula Process on October 1, 2021 at 7 p.m. EDT. This virtual event offers a glimpse of the work in progress as we build toward a new, in-person production of Dracula for the 2022 Halloween season. With this future Actors Theatre show, we’ll also be introducing Louisville to Kate Hamill’s thrilling new adaptation. Attendees will meet the creative team and hear excerpts from Hamill’s script, which reimagines the classic as "a bit of a feminist revenge fantasy." For more details about In the Lab: A Look Inside the Dracula Process, follow the link here.
Also, our immersive listening experience, Dracula: A Radio Play, will be available to stream September 15 – November 7, 2021. Inspired by Orson Welles’s innovative broadcast, this audio play was created through a collaboration between our creative team and award-winning radio professionals. Tickets and more information about Dracula: A Radio Play are available here.
Announcing Our Plans For Three In-Person Plays
We’re happy to share that plans are in motion for three live, onstage theatrical productions.
Our first opportunity to welcome audiences back into the Bingham Theatre will be an exploratory lab production of A Christmas Carol running December 16–19, 2021, that mixes old and new media. Charles Dickens famously gave public performances of his tale as a virtuosic storytelling recital. This exploratory version plays with that tradition while experimenting with motion-capture technology to immerse the audience in the ghostly storyworld animating the imaginative, haunted inner journey of Scrooge. We are developing this work as part of our continued reinvestigation of the classics, in keeping with our mission to reflect the wonder and complexity of our time—both in form and content, utilizing emergent technology like virtual and augmented reality intersecting with in-person performance.
This winter, we’ll also be re-releasing our spirited audio production, A Christmas Carol: A Radio Play (streaming November 16 – December 31, 2021).
Also in the works is a live production of Every Brilliant Thing, Duncan Macmillan’s warm, funny, and beautifully moving play that shows how to practice resilience and find reasons for living everywhere.
In addition, we’re planning an in-person run of Still Ready, created and performed by Christina Acosta Robinson and Ken Robinson. Blending Ken’s gorgeous musical compositions and Christina’s stunning artwork and poetry, this live production celebrates family, faith, identity, and the love and joy of unapologetic, expansive Black artistry. The virtual production of the Robinsons’ original work that we released in the spring of 2021 remains available for streaming.
Stay tuned for dates and details as they're added to our calendar!
New programming at the intersection of art and service
Founded by nurse and artist Tara Rynders, The Clinic combines art, music, movement, and caring science to create immersive experiences and resiliency workshops for healthcare professionals. Actors Theatre of Louisville is partnering with Rynders and the Kentucky Nurses Association to bring this work to Kentucky, to support the health and wellness of our nursing communities.
Join us online on November 4, 2021 at 7 p.m. EDT for Collective Care: Finding Freedom and Joy Through Movement and the Arts, a virtual presentation curated from a workshop led by Rynders with participants from the Kentucky Nurses Association. To learn more about this program and to purchase a ticket, click here.
This program is funded, in part, by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kentucky Arts Council.
Ongoing virtual experiences
Alongside in-person performances and shows, we will continue to offer premium streaming content. Just a few of the experiences in our streaming catalogue include the Drama League Award-nominated Where Did We Sit on the Bus?, Ali Summit, praised in the New York Times for Idris Goodwin’s “language mixing earthy jargon with breakbeat poetics,” and the collection COVID-Classics, which includes The Breasts of Tiresias (Official Selection of the 2021 Black Film Fest ATL, in Atlanta), an animated take on a surrealist classic.
You can find the projects available for streaming on our website here, and we’ll share some exciting new releases later in 2021 as we keep exploring the possibilities of transmedia storytelling. We hope you’ll consider becoming a member, which includes access to the free audio and video content in our Member Library, as well as early access to tickets for in-person events.
Thank you to all of our supporters who have helped us turn this challenging, uncertain time into a time of immense growth, innovation, and service. We look forward to seeing you at a future performance!