What's on tap for Trinity Rep's 2023-'24 season? Check out the 60th anniversary lineup
Family might not be the first image that comes to mind when scanning the lineup for Trinity Repertory Company's 60th-anniversary season, but that’s exactly the theme given by its artistic director.
What might throw you off are the shows launching the 2023-'24 season in rotating repertory, with their historical and modern takes on the Salem witch trials.
“How do we define family?” artistic director Curt Columbus says. “There have been so many attacks on the idea of family. It [should be] broad, encompassing and welcoming, but people want to define it as a rigid, restrictive thing.”
Thoughts on the “complicated idea of family” drove the company’s show selection for its 2023-2024 season, he says.
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“Does family include a whole community, as a Latino’s look at Providence?" he says. "Or is it as rigid as in ‘Fences'? or alternative family, as seen in ‘La Cage Aux Folles'?"
In fact, he assures that the Salem-based shows — “The Good John Proctor” and “Becky Nurse of Salem” — will tease out threads of family that make up the American fabric.
“They show how family constellates against the American identity, which is something we’re still arguing right now," he says. "Also, women’s roles in those places and how family and family values [can be] weaponized.”
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Here's the lineup for Trinity Rep's 2023-'24 season:
“The Good John Proctor,” opening Sept. 7 and running in rotating repertory through Nov. 12. This reimagines Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” and the Salem witch trials through a feminist lens, Columbus says. Peering through the eyes of the four girls whose claims launched the hysteria, playwright Talene Monahon sheds the “hyper-male focus of the 1950s,” when Miller’s piece debuted, to uncover a poignant and even humorous look at how women were treated.
“Becky Nurse of Salem,” starting Sept. 21 and running in rotating repertory through Nov. 10. Playwright Sarah Ruhl brings the Salem trials to the modern era in a black comedy centered on a modern descendant of one of the women executed as a witch. When Becky’s life spins out of control, her consultation with a local witch lends a hysterical look at what matters in life. “I’ve been obsessed since Sarah sent it in 2020,” Columbus says. “There’s a lyricism to her work that you don’t find in other contemporary plays. It’s delicious.”
“A Christmas Carol,” running Nov. 9 through Dec. 31. At the hands of Trinity company member Stephen Thorne, who has played Scrooge several times, the annual holiday production returns to the original novella version of the Charles Dickens classic for inspiration. “It will be a very traditional setting as Stephen explores the limits of that, but also speaks directly to the modern audience,” Columbus says.
“La Broa’ (Broad Street),” Jan. 18 through Feb. 18, 2024. Drawing on the oral history “Nuestras Raíces (Our Roots)” by Marta V. Martínez, executive director of Rhode Island Latino Arts, playwright Orlando Hernández adapts stories of the Providence Latino community living on and around Broad Street for this world premiere. “This is about the immigrant experience and what it means in America right now,” Columbus says. “It’s how family ties bring you different places, like Little Rhody.” Moving from the present back to the 1950s, the piece is delivered in English, Spanish and Spanglish.
“Fences,” March 21 through April 28. Part of August Wilson’s Century Cycle of plays, the Pulitzer Prize winner returns to Trinity’s stage after 30 years with its honest examination of family conflict in 1957 Pittsburgh. A man’s pride and stubbornness ignite battles with his wife and sons in what Columbus calls a “beautifully written play that has a lot to offer audiences both young and old.” Wilson, he adds, “is one of the great poets of the American story and says things no one else says.”
“La Cage Aux Folles,” May 30 through June 30. The time to bring this Tony Award winner to life, Columbus says, is now, “with the conversation about drag in this country and the way people are behaving about how people present in clothing in the world.” This Harvey Fierstein piece examines the definition of family — biological or chosen — when the son of a drag club owner and his husband announces his engagement to the daughter of a homophobic politician.
For ticket information, go to trinityrep.com or call (401) 351-4242.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Trinity Repertory Company 2023-24 season preview: Award winners on tap
