Put May 19, 2013 in your calendars. That’s when we are collaborating with our friends the Proscenium Playwrights to bring you our 3rd Annual NUTLAB 5 & 10! We are again happy to announce that we are collaborating with the Proscenium Playwrights. We have a new venue this year though, Marran Theatre, Lesley University. We are even happier to announce that this year we are featuring ALL FEMALE directors from the Boston area. Find us on Facebook to see updates on the plays, playwrights, directors and cast! To purchase tickets for this event, visit our Box Office Page
December 15, 2012
What a year!
We are still floating on Cloud 9 from our season finale, the World Premiere of Charlene Donaghy’s, Gift of An Orange, presented at the internationally renowned Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. I can’t help but share the reviews!
Stage Buzz: “The ensemble is terrific, though Walters is truly a force of nature. Her Oshun is strong, hard, and broken, and watching her confront what she has done to Taurean is deeply moving. Bocock and Caines are very strong in their roles, and people who enjoy well performed fight choreography will admire the rollicking fight scene between the two of them. “Gift of an Orange” is an outstanding production, and an excellent example of the best that this festival has to offer.”
Wicked Local: “In a good play nothing goes the way you think it will, and all you can hope for is to be spellbound for however long the action continues and to walk out unsure of what you are feeling but knowing you are feeling something. This play delivers on all counts.”
The Harvard Crimson: “Playwright Charlene A. Donaghy was inspired by “Gift of an Apple”, a short story by Tennessee Williams about a hitchhiker who goes astray in the wilderness. Director Jackie Davis and the production team have succeeded in making the Bayou come alive on stage as a mystical, sensuous, and luxuriously unhurried environment, “Gift of an Orange” is a more successful meditation on power dynamics, selfishness, and loss..”
Our strong season was rounded out by a number of additional artistically challenging and fulfilling pieces, as well. First among these was John Stenson’s Play, Hurrah for the Revolution, which undertook the heated and still controversial topic of busing in South Boston. Anchored by a top-notch cast of actors in a staged reading, Stenson’s script was incredibly well-received by the audiences who packed the reading and lively discussion afterwards. Audience members with vivid memories of this turbulent time were moved and brought to tears from the retelling.
We took our annual fundraising event, The NUTLab Five & Dime to a new place, artistically bu collaborating with The Proscenium Playwrights. We also changed the format from readings to fully staged productions of six plays. With great directors, strong actors, and brilliant playwrights, there was really no room for failure. We wrapped the season with It’s a Love Thang featuring our “Love Experiment” winning play: Gift of An Orange and Cliff Odle’s The Delicate Art of Customer Service. Such developments in our artistic scope have helped us—and our audiences—to push boundaries for ourselves and for our company.
I am also very excited to report that the NUTLab family is expanding. Richard B. Caines, III, a featured actor in Gift of an Orange has joined us as our new Associate Artistic Director, Samantha MacArthur who stage managed both Love Thang and Gift of An Orange has signed on as Production Manager. James Bocock also featured in Love Thang and Gift of an Orange joins the fold to assist with technical assistance, and set design. We are buoyed by our successes made all the more meaningful by the continued support of each and every one of our actors, crew, playwrights, collaborators, and especially our generous donors who make it for us to continue on in our mission to use the experimental power of theater to investigate the stories and voices of those who exist on the margins of society and bring the stories of the underrepresented to the forefront using the active ingredients of honesty and insight, and truth.
All of this happened in a year? We offer a resounding “Yes!” to that question and ask that you consider helping to support us as we move forward in Season 4! I invite you to the NUTLab family and hope you will consider a generous donation to continue to investigate the stories of those existing on the margins, and to represent them with truth and insight as we continue to evolve into a national company. Donations can be made two ways: 1, by pressing the YELLOW DONATE BUTTON to the right of your screen or they can be sent to:
New Urban Theatre Laboratory • PO Box 120551 • Boston MA 02112
Thank you for being part of this wonderful experiment that we call New Urban Theatre Laboratory. For those of you who have been a part of the family these (five!) years, we hope thank you and to keep you engaged and encouraged to engage with us. For the newest members welcome! Talk to us, let us know what you think, what you feel and what you want to see from us. Here’s to a new and exciting season of entertaining, and thought-provoking theater!
Jackie Davis, Producing Artistic Director
