2020 Corkscrew Theater Festival Postponed To 2021

Corkscrew Theater Festival, scheduled to return for its fourth season this summer, will postpone its live presentations until summer 2021 due to COVID-19. Corkscrew is committed to supporting its artists financially and artistically through the year's delay, and will present the entire lineup of performances next year.

From August 10-23, 2020, Corkscrew Theater Festival will present Corkscrew 4.0, a curated collection of virtual experiences created by the season's artists based on their plays. Through non-traditionally theatrical media including aural narrative, hypertext, cinematic intersections, and illustration, Corkscrew 4.0 will deepen the relationship with the work for both artist and audience ahead of next year's live world premiere productions and readings.

To support the artists in the creation of these entirely new works, Corkscrew has immediately committed $750 to each of the world premiere productions and $500 to each of the reading series projects. These payments are provided in addition to the originally planned $1,500 commissioning fee and up to $1,650 in production cost subsidies for each mainstage production. Corkscrew's executive staff (Thomas Kapusta, Artistic Director; Alexander Donnelly, Executive Director; Haleh Roshan, Literary Director; Alex Hare, Associate Artistic Director) has deferred their personal stipends to future seasons; all other festival staff continue to be paid.

"In the wake of the disruptions caused by COVID-19, it's strange to feel excited about presenting work this year," says Kapusta. "But Corkscrew 4.0 is an ideal way to further our mission: centering early-career artists' needs and providing them with the financial and artistic support they need to present wildly ambitious, subversively joyous, professional-level productions. With an 18-month development process, we can explore hidden corners of these genre-defying plays outside traditional theatrical mediums. We look forward to beginning that journey with you this summer."

Further details about Corkscrew 4.0 will be announced in July. The entire lineup of live performances will be presented July 29-August 29, 2021 at A.R.T./New York's Mezzanine Theatre (502 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019).

WORLD PREMIERES

In Bloom Bloom Pow by Genevieve Simon, directed by Katherine Wilkinson, a good old-fashioned monster movie meets a comedy as black as your bathroom tile mold. The play considers what it means to be alive in the face of impending climate doom and who will inherit the Earth after we have self-destructed (things are looking good for algae).

The Ortiz Twins Are Coming Home by Andrew Siañez-De La O. An ancient Zapotec God reveals a dark family secret to twins Andrea and Mateo Ortiz, sending them on a fantastical mission to the land of their ancestors to right a long-forgotten wrong. (Or, it's like James and the Giant Peach, but everyone's Mexican.)

Proud Boys' Girls by Rachel Calnek-Sugin, directed by Mia Fowler, is a portrait of the wives and girlfriends of a white supremacist group in upstate New York. Sensitive but unsparing, the play pushes past disquieting headlines to take stock of the various choices that shape our lives. Produced by Abigail Jean-Baptiste.

Waters of Oblivion (e??e??ae??) created by Cinthia Chen, Tina-Hanaé Miller, Elizabeth Sun & Maya Simone Z., takes audiences on an immersive journey into the underworld, where Meng Po, the Lady of Forgetfulness, feeds the souls of the deceased a special brew to help them forget their previous lives before reincarnation.

Yankees by Serena Berman, directed by Jake Beckhard. Wake up! You're in Italy! The sun is shining, the espresso is steaming, and classes don't start until tomorrow. Except the power's gone out. And there's screaming outside your window and there's blood in your tap water and why doesn't anybody speak English here??? A feral comedy-thriller about what it means to be American in a world on fire. Produced by Less Than Rent.

READINGS

And the Trees Fall Down by Viviana Prado-Núñez. Two months after Hurricane Maria, a brother, a sister, and a tree guy meet at Abuela's house for a Thanksgiving dinner of vodka, birthday cake, and the dull ache of aftermath.

Cory and Smin's Love Conquers the Earth by Billy McEntee, directed by Charles Quittner. A queer eco-medy about two enamored teens on opposite sides of the country struggling to meet in the middle, literally and politically.

Future Wife by Ruth Tang. A romantic tragedy about goats and the economy, asking - who must die to keep the financial system running?

Peonage, or The PayMeWhatYouOweMe Play by Beau Thom, directed by Javon Q. Minter. A tragicomedy imagining the revolutionary potential of collaboration between neighbors from different centuries: enslaved people on a 19th-century plantation and black Americans living under Jim Crow in 1965.

STIFF DRINK!? with Dr. Eustice Sissy (Psy.D.) presents: "Love on the Rocks", created by Lee Rayment & Nic Adams. Doctor (of Psychology) Eustice Sissy processes a painful breakup in this special edition of his long-standing cabaret act, offering a silly and then sincere meditation on the violent impulse to reject love we feel we don't deserve.