Summer Theater Lab 2021: New York Theatre Workshop Residency

New York Theatre Workshop Summer 2021 Residency at Dartmouth

August 14 & 21 at 4 pm
The Bentley Theater

General admission; tickets available via the Hopkins Center Box Office

New York Theatre Workshop empowers visionary theater makers and brings their work to adventurous audiences through productions, artist workshops and educational programs. Every August, the company brings their work to Dartmouth for a three-week residency, developing and performing new works-in-progress by some of today's most innovative professional playwrights and directors. This summer marks the 30th year of this remarkable partnership; over those three decades, dozens of works have been workshopped and developed at Dartmouth including Rent, The Laramie Project, Quills, An Iliad and Hadestown.

SATURDAY AUGUST 14

You Don't Know the Lonely One
by David Cale and Dael Orlandersmith
Lyrics by David Cale, Matthew Dean Marsh and Dael Orlandersmith
Music by David Cale and Matthew Dean Marsh
Musical underscoring composed by Matthew Dean Marsh
Performed by David Cale, Matthew Dean Marsh and Dael Orlandersmith
Directed by Robert Falls
Tickets available here

Building off of their virtual Hopkins Center residency in August 2020, David Cale, Dael Orlandersmith and Matthew Dean Marsh return to Dartmouth joined by director Robert Falls with You Don't Know the Lonely One. This non-narrative, multidisciplinary work draws influence from paintings and albums to create a collaborative portrait of aloneness in an ever-shifting world. You Don't Know the Lonely One uses monologues, poems, stories and songs to explore what it means to be alone.

SATURDAY AUGUST 14

Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord
a new project by Kristina Wong  
Directed by Chay Yew 
Tickets available here

On Day 3 of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kristina Wong began sewing masks out of old bedsheets and bra straps on her Hello Kitty sewing machine. Before long, she was leading the Auntie Sewing Squad, a work-from-home sweatshop of hundreds of volunteers—including children and her own mother—to fix the U.S. public health care system while in quarantine. It was a feminist care utopia forming in the midst of crisis. Or was it a mutual aid doomsday cult? 

As the demand for masks begins to abate and we start to return safely to space, Kristina is beginning to put her life together post-pandemic cult leadership. With hilarity and boundless generosity, she invites the audience in on her work building community in isolation, while reflecting on what we've been through and imagining what we want to become. 

Performances will be immediately followed by a 20 minute Q&A session with the artists.