Rep Stage Announces In-Person Productions For 2021–2022 Season

COLUMBIA, MD — Rep Stage, the professional regional theatre in residence at Howard Community College, will return to in-person staged productions with its 2021–2022 season.

Jason Robert Brown’s “Songs for a New World” will launch the season Sept. 30–Oct. 17, followed by the world premiere of Dane Figueroa Edidi’s “Ghost/Writer” Feb. 17–March 6, 2022. The season will conclude with a new production of Tennessee Williams’ classic “The Glass Menagerie” April 28–May 17, 2022.

“To say I am beyond excited to see us all back in the theatre is an understatement. The Rep Stage 2021–2022 season looks at the past, present, and future in ways that both re-examines history as well as re-envisions what the world ahead of us could look like,” said Joseph W. Ritsch, producing artistic director of Rep Stage in a news release.

“From Brown’s song cycle that explores how our futures can shift dramatically by the choices we make in any given moment, to Edidi’s groundbreaking new play that collides past and present to ignite a call to action for justice, and looking at Williams’ historic American classic with a new lens that asks us to expand our idea of what family is and what memories look like, this season will bring us together once again as a community experiencing these diverse stories and invoking ways to see ourselves within the experiences of others,” he said.

“Songs for a New World”

• Sept. 30–Oct. 17, 2021
• Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
• Directed by Joseph W. Ritsch
• Musical Direction by Tiffany Underwood Holmes
• Featuring Justine Icy Moral, Ben Lurye, and Sarah Corey

“Songs for a New World” takes the audience on a journey from past to present where they meet a startling array of characters standing on the precipice of change. This song cycle from Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown (“The Last Five Years,” “Parade,” and “Bridges of Madison County”) celebrates life, love, and the choices that we make. This production is in partnership with the Columbia Festival of the Arts.

“Ghost/Writer”

• World premiere Feb. 17–March 6, 2022
• Written by Dane Figueroa Edidi
• Directed by Danielle A. Drakes
• Featuring Dane Figueroa Edidi and Steve Polites

Family secrets spanning decades unravel as history and fiction collide. In 1920, just outside of Tulsa, Patrick, an Irish immigrant, seeks out the services of Ms. Ruby, a mysterious Black woman from Baltimore, known to help exorcise ghosts from her clients, but the price she is asking may be too high. Meanwhile, in 2019, Charles Ross hires infamous ghost writer Rebecca Warren to help him through his writer's block, but what she invokes could be his salvation or undoing. Edidi's new play examines the intersections of race and gender, inviting us to explore the role of love, justice, and joy in a world where the ghosts of the past have yet to be laid to rest.

“The Glass Menagerie”

• April 28–May 17, 2022
• By Tennessee Williams
• Directed by Joseph W. Ritsch
• Featuring Grace Bauer, Heather Gibson, Alejandro Ruiz, and Samy Nour Younes Figaredo

Ghosts of the past continue to haunt in Williams’ seminal play “The Glass Menagerie.” Amanda Wingfield is a faded remnant of Southern gentility who now lives in a cramped St. Louis apartment with her seemingly aimless son, Tom, and her debilitatingly shy daughter, Laura. With their father absent and the Great Depression in motion, the siblings find comfort in their distractions — alcohol, movies, and writing for Tom and a collection of glass animals for Laura. When a gentleman caller arrives for dinner, the Wingfield family is flooded with hope. But it’s uncertain if this mysterious visitor will change things for the better or shatter a family’s fragile illusions. This new production asks us what do memories truly look like, and how is that answer different for each of us?

Ticket sales for Rep Stage’s 2021–2022 season begin on July 7. For more information, contact 443-518-1510 or visit www.repstage.org.