Scary theater of action actors and production crews — having recently shot the Tom Stoppard film The real inspector dog and New works in action virtual plays to be viewed online – are in rehearsal to open to a live audience. Company’s 2021–22 reopening season kicks off October 7, 2021, with Will Eno’s Realistic Joneses, a play that declares the power of hope in the face of disease and a difficult future. In December, after more than two years, the theater space of Spooky Action will be transformed again to receive a new family production, Man covets the bird by critically acclaimed Australian playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer, in which the ability to expand our minds and hearts beyond ourselves takes flight in a magically simple tale. And in February 2022, Maple and Vine by Jordan Harrison will introduce audiences to the enticements and dangers of trying to live in the dream of a seemingly simpler and nicer past.
The 2021-2022 season of Spooky Action begins with the return of Realistic Joneses, by critically acclaimed playwright Will Eno, directed by Gillian Drake, director of the New Works in Action program at the Spooky Action Theater. The show aired for a few weeks in March 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Washington, DC.
In this “human, educated and slyly hilarious” play (New York Times), two couples discover that they share more than just their last names. As they stumble toward meaningful relationships, humor crowns their encounter with an unsettling truth that lies just below the surface.
From critically acclaimed Australian playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer comes Man covets the bird, an enveloping world of pearly prose, brilliant live music, melancholy and sunshine.
A boy wakes up to find he has grown up. He recognizes the stranger in the mirror, but not his parents, his city. Outside of his childhood bedroom, he finds a bird that cannot fly and together, the aliens embark on adventures.
It’s the story of their trip to the big city, what they find there, what they join and what they themselves do. A story about flying nests, singing birds and growing up.
The 2021-2022 season of Spooky Action ends with Maple and Vine by Jordan Harrison, directed by Stevie Zimmerman.
The inhabitants of the big cities, Katha and Ryu, are disenchanted with their life in the 21st century. The more they try to figure out what happiness looks like, the more elusive it becomes. Then they meet Dean, from an idealistic community that exists in a permanent state from 1955.
They ditch cell phones and sushi for cigarettes and Chicken a la King, embracing new identities that challenge who they thought they were and who they could become. How far will they go – how far would you go to change your life in pursuit of happiness?
Spooky Action’s main stage productions run Thursday through Saturday night with a morning Sunday. Single tickets and subscriptions are available now in line.
