Magic Theatre Announces 2020-2021 Season

THE BROKEN MACHINE

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (April 9, 2020) – Magic Theatre (Artistic Director Loretta Greco and Interim Managing Director Kevin Nelson) announced today that its 2020-2021 season will include the world premieres of Sam Chanse’s MONUMENT, or FOUR SISTERS (A SLOTH PLAY), the 2020 Martha Heasley Cox Virgin Play Festival, Miranda Rose Hall’s THE KIND ONES and Liz Duffy Adams’ THE BROKEN MACHINE, in addition to the 2020 Martha Heasley Cox Virgin Play Festival. Subscriptions to the 2020-2021 season range from $60.00 – $300.00 (a 35% discount on single tickets) and are available for purchase now, online at MagicTheatre.org or by calling Magic Theatre at (415) 441-8822.

“In the spirit of a newly imagined future, and the anticipated joy of sharing a physical space together, again, I am thrilled to share with you Magic’s 2020-21 season of astonishing new plays,” says Artistic Director, Loretta Greco. “Seeking grace, compassion, and agency, these three world premieres from theater’s most striking voices, will break new ground as we venture not only into a new season, but into an innovative new normal. This trio of writers delightfully deploy unforgettable language, wonderful humor, and deep emotional intelligence- while boldly and perceptively investigating some of the most substantive issues of our times– in a way only theater has the power to do. Their collective brilliance: they will make you laugh as much as they make you think and ultimately feel.

It is our great pleasure to introduce you to two of our freshest writers today, Sam Chanse and Miranda Rose Hall –and to welcome home Liz Duffy Adams, whose brilliant Or, graced our stage a decade ago.  I am excited to leave you in the extraordinary company of these exceptional women (and a host of other remarkable writers who will populate our rousing Annual Virgin Play Festival) as I ready to leave Magic and hand the reins to our tremendous Associate Artistic Director, Sonia Fernandez, who will serve as Interim Artistic Director next fall during Magic’s leadership search.

This is a very tough time for our beloved restaurants and cultural organizations throughout the country and we want to thank our Magic community for their tenacity and generosity during this strange and ever evolving crisis.  Magic transcended a very tough patch in 2008 with the support of staff, trustees and stakeholders from all over the country who helped to sustain our work. As we’ve had significant losses from prematurely closing our critically-acclaimed premiere of Ricardo Pérez González’s Don’t Eat the Mangos and indefinite postponement of Escaped Alone and our Gala fundraiser — NOW would be an incredible time to, once again, support Magic’s future. Purchasing a subscription and/or making a gift to help sustain our groundbreaking artists and small dedicated staff at this time would make us exceedingly grateful.”

Magic Theatre’s 2020-2021 season features:

Amy studies coral reefs, Constance writes for children’s television, Mac mysteriously left a job she loves, and Lina is MIA. Add one epic road trip, four talking sloths, and countless hilarious cartoon bombs and you’ve got MONUMENT, or FOUR SISTERS (A SLOTH PLAY). This world-premiere comedy with claws from Sam Chanse asks how to build resilience after unimaginable loss.

Nellie Dougherty is tired of this shit. In a mythic now, a lone Montana farmer’s hopes for anonymity are thwarted when a stranger with a flyer arrives on her doorstep. Miranda Rose Hall’s caustically funny world premiere, THE KIND ONES, contemplates the role of community and the heart of good and evil when systems fail. Send in the pigs! Featuring Bay Area luminary Anne Darragh. 

THE BROKEN MACHINE
By Liz Duffy Adams

Ex-coder Mac has fled modern civilization for the coastal woods. With the clock running out she fastidiously composes lists from memory—Endangered Animals, States of Mind, Things Lost—with a wisecracking gray fox as a frequent companion. Beloved by Bay Area audiences since before her Magic smash-hit Or, Liz Duffy Adams returns in this world premiere that asks the big questions through soaring language and physical comedy only she can deliver.

Specific production dates, complete creative teams and casting will be announced at a future date.

Magic Theatre is dedicated to the cultivation of bold new plays, playwrights, and audiences – and to producing explosive, entertaining, and ideologically-robust plays that ask substantive questions about, and reflect the rich diversity of, the world in which we live. For 53 years, Magic’s belief in supporting the writer’s vision has manifested in a rigorous artistic home where a full body of work can be imagined, developed, and produced. By adding innovative, challenging new voices to the canon, Magic ensures the future vibrancy of the American theatre.

Since the company’s founding in 1967 by visionary John Lion, Magic has identified and cultivated writers on the cutting edge of American theatre, serving as a vital center for the creation and performance of new American plays. The hiring of scholar Martin Esslin as the first resident dramaturg at an American theatre company had a resounding impact on the field. Beat poet-playwright Michael McClure created 22 works for Magic. Sam Shepard developed and premiered his Pulitzer Prize-winning

Buried Child, True West, and Fool for Love during his decade-long Magic residency (1974-84), forever altering the shape of American drama. Paula Vogel, Soon 3, Athol Fugard, Mark O’Rowe, Nilo Cruz, Octavio Solis, Claire Chafee, Jon Robin Baitz, Anne Bogart, Stephen Belber, Basil Twist, Rebecca Gilman, and many others also called Magic home through the 1990s and 2000s.

Since Loretta Greco assumed leadership 2008, 21 of Magic’s 26 most recent world premieres have received between 2 and 72 subsequent productions throughout the United States and beyond – in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Ashland, Seattle, Portland, Tucson, Minneapolis, Williamstown, Nashville, Boulder, and San Diego as well as Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton, London, and Sydney, and in translation in Seoul and Manila. In New York City alone, Magic premieres from the past decade have gone to The New Group, The Vineyard, Ma-Yi, INTAR, The Play Company, Playwrights Horizons, and The Public Theater.

Magic remains a national leader in new play development through Greco’s commitment to a core group of writers as they build their groundbreaking bodies of work. These writers currently include Lloyd Suh,

Taylor Mac, Linda McLean, Jessica Hagedorn, John Kolvenbach, Sharr White, Christina Anderson, Joshua Harmon, Mfoniso Udofia, Barbara Hammond, and Luis Alfaro.

Magic plays have received numerous honors, including the Pulitzer Prize, Obie Awards, Kennedy Center Awards, PEN-West Awards for Drama, Glickman Awards, Bay Area Critics Circle Awards, Los Angeles Drama-Logue Awards, and NAACP Image Awards. Magic playwrights have gone on to be recognized with MacArthur Genius Grants, Tony Awards, Outer Critics Circle Awards, the Herb Alpert Award, Drama Desk Awards, Harper Lee Awards, Academy Awards, New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, Drama League Awards, Guggenheim Fellowships, Rockefeller Grants, NEA Grants, Alfred Jarry Awards, and many more.

Beyond the walls of our San Francisco performance space, Magic conducts a robust educational program, Making Magic: Arts and Community. A cornerstone of the program is Magic’s more-than-decade-long partnership with Oakland’s Laney College, which establishes a bridge between the college theater curriculum and professional theater practice: Laney students attend designer presentations, rehearsals, and performances at Magic, and Magic playwrights and directors visit Laney classrooms to discuss play content and production. Each Magic production is presented at a free matinee performance at Laney that is open to the community. Since 2018, Making Magic has also worked in partnership with Tenderloin Elementary School, Southeast Asian Development Center, Code Tenderloin, Antonia Manor, and Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, extending the program’s reach to engage underserved community members of all ages with curriculum that centers around mindfulness, self-esteem, legacy, literacy, writing, and performance. More recently, Magic has added community performances of both main stage productions and additional plays in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, at Exit Theatre and the Tenderloin Museum, expanding access to Magic’s artistic programming.

Ms. Greco recently announced her departure from Magic Theatre at the conclusion of the 2019-2020 season. A search committee is currently being formed to find a new Artistic Director.

Subscriptions for the 2020-2021 season range from $60.00 – $300 and are now available for purchase. Subscribing is the best (and most cost-effective) way to ensure your spot on the front lines of exciting theatre. Subscriptions also come with a number of perks: free ticket exchange up until 24 hours before the performance, guaranteed best seating, exclusive pre-show dramaturgy – all in addition to receiving a 35% discount when compared to purchasing single tickets. Current subscribers can renew online or by phone and will receive priority access to their current seat locations. New subscribers can purchase subscriptions and will receive the best available seats within the requested sections.

Subscriptions are available for purchase online at MagicTheatre.org; by calling Magic Theatre at (415) 441-8822. During non-performance dates, the Box Office is open Tuesday through Friday from 11am-3pm. On performance dates, the Box Office is open Tuesday – Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and two hours before each performance. On weekends the Box Office is open two hours prior to each performance. Magic Theatre is located in the Marina District of San Francisco, at the historic Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture (Fort Mason, 2 Marina Blvd., Building D, 3^rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94123). For more information, visit MagicTheatre.org or call the box office at (415) 441-8822.