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Artists Repertory Theatre is still in the midst of a long and costly renovation, but the company has continued to produce compelling plays. Now, it’s announced a 2023-24 season, with plans to perform at other venues as its home base at 1515 SW Morrison St. is refurbished (the project recently entered phase two of its construction).
The new season, the company’s 41st, was announced by artistic director Jeanette Harrison (the first known Native woman to hold the title of artistic director in the League of Resident Theaters) and executive director J.S. May. First up is Dillon Christopher Chitto’s Pueblo Revolt, a comedy about two Native brothers battling colonizers in an “IndigiFuturist 1680.”
“I’m thrilled to introduce Portland audiences to the innocent comedy of Chitto,” Harrison stated in a press release. “I fell in love with this play the second that the main character started talking to a stool, imagining it was the guy he had a crush on.”
After Pueblo Revolt opens Sept. 18 (all of the other plays have premieres with dates to be determined), the season will continue with Katori Hall’s The Hot Wing King (winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), which chronicles the drama surrounding a Memphis “Hot Wang Festival.”
“Two-time Tony Award nominee Katori Hall has taken her place among the pantheon of today’s top living playwrights,” Harrison said. “It’s thrilling to produce the West Coast premiere of the play she wrote as a love letter to her brother. Hall promises to challenge conventional theatre through humor, while also inviting audiences to deeply reflect on the relationships around you.”
The season’s penultimate production will be Blossom Johnson’s A Boarding School Play. ”Blossom is one of the only Native playwrights I know who is truly writing for the world she wants all Native women to get to live in, a world where Native girls exist with joy, with typical teenager pettiness, with hope, with the struggle to step into their roles as leaders in their community,” Harrison said.
Closing the season is Sapience, a world premiere play by Diana Burbano (writer of Artist Rep’s astounding audio drama The Vertical City), about a primatologist more comfortable with her subjects (including an orangutan named Wookie) than with humans.
“I’m so thrilled to open our new building with a commission by Diana Burbano,” Harrison said. “Diana’s characters are complex, multidimensional, messy and so human. She’s the perfect writer to tackle the longing for connection, especially for all of us who were socially isolated during the past few years and are now struggling to relearn how to communicate. When you add in neurodivergence, that struggle to understand, to find someone who speaks your language: I’m thrilled for ART to take a giant step forward in representation for people with disabilities.”
As for the renovation, May hopes to close the 41st season in spring 2024 with Sapience at Artist Rep’s soon to be new and improved stomping grounds.
“The next phase of construction that will return ART to the building began in March 2023 and we hope to close our 41st season in the spring of 2024 with our first play in the building,” May said. “We just need the help from our community of supporters to get us over the top to this goal.”