The Los Angeles Post

MAGIC THEATRE ANNOUNCES 2021-2022 SEASON (IN-PERSON) AND NEW PROGRAMMING

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WORLD PREMIERE
THE KIND ONES
BY MIRANDA ROSE HALL
WORLD PREMIERE
MONUMENT, OR FOUR SISTERS (A SLOTH PLAY)
BY SAM CHANSE
and the Introduction of NEW PROGRAMMING with new Artistic Director Sean San José
2021-2022 SEASON will also introduce New Performance Programs, including RESIDENCY PROGRAMS with new Resident Home Company CAMPO SANTO, and residencies with THE LORRAINE HANSBERRY THEATRE, and BLACK ARTISTS CREATIVE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE, COLLABORATIONS with THE SAN FRANCISCO GIRLS CHORUS, and many more as part of this NEW AGE for Magic Theatre.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA October 7, 2021 – Magic Theatre (Sean San José, Artistic Director and Kevin Nelson, Managing Director) is pleased to announce the titles and dates for the Company’s upcoming in-person 2021-2022 season. Early 2022 will feature the long-delayed World Premiere of Miranda Rose Hall’s THE KIND ONES (Feb 2 – 20, 2022*), followed by the World Premiere of Sam Chanse’s MONUMENT, OR FOUR SISTERS (A SLOTH PLAY) which will perform May 11– June 5, 2022*.  These two world premieres follow Magic’s legacy of premiering bold, new plays.
From newly appointed Artistic Director Sean San José:
“Magic is IN the movement.  We are excited and invite you all to join the charge—connections, community, and creativity are going to expand and enmesh within the larger cultural and civic change.  We are rooting ourselves in this all by making Magic a destination and a creative home.”
Additionally, the season will include the introduction of brand NEW PROGRAMS: new RESIDENCIES, new COLLABORATIONS, new COMMISSIONS, and new PERFORMANCE PROGRAMS. The latter will be highlighted by performances in POETRY, starting on October 15th in person with Black Fire: A Live Recording Event, led by San Francisco Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin; in MUSIC, led by Campo Santo member and new KCRW anchor DJ, Juan Amador aka DJ Wonway Posibul; and PLAY DEVELOPMENT with the MARTHA HEASLEY COX DEVELOPMENT LAB, featuring new work, new artists, and new play development events throughout the next year.
Sean San José adds:
This will simultaneously be a careful and long-in-the-making presentation of bold, new plays as developed previously under the leadership of Loretta Greco and Sonia Fernandez
in their drive for excellence and at the same time, we will excitedly birth a whole new age
of new programs, plays, performances, and more!”
World Premiere
THE KIND ONES
By Miranda Rose Hall
Directed by Lisa Peterson
February 2 – 20, 2022*
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!
World Premiere
MONUMENT, or FOUR SISTERS (A SLOTH PLAY)
By Sam Chanse
Directed by Giovanna Sardelli
May 11– June 5, 2022*
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.
Complete creative teams and casting will be announced at a future date.
NEW PROGRAMMING AND PROGRAMS
The New Age of  Magic will make the theatre a home to more folx by rightfully centering People of Color through and through, by adding  new initiatives including:
  • A new redesigned lobby with original murals by Mister Bouncer (Miguel Perez) from Trust Your Struggle Art Collective and a reimagined lounge space designed by Campo Santo artists and commissioned visual artist Adrian Arias
  • An organization-wide visual and design rebranding campaign by the Pinay-led Design team an otherwise co
  • NEW RESIDENCY PROGRAMS with Black Magic Artists making Magic their home including: Campo Santo, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, BACCE, Ellen Sebastian Chang / Sunhui Chang, Residency Curator- Juan Amador, Poetry Program Lead- Tongo Eisen-Martin, Playwright In Residence- Star Finch, Artists and Designers: Russell Champa, Tanya Orellana, Joan Osato, Christopher Sauceda, and Brittany White.
CAMPO SANTO will become the HOME RESIDENT COMPANY.
  • Artists and commissions over the coming years with Magic will include: Luis Alfaro (The Travelers), Star Finch (Josephine’s Feast), and Richard Montoya (Suicide on Telegraph).
  • An Audio Project Premiere Shelter by Bennett Fisher.
  • FLAY- a film/play series: Laveau by Britney Frazier, Hotel Angulo by Luis Saguar, Side Effects by Star Finch, Dirty White Teslas Make Me Sad by Ashley Smiley, screenings beginning in December, 2021.
RESIDENT COMPANIES will include:
Lorraine Hansberry Theatre
  • Performances of annual Holiday Show Soulful Christmas, December, 2021.
  • Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel, Spring, 2022.
Black Artists Creative Cultural Experience (BACCE)
  • New, out-of-time-and-space performance series Pop Up Pandemonium, November, 2021.
Ellen Sebastian Chang/ Sunhui Chang
  • development of the hybrid theatre/film form with the new piece The Estate, dates TBD.
Magic’s NEW PERFORMANCES PROGRAM will involve theatrical storytelling in other forms: Poetry, Dance, Music, Film, Comedy.
  • Launch of the POETRY PROGRAM led by San Francisco Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin. Starting with a live concert experience featuring Tongo Eisen-Martin with percussionist Ahkeel Mestayer, hosted by Juan Amador with video by Joan Osato, October 15, 2021
  • THE MARTHA HEASLEY COX NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT LAB
A reimagined form of the Virgin Play Festival, which will now be a year-long lab series, led by Magic staff Karina Fox and Kate Leary, inviting writers into the more immediate and instinctive part of the new play process, featuring round table first-reads and development-intensive workshop presentations. Lab begins in November 2021 with Anna Moench’s Gerbode Foundation-supported new commission.
  • Magic’s COLLABORATION PROGRAM will present local partner groups on new projects including:
  • San Francisco Girls Chorus premiere production of Tomorrow’s Memories based on the Filipina historical memoir Tomorrow’s Memories by Angeles Raymundo, with an original score and libretto by Matthew Welch, conducted by Valerie Sainte-Agathe, featuring more than 40 singers from the chorus, June, 2022.
*All dates are subject to change.
And more programming is in the works for Fall and Winter of 2022. The previously-announced and delayed world premiere of Taylor Mac’s new play Joy and Pandemic, directed by Loretta Greco, that was set to kick off our return to live programming in 2021, has tentatively been moved to October, 2022.  Taylor Mac’s powerful new play will be part of a programming year that will also include:
  • Crowded Fire Theater Company world premiere of Mellon Foundation Playwright In-Residence Star Finch’s new play Shipping and Handling directed by Lisa Marie Rollins, Fall, 2022
  • Lorraine Hansberry’s Soulful Christmas in December, 2022; the world premiere of Roger Guenveur Smith’s new creation about The Church of St. John Coltrane, Luis Alfaro’s The Travelers, and Star Finch’s new play for Campo Santo Josephine’s Feast, directed by Ellen Sebastian Chang