WP Theater Announces 2023-24 Season

WP Theater has announced its 2023-24 Season, which will feature two world premieres – Bite Me by Eliana Pipes, and munich medea: HAPPY FAMILY by Corinne Jaber – at WP Theater.

“We spend a lot of time at WP thinking about community, and how to make our theater a place where our artists can both launch from and return to, and this season feels like a perfect encapsulation of those values,” says Producing Artistic Director Lisa McNulty. “We’re thrilled that both Eliana and Corinne will be working with WP for the very first time, both making their Off-Broadway debuts on plays that are also world premieres, and that Lee and Rebecca are not only WP Mainstage veterans, but also alums of our early-career artist residency program, the WP Lab, as well. It also feels so fitting that  our ’22-’24 Lab will turn WP into a hive of creativity all spring, bringing five brand-new works into the world.  Here’s to a season of launches, homecomings, and discovery!”

The season kicks off in the fall of 2023 with the world premiere of Bite Me at WP Theater, written by award-winning playwright Eliana Pipes and directed by WP Lab Alum Rebecca Martinez. The production will play September 23–October 22, 2023. Nathan is ditching class when he stumbles on Melody crying in a storage closet - he’s a white boy with family money and dangerous habits, she’s the lone Black girl on campus, overachieving academically and battling the isolation. They form an unexpected bond, and it’s not long before the heat between them boils over. Bite Me explores the drama (and trauma) of trying to fit in at high school, and the unfinished business waiting for them at their reunion a decade later.

In the winter of 2024, the world premiere of munich medea: HAPPY FAMILY by Corinne Jaber will play its limited engagement from January 27–February 25, 2024 at WP Theater in partnership with PlayCo, directed by two-time Obie Award and Lortel Award winner Lee Sunday Evans. Childhood friends, Caroline and Alice reestablish contact after more than 20 years. As they begin to unravel shared memories, they discover the part that Caroline’s father, a renowned theater actor, played in both their lives and how it affects them to this very day. Corinne Jaber's new play captures the wild vulnerability of youth and the heavy armature of adulthood in unsparing, theatrical detail.

The 2024 WP Pipeline Festival, which will include five brand new plays written, directed, and produced by the fifteen artists of the 2022-2024 WP Lab. The 2024 festival represents the culmination of a two-year early-career artist residency, showcasing five new plays in development over five weeks created by collaborative Lab writer/director/producer teams, ranging from staged readings to full-length workshop productions. Previous Festival works have included Martyna Majok’s queens, Sarah Burgess’ Kings, Sylvia Khoury’s Power Strip, Zoe Sarnak and Emily Kaczmarek’s Afloat, and MJ Kaufman’s Galatea. Play details will be announced at a later date – the festival artists are:

Playwrights: Amara Janae Brady, Christin Eve Cato, Queen Esther, Amina Henry, Else Went

Directors: Jordana De La Cruz, Oneyekachi Iwu, Julia Sirna-Frest, Dina Vovsi, Ran Xia

Producers: Alverneq Lindsay, Emma Orme, Sami Pyne, Barbara Samuels, Praycious Wilson-Gay

Lab Leaders: Sally Cade Holmes, Rebecca Martinez, Nidia Medina, Cori Thomas, Nicole A. Watson

WP THEATER, now in its 45th Season, is the nation’s oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing, producing and promoting the work of Women+ at every stage in their careers. For over four decades WP has served as leaders at the forefront of a global movement towards gender parity, fostering artists who have grown into a robust and thriving community of creators, in theater and beyond. WP Theater received a 2018 Lucille Lortel Award, a 2019 Obie Award, and a 2020 Drama Desk Award – all for Outstanding Body of Work, recognizing WP’s unique place and vital work in the theatrical landscape. WP empowers Women+ of all kinds to reach their full potential and, in doing so, challenges preconceptions about the kinds of plays women write and the stories they tell. As the premier launching pad for some of the most influential Women+ theater artists today, their work has had a significant impact on the field at large. Nearly every prolific female theatre artist has been through their doors, including 2019 Tony Winner for Best Direction of a Musical, Rachel Chavkin, 2018 Tony Winner for Best Direction of a Play, Rebecca Taichman, 2013 Tony Winner for Best Direction of a Play, Pam MacKinnon, 2013 Tony Winner for Best Direction of a Musical, Diane Paulus, 2018 Pulitzer Prize Winner Martyna Majok, and two-time Pulitzer Prize Winner Lynn Nottage. These powerful women found an artistic home at WP and are a testament to their role as a driving cultural force.

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