Rep Stage tackles humankind’s most intimate emotions with “LOVE/language”
Ten playwrights, including several LGBTQ writers, show how love can heal during isolation and unrest
A diverse group of 10 area playwrights, including several who identify as LGBTQ, were commissioned to address one of humankind’s most intimate emotions, with an eye toward showing how love can help connect and heal in a time of widespread social isolation and civil unrest.
Presented together as the fully staged production, LOVE/language covers everything from romantic love to self-love, and from love of family to love of community. It opens Rep Stage’s 28th season with streams available this weekend.
“I wanted to create an event for this moment we find ourselves in and create an opportunity for local regional artists in our industry, who have been deeply affected by the pandemic,” says Joseph W. Ritsch, Rep Stage’s producing artistic director. “I am excited with how the playwrights took the prompt of ‘love’ and wrote about it in a deep and personal way.”
Felicia Curry leads a handful of actors bringing to life monologues developed by the commissioned playwrights, including Bob Bartlett, Dane Figueroa Edidi, Susan McCully, JR Nexus Russ, and Britt A Willis. Temidayo Amay, Regina Aquino, Alejandro Ruiz, and Garnet Williams also appear in the production, which was co-directed by Ritsch and Angelisa Gillyard, and features original music by Sarah O’Halloran and video direction by Danielle Maloney of Dragon Digital Media.
The company will follow LOVE/language with another world premiere, a radio play by Helen Hayes Award-winning Black trans theater artist Dane Figueroa Edidi.
Family secrets unravel as history and fiction collide in Ghost/Writer, a work exploring issues of race, gender, justice, and joy “in a world where the ghosts of the past have yet to be laid to rest,” reads the official description of the play, set to premiere later this spring.
LOVE/language is available this weekend for streaming anytime during four, 48-hour blocks of time. Tickets are $15 for individuals or $25 for households. Visit www.repstage.org for more details.
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