ANN ARBOR: Theatre NOVA, Ann Arbor’s resident nonprofit professional theatre, is thrilled to announce its 2022-23 Season of Michigan and World Premieres. Proud to produce the hottest new plays at affordable prices, Theatre NOVA offers a subscription program as the best way to see quality programs at a discounted price. Subscribers can save up to 25% off single ticket prices and guarantee their seats for all our plays through August 2023.
This is a corrected schedule of our 2022-2023 Season, which now includes our Michigan Playwrights Festival and the change in schedule putting Sanctuary City by Martyna Majok in November 2022 and ARABIC TO ENGLISH by David Wells in July 2023.
For the health, safety, and well-being of our patrons, staff, and artists, COVID safety measures will be in place. Our COVID policy is subject to change anytime, following fluctuating local, state, and federal guidelines. Please check our website for our current policy before attending.
Theatre NOVA also offers a subscription program as the best way to see quality programs at a discounted price. Subscribers save up to 25% off single ticket prices and guarantee their seats for all our plays this season. In addition, subscribers get easy exchanges, no per-ticket fees, a pass to our Michigan Playwright’s Festival, and our eNewsletter keeping them up to date on future events at the theatre. If patrons prefer to pick and choose which productions they’d like to see and when they would like to see them, our popular Flex Pass offers six tickets to use for any show and any date.
Theatre NOVA’s 2022-2023 season opens September 30 with the return of our Michigan Playwrights Festival. Eight new full-length plays, all by Michigan playwrights, will be given readings September 29-October 9, 2022. Theatre NOVA focuses on new plays and new playwrights and is dedicated to working with new and local playwrights to help them develop their craft and to offer brand new plays for audiences. The theatre created the Michigan Playwrights Festival to nurture Michigan playwrights and to develop full-length plays for future seasons. Our 2022 MPF will feature “Small Slam” by Arnold Johnston and Deborah Ann Percy, “Spaceling” by Michael Alan Herman and Josie Lapczynski, “The Growing Season” by Steve Clark and Tom Emmott, “Divided Boxes” by RD Wakeman, “Our Place” by Quan Chambers, “Nuns at the End of the World” by Catherine Zudak, and “From Mars, Earth Looks Like a Star” by Meg Richards. Plays that were products of Michigan Playwrights Festivals that were products of Michigan Playwrights Festivals that have received their world premieres at Theatre NOVA include “Mazel Tov, John Lennon” (Wilde Award for Best New Script) by David Wells, “Resisting” (Wilde Award for Best Original Production) by David Wells, “Mrs. Fifty Bakes a Pie” by Linda Ramsay Detherage, “Clutter” (Wilde Award for Best New Script) by Brian Cox, “Irrational” (Wilde Award for Best New Script) by R. MacKenzie Lewis and David Wells, “Katherine” by Kim Carney, “Spin” by Emilio Rodriguez, and “Bird” by Kristin Hanratty.
Our first full production of the season will be “Sanctuary City” by Martyna Majok, opening on November 4, 2023. B and G are DREAMers. Lovers. High school friends negotiating the broken promise of safety and the weight of responsibility in the so-called sanctuary city of Newark. When B learns that his mother will return to her country of origin, these two young people must fight like hell to establish a place for themselves and each other in America. “I have rarely seen a play that so effectively embodies the way external forces — in this case, immigration policies in the United States — distort the inner lives of actual humans. What love is, and can ever mean, is lost in the muddle between the heart and the law.” – New York Times.
Theatre NOVA presents “Sugar Plum Panto” by Carla Milarch and R. MacKenzie Lewis for the holidays. Beginning December 9, 2022, The holiday tradition is back, complete with all the zany antics you’ve come to expect from this raucous family entertainment. When Clara’s Christmas dream goes awry, an outrageous cast of characters appears to entertain her and save her from the Rat King. Bring the whole family for this festive holiday tradition, with original songs, hilarious parodies, a Bee-oo-ti-ful Panto Dame, and of course, all of the candy you can eat! Book early cuz this holiday favorite sells out!
Kicking off 2023, “The Language Archive” by Julia Cho will open on February 3, 2023. George is a man obsessed with documenting the dying languages of far-flung cultures. Closer to home, though, language is failing him. He fumbles for the words to say to his wife, to keep her from leaving him. He puzzles over his enamored lab assistant’s words and what they could possibly mean. All while obsessively studying an elderly couple – the last remaining speakers of a language whose culture is already dead. This quirky, romantic piece explores how language can build entire worlds but is often completely useless. Directed by Carla Milarch.
Heading into Spring, “Mlima’s Tale” by Lynn Nottage will open on March 31, 2023. A ghost story for our times. Mlima is a magnificent African elephant killed by the underground ivory market for his tusks. As his soul accompanies his tusks on a path forged by greed and colonialism, Mlima takes us on a journey through the agonizing tradition of mining animals. This groundbreaking work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright marries theatricality and social commentary in a play that will truly haunt you. “Those of you who don’t believe in ghosts are likely to think again after seeing Lynn Nottage’s beautiful, endlessly echoing portrait of a murder and its afterlife.”—NY Times.
The season continues with the world premiere of “Splattered” by Hal Davis and Carla Milarch, opening May 26, 2023. Does art speak to you? It is evening at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where old friends, cousins, and lovers – Sylvie, Astrid, and Justin – gather at a wedding reception. Seminarian Justin sneaks off to be alone in Gallery 406, where he encounters Jackson Pollock’s famous splatter painting One, Number Thirty-One 1950. As the painting mesmerizes him, Pollock’s ghost emerges to challenge some of Justin’s most fundamental beliefs, divulging stories and secrets of Pollock’s turbulent life. Meanwhile, Astrid and Sylvie come and go, appealing to Justin to join the party, as conflicts from their past bubble back to the surface, prompting Justin to question his choices and his chosen future.
Finally, to close out the season, the World premiere of “Arabic to English” by David Wells. opens on July 21, 2023 This world premiere by the playwright who penned hit productions “Resisting,” “Mazel Tov, John Lennon,” and “Irrational” makes its long-awaited debut. In a high-stakes trial, Faheem, an Arab American man, is accused of fraudulent marriage to gain a visa. Losing in court will send him to a country he barely knows. His interpreter, Amina, a young Arab American woman, is on the verge of entering a storybook American life, about to be married to Faheem’s white American trial lawyer. When romance blossoms between the interpreter and the defendant, she must decide which words to translate and which to leave unspoken. Directed by Carla Milarch.
Theatre NOVA is located at 410 W Huron St, Ann Arbor, MI 48103. Performances are on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. To accommodate families with children, “Sugar Plum Panto” will hold performances on Fridays at 7:30 p.m, Saturdays at 3:00 p.m. & 7:00 p.m., and Sundays at 2:00 p.m.
General admission tickets for plays are $22. Tickets for the holiday musical panto are $25 for adults and $10 for children. Individual tickets for each reading in the Michigan Playwrights Festival are $10, with passes available for the entire festival for $30. Theatre NOVA continues to make theatre accessible by offering pay-what-you-can tickets for those who need them.
Tickets, memberships, flex passes, and subscriptions may be purchased online at www.TheatreNOVA.org. Tickets may also be purchased in person one hour before each performance. Seating in the theatre will begin 30 minutes before each performance. There is ample free parking and quick access to the city’s restaurants, bars, bakeries, and coffee shops. New patrons can find Theatre NOVA across Huron Street from Ann Arbor’s YMCA through a parking lot entrance on the north side of the street. For more information, visit www.TheatreNOVA.org.
Theatre NOVA’s mission is to raise awareness of the value and excitement of new plays and playwrights and to provide resources for playwrights to develop their craft by importing, exporting, and developing new work.
