Sep. 4 — Hampshire College Theatre announced its 2024-2025 season late last semester, with a wide variety of shows including under-performed Shakespeare, a new student-written play, a multimedia memory play, and a festival of student pieces.
New Playwrights Festival
October 10-13, 2024
Produced by Hampshire’s own performing arts professor, Jonathan Dent, the New Playwrights Festival is an opportunity for students to workshop their own writing in front of a live audience. Whether it’s just one scene or a full one act play, the New Playwright Festival will be a great platform for the community to experience a variety of unique and blossoming voices.
Troilus and Cressida
November 14-17, 2024
Produced by Andy Amendolia-Webb, William Shakespeare’s play Troilus and Cressida is set during the final days of the Trojan War—however, it isn’t a story about the fall of Troy. Instead, it is a play about storytellers and storytelling, about perspective, and about staring down the insurmountable. This ensemble-driven production will use Shakespeare’s text as a vehicle for exploring what it means to courageously move through life at a time when empires are collapsing.
Heaven’s Door
March 6-9, 2025
Written and produced by Hampshire student Karim Barrett, Heaven’s Door is a new and original play that examines the intersections of Black queerness, Black joy and Black sorrow. Many parts are comical, delusional, stoic and the storytelling is illuminated by experimentations with sounds, lighting, and performance art techniques that will help create a rich sensory experience that illuminates the world of Black wonder.
how to clean your room (and remember all your trauma)
April 3-6, 2025
Written by Jay Chavez and produced by Kamden Denomme, how to clean your room is a modern memory play that follows Spencer, a young, non-binary poet who begins cleaning their messy room and reflecting on both past and current relationships. This show blends many artistic mediums, including poetry, puppetry, and performance to explore the main character’s journey in re-asserting their self-agency.
DISCLOSURE: The author of this article served on the season planning committee and is involved in the production of the New Playwrights Festival.
