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Washington Post
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Pamela Anderson. Amber Heard. Dancing on ice. All in one theater festival.
WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS. — A queer fantasia is underway in the Berkshires, where a premiere provocateur of American theater has been handed the keys to Williamstown Theatre Festival. Under the creative leadership of Jeremy O. Harris, the summer mainstay's 71st season features Pamela Anderson as an ex-courtesan haunted by 'the specter of lunacy,' figure skaters lip-synching to Donna Summer and a new show in which a gaggle of toxic gays 'neocolonize' a Oaxacan nude beach. For die-hards, all that and more can be experienced as a whirlwind three- or four-day binge during one of the festival's three consecutive long weekends, which conclude Aug. 3. (Choosing shows a la carte is also an option. I saw eight in 48 hours.) Spread across four venues — two regular stages, a black box in a strip mall and an ice rink bordering a graveyard — the concentrated programming is a weekender-friendly feast of risky and captivating multidisciplinary performance. It's a big swing from a legacy institution that until recently appeared on the brink of collapse. A longtime magnet for top talent and incubator for New York productions, Williamstown has struggled to find a way forward since 2020, when operations shut down due to the pandemic, and an investigation by the Los Angeles Times revealed a history of troubling labor practices. As the nonprofit has endeavored to remake its creative and financial model, visits there in recent years have been characterized by half-staged works in half-empty theaters. Not so on opening weekend of the reimagined festival, the first in a three-year term as creative director for Harris, the 'Slave Play' author whose career includes screenwriting, producing, acting (in a recurring role on 'Emily in Paris') and being Extremely Online. The world premiere of his new play stars Amber Heard, ushering in her self-described 'theatre era.' There are sufficient faces from young Hollywood among the casts — such as Nicholas Alexander Chavez of 'Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,' Whitney Peak of 'Gossip Girl' and Tonatiuh of the upcoming Jennifer Lopez-starring 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' — that Vogue did a photo spread. Crowds flush with industry insiders spilled onto the main stage lawn between acts and perched elbow-to-elbow at area restaurants. A giddy conviction of stamina accompanied the comparison of itineraries. (There are six different routes to seeing the core lineup, depending on how many days you have.) Tennessee Williams is the season's curatorial inspiration, and the recurring themes are especially suited to midsummer heat: memory and existentialism, languor and confinement, horniness and forbidden desire. The vibes are loose-limbed and playful, irreverent toward convention but mindful of its place among the region's tony patrons. Three of the offerings are full-length plays, two by Williams — the surreal and purgatorial 'Camino Real' and the posthumously published prison drama 'Not About Nightingales' — and Harris's own boozy oddity steeped in Williamsian influence, 'Spirit of the People.' That play's title, a reference to mescal and the modest means of its original distillers, characterizes the festival lineup as a whole: Significant barriers to entry notwithstanding (getting here isn't easy, and staying isn't cheap), there's a pervasive effort to ensure that everything presented can be at least understood by anyone living in present reality. (With the exception of 'Camino Real,' but more on that in a minute.) Harris's mission as both a playwright and producer to position theater as vibrant pop culture gives this season the buzzy air of a music or film festival. 'Spirit of the People' is an overfilled and sloshing glass raised in that direction. The story is one I happen to recognize, as a frequent visitor to the coastal hamlet of Zipolite, where a heartbroken Canadian woman (played by Heard) decamps to reinvent herself as the owner of a Mexican mescaleria. A group of American millennials (played by Brandon Flynn and two 'Slave Play' alums, Ato Blankson-Wood and James Cusati-Moyer, among others) overstays their vacations, and Harris engages in anthropological study of their queerness (image obsession, compulsive mating, drugs, etc.) while mining the impacts of Western tourism on the land and its people. Where 'Slave Play' zeroed in on race and desire, here Harris broadens his lens to explore how power functions across borders by means of money and ignorant entitlement. The play, directed beautifully here by Katina Medina Mora, brims with compelling insights on contemporary anxieties (the dangers of AI, the sullying of social ideals under capitalism, etc.), but is also overrun with what we in the community call 'gay mess' (petty rivalries, bed-hopping and the like) and with heavy-handed reveries about the symbolic significance of mescal. As with pours of straight liquor, moderation will be key to the play's future. (Like several shows on opening weekend, it ran significantly over the approximated run time, clocking in at over three hours.) 'Slave Play' director Robert O'Hara delivers 'Not About Nightingales' as an erotic fever dream, in which the inmates of an Alcatraz-like island and their weasel-like warden (Chris Messina) are in heat. Written by Williams in 1938 and inspired by real events at a Pennsylvania prison, the play chronicles an uprising over wretched food in a brig that resembles a Berlin sex club. The raw animality of the staging emphasizes everyone's appetite for both survival and satisfaction. A triangle of desire develops between Messina's warden, his new secretary (Elizabeth Lail, of 'You') and the Black prisoner (William Jackson Harper, of 'The Good Place') he beats into submission before recruiting him to work in his office. O'Hara draws out the story's resonance not only with present mass incarceration but with the legacy of chattel slavery. It's a brutal production with a touch of Old Hollywood noir and the most affecting of the season's full-length dramas. 'Camino Real,' in which a menagerie of characters (among them Don Quixote, Casanova and Lord Byron), rattle around a carceral town square, is the most remote. The staging from director Dustin Wills evokes a desert landscape by Dalí and is equally beguiling to behold and confounding to interpret. Making sense of the play, a departure for Williams into modernist abstraction, may be beside the point — the author defended its rife symbolism as 'nothing more nor less than my conception of the time and the world I live in.' Funnily enough, of the sprawl of ensemble members, Anderson is the most engaging and accessible. She has no great facility with language or modulation, and a tendency to swallow words — but her unaffected air is endearing and suited to absurdism. As the beleaguered and faded beauty Marguerite, she got the most laughs and a mid-show round of applause. The fest's other happenings — most of them in what's called the Annex, a hollowed-out Price Chopper outfitted into an elongated playing space — benefit from their inclusion in a broader lineup that offers a wide berth for experimentation. The most striking among them, 'Vanessa,' is a chamber opera about a doomed love triangle composed by Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti, themselves forbidden lovers when it premiered in 1958. (My colleague Michael Brodeur has the full review.) 'Many Happy Returns,' a dance piece from Monica Bill Barnes inspired by 'Mrs. Dalloway,' combines everyday musings addressed to the audience (by her collaborator Robbie Saenz de Viteri) with lighthearted movement she executes with wiry precision. In 'The Things Around Us,' musician and writer Ahamefule J. Oluo likewise delivers a shuffle of anecdotes that could be disparate pages torn from a memoir. They're combined with an astounding display of musicianship, in which he wails on the trumpet, controls soundboards with his feet, and creates a score by recording and looping playback in real time. In an after-midnight stand-up set, Julio Torres delivered an earnest plea for job mobility as Pigasaurus, the hog who eats food scraps on 'The Flintstones.' The extreme-sport nature of the marathon schedule reaches its pinnacle on ice, where a virtuosic company of five skaters (lithe, limber and queer-coded) perform interpretive, disco-scored dance inspired by the Williams novel tucked into the show's title, 'The Gig: After Moise and the World of Reason.' Viewers bundle up, park rinkside in folding chairs and don headphones through which Harris narrates the impressions of a struggling writer in 1970s Manhattan who dated a figure skater. Conceived by director Will Davis with ice choreographer Douglas Webster, the hour-long spectacle includes swooping, synchronous glides, passionate pas de deux and a handful of Olympic-style stunts. The forms don't quite synthesize — you could bag the voice-over and just enjoy the icy grooves — but the daring is the point. Summer theater ought to be wild, a playground where soaring high and falling flat are both welcome results. Williamstown's reinvention is a thrilling testament to what's possible when artists are given license to let loose.
New York Times
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Williamstown Theater Festival Was in Crisis. Here's How It's Changing.
Williamstown Theater Festival, long one of the nation's most highly regarded summer theaters, has been fighting for its life recently, struggling to regain its footing after complaints about its workplace practices, leadership turnover and the economic challenges that have vexed other performing arts organizations. This summer, the Western Massachusetts nonprofit's latest leadership team has opted for a radically new and risky reboot: Instead of a summer-long season with two shows at a time, the company is leaning into the 'festival' part of its name, offering eight shows simultaneously, but only for three long weekends, starting July 17 and ending Aug. 3. The shows — which include dance, opera and music as well as theater — are being curated by Jeremy O. Harris, the audacious playwright best known for 'Slave Play,' and several of the productions are based on stories written by, or inspired by, Tennessee Williams. Most unexpected: an ice dance show inspired by a Williams novel. Why does Williamstown matter? The Williamstown Theater Festival had been a destination not only for culture-loving visitors who flock to the Berkshires every summer, but also for theater performers, writers and directors seeking to hone their craft and develop new work. It was also an important training ground for many aspiring theater industry workers. Numerous shows moved from Williamstown to New York, including, during the last full prepandemic season, three that transferred to Broadway: the plays 'Grand Horizons' and 'The Sound Inside' as well as a revival of another Tennessee Williams play, 'The Rose Tattoo.' Why has the festival been struggling? At the start of the pandemic, following the death of George Floyd, the calls for a social justice reckoning that rocked many corners of society also shook theater. Staff and alumni of the festival objected to the nonprofit's history of relying on young workers who were often unpaid or underpaid; there were also complaints about how the company responded to safety concerns. The turmoil, chronicled by The Los Angeles Times, led to the departure of the festival's artistic director, Mandy Greenfield, and a review of the festival's practices. Ultimately, the festival decided all staff would be paid; that decision was followed by a sharp reduction in programming. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
NEWS OF THE WEEK: Amber Heard lands huge new stage role
The 39-year-old actress has endured difficulties in her career after she was taken to court for defamation by ex-husband Johnny Depp. The Aquaman star was subjected to extreme abuse before, during and after the trial in 2022 and she has not worked on TV or film projects since. But now the star has been cast alongside a string of other stars in a new play written by acclaimed playwright Jeremy O. Harris. Variety announced on Monday, "Amber Heard, Brandon Flynn and Lío Mehiel have joined the ensemble cast…
Daily Mail
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Amber Heard returns to acting for the first time in two years... after Johnny Depp legal drama and welcoming twins
Nearly two years after she was last seen on screen, Amber Heard is making her return to acting, in a rather surprising fashion. The 39-year-old Austin, Texas native made her acting debut in the 2004 film Friday Night Lights, and she's been steadily working in both film and television ever since. Her career did slow down significantly due to her lengthy legal issues with ex-husband Johnny Depp, last seen in a pair of 2023 films, the indie In the Fire and her superhero sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. She has since moved to Madrid, Spain, and shocked her fans on Mother's Day by announcing she had fraternal twins, daughter Agnes and son Ocean. Now it seems she's getting ready to get back to work, although her next performance won't be for a mass audience. She'll be making her stage debut as part of the world premiere production of playwright Jeremy O. Harris' (Slave Play) new project Spirit of the People, via Variety. The world premiere production will take place at the 2025 Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts in the northwest corner of the state. The 2025 festival runs from July 17 to August 3, though it's unclear when Spirit of the People will debut at this time. Nothing has been revealed about Heard's character at this time, though she joins a cast that includes Brandon Flynn and Lío Mehiel, who were just announced on Monday with Heard. Previously-announced cast members also include Tony Award nominees Ato Blankson-Wood and James Cusati-Moyer, plus Amandla Jahava, Emma Ramos, Julian Sanchez, Zachary Booth and Tonatiuh. The play, directed by Katina Medina Mora, 'confronts uncomfortable truths about land and what it means to destroy it,' according to the official description. Harris, best known for his 2018 Tony-nominated Stage Play and for writing A24's Zola, said the production is a departure from his previous work. 'I wanted to challenge myself. The play is half in Spanish, and I don't speak Spanish,' Harris admitted. He added, 'The play has a significant level of prose within it. I'm not a prose writer. I'm trying a lot of different things.' Heard confirmed the role herself by taking to her Instagram for the first time since announcing the birth of her twins, sharing a selfie with her and playwright Harris. 'In my theatre era x,' she captioned the snap, though she didn't reveal anything else about her role or the production. The actress still has yet to reveal who the father of her twins are, though she shared a snap of their tiny feet to reveal the news back in May. 'Mother's Day 2025 will be one I'll never forget. This year I am elated beyond words to celebrate the completion of the family I've strived to build for years. Today I officially share the news that I welcomed twins into the Heard gang. My daughter Agnes and my son Ocean are keeping my hands (and my heart) full,' she began. 'When I had my first baby girl Oonagh four years ago, my world changed forever. I thought I couldn't possibly burst with more joy. Well, now I am bursting times three!!!' she admitted. 'Becoming a mother by myself and on my own terms despite my own fertility challenges has been the most humbling experience of my life. I am eternally grateful that I was able to choose this responsibly and thoughtfully. To all the moms, wherever you are today and however you got here, my dream family and I are celebrating with you. Love always, A x,' she concluded.
News.com.au
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Amber Heard lands huge new stage role
The 39-year-old actress has endured difficulties in her career after she was taken to court for defamation by ex-husband Johnny Depp. The Aquaman star was subjected to extreme abuse before, during and after the trial in 2022 and she has not worked on TV or film projects since. But now the star has been cast alongside a string of other stars in a new play written by acclaimed playwright Jeremy O. Harris. Variety announced on Monday, "Amber Heard, Brandon Flynn and Lío Mehiel have joined the ensemble cast…
