Williamstown Theater Festival Announces Its 2018 Season

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February 6, 2018 6:18 AM

Matthew Broderick, Mary-Louise Parker and Tavi Gevinson will appear at the Williamstown Theater Festival this summer in plays by Douglas Carter Beane, Adam Rapp and Carson McCullers.

The Massachusetts festival announced its upcoming season Monday, with the news that it will include four world premieres.

From June 26 to July 14, theatergoers in the Berkshires will have the opportunity to be the first to see Beane’s “The Closet,” a play inspired by the French comedy film “Le Placard” by Francis Veber. Broderick is set to play Martin O’Reilly, an unlucky man whose life is shaken up by a charismatic stranger, and Mark Brokaw will direct.

Parker will star in “The Sound Inside,” Rapp’s new play directed by David Cromer from June 27 to July 8 on the festival’s Nikos Stage. It tells the story of an Ivy League professor, played by Parker, who develops a relationship with a talented student when she finds her independence challenged.

James Anthony Tyler’s “Artney Jackson” is the third play that will receive a world premiere in Williamstown this summer. It is scheduled for July 11-22 on the Nikos Stage and will be directed by Laura Savia.

Musical theater fans will also be treated to a world premiere. “Lempicka,” by Carson Kreitzer with music by Matt Gould, will debut on July 19 and run through Aug. 1. Carmen Cusack will feature as a former Russian aristocrat who makes a new life for herself as an artist in Paris after the Russian Revolution.

After appearing at Williamstown last year in Halley Feiffer’s “Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow,” Gevinson will return to the festival in a revival of McCullers’s “The Member of the Wedding,” directed by Lila Neugebauer, from Aug. 5-19.

When asked about the amount of new work in the season, the festival’s artistic director, Mandy Greenfield, suggested that it had something to do with our current political moment.

“I think theater artists feel a great sense of urgency and sense of purpose right now, the need to tell a story of cultural import, one that’s relevant,” she said by phone Monday. “I feel excited that this extraordinary group of writers, actors and directors have come together to put the full force of their artistry and expertise in service of that sense of urgency.”

Ticket bundles are available at wtfestival.org. Advance single tickets can also be purchased by mail order or online using the festival’s season brochure. The Williamstown Theater Festival box office will open June 1.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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