BLKS
by Aziza Barnes
(November 16 - December 3)
RI Premiere 

When shit goes down, your girls show up. Waking up to a shocking and personal health scare, Octavia and her best friends, June and Imani, go on a crusade to find intimacy and joy in a world that could give a fuck less about them or their feelings. This 24-hour blitz explores what it is to be a queer blk woman in 2015 New York, how we survive and save ourselves from ourselves.

“A raucous comedy of misbehavior and a quiet tragedy of mistreatment… the pure joy of seeing the best of people at their worst…the uncomfortable proximity of terror and pleasure, the mark of mortality in the midst of intimacy, percolates beneath the surface at all times, so that even at its most extreme and obscene—BLKS is not for prudish ears or eyes—it is serious and sad and profoundly human.”
—NY Times

“Hilarious in the most uncomfortable ways. It’s the kind of comedy you watch with one hand covering your eyes, and the other suspending your dropped jaw…Barnes’s lack of fear as a writer is what makes BLKS a particularly joyous experience…Each of Barnes’s characters is a mess in his or her own special way, and it is in their flaws that we are best able to see reflections of ourselves—and laugh-cringe at the mirror’s harsh truth.”
—Theatre Mania

“…a disarming, vivacious comedy…Barnes’s irreverent and exuberant play, saturated in race and sexuality, is part romantic sitcom, part existential reflection…Before you know it, a deep, soulful riff is unwinding…It’s a persistent, perceptive entertainer.”
— Washington Post

PLAYHOUSE CREATURES
By April De Angelis
(February 1 - 25)
In partnership with WomensWorkRI

The year is 1669 a bawdy and troublesome time. Theaters have just reopened after seventeen years of Puritan suppression. There is a surge in dramatic writing and the first English actresses appear on stage. Playhouse Creatures focuses on five of the most famous (Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Farley, Rebecca Marshall, Doll Common and Mary Betterton) to provide a moving and often comic account of the precarious lives of Restoration actresses.

"An immense talent and witty sensitive dialogue...Thoroughly entertaining."
— Tribune

"Flesh and blood heroines...move and inspire...a few more female role models stamped firmly on your heart."
— Time Out New York

"With delicious absurd extracts from the heroic repertory and frantic dressing room scenes, the prevailing tone is comic but you are not allowed to forget the gutter waiting to reclaim these glittering figures."
— The Independent

THE MOTHERF**KER WITH THE HAT
by Stephen Adly Guirgis
(May 23 - June 16)

Struggles with addiction, friendship, love, and the challenges of adulthood are at the center of the story. Jackie, a petty drug dealer, is just out of prison and trying to stay clean. He’s also still in love with his coke-addicted childhood sweetheart, Veronica. Ralph D. is Jackie’s too-smooth, slightly slippery sponsor. He’s married to the bitter and disaffected Victoria, who, by the way, has the hots for Jackie. And then there’s Julio, Jackie’s cousin…a stand-up, “stand by me” kind of guy.

"Guirgis, a brilliant comedic talent…also has an original and knowing take on class… Guirgis’ characters are strivers who lack the language to 'pass’ in a white-collar world; they’re frustrated by limitations that they’re only half aware of, and that frustration provides much of the painful hilarity in their dialogue, which piles miscommunication on top of misunderstanding.”
— New York Times

“It’s a tight, smart and splendidly well-made, a tough-minded, unromantically romantic comedy that keeps you laughing, then sends you home thinking.”
— Wall Street Journal

“Funny indeed—not to mention surprising, disturbing and poignant…dark, rich comedy…By not putting characters or their dilemmas in neat boxes, Guirgis gives us, in HAT, a slice of hard life that’s as provocative as it is absorbing.”
— USA Today