Spellbinding Storytelling, Provocative Dramedy,
Holiday Musical, Regional Premiere, American Classic,
and New Works Festival
Live Arts Theater is excited to announce a powerhouse lineup of four plays, a holiday musical, and new works festival for its 2024/25 VOYAGES Season. The 34th anniversary season opens with Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s AN ILIAD, performed in rotating repertory with WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME by Heidi Schreck, followed by a holiday offering—and the return of former Live Arts Artistic Director John Gibson to direct—the musical THE WIZARD OF OZ. In the new year, Live Arts presents the Virginia premiere of MARYS SEACOLE by Jackie Sibblies Drury, followed by Horton Foote’s classic THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL. The VOYAGES Season closes with round three of the Live Arts WATERWORKS festival, a month-long celebration of new theatrical works that brought in more than 600 submissions and engaged hundreds of volunteers during its second year.
“The plays in Live Arts 2024/25 VOYAGES Season share a tingling feeling of adventure, stepping forward into the unknown future and back into the known past,” says Live Arts Artistic Director Susan E. Evans. “We’ll visit ancient Trojan warriors and our country’s founding fathers; take a journey to a place you can’t get to by a boat or a train, far, far away, behind the moon, beyond the rain; sail through the centuries and around the globe; and end up at a home beloved in memory, now quite changed.”
Subscribers to the 2024/25 VOYAGES Season get substantial savings of up to 20% off affordable single ticket prices, premium seating, and other benefits. Subscription options include discounted packages for educators of all kinds and theater-lovers under 30 years old. As an added bonus, all subscribers now enjoy extra perks, including a 20% discount on additional single tickets for Live Arts shows. Single ticket prices range from $28 to $35 with discounts available for students and senior citizens.
Season ticket packages ($110-$275) are on sale now through the Live Arts Box Office at boxoffice@livearts.org, by phone at 434-977-4177 x123, or online at livearts.org/tix.
The 2024/25 VOYAGES Season
Live Arts opens the season with two plays in rotating repertory, alternating performances, this fall: AN ILIAD and WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME.
AN ILIAD
By Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare
Directed by David Minton
September 27-October 27, 2024
A lone Poet wearily enters with a suitcase, having endured an eon of traveling, reciting an age-old epic tale. Every time I sing this song I hope it’s the last time. AN ILIAD is a brilliant, spellbinding, modern retelling of Homer’s classic, a play about war and rage, that resonates all-too-vividly today. As they talk, we listen rapt, captivated by this timeless story, filled with dark humor, cruelty and pathos, and listen to songs of heroism, loyalty and love.
“AN ILIAD is pure theater: shocking, glorious, primal and deeply satisfying.” —Time Out New York
AN ILIAD is sponsored by The Caplin Foundation.
WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME
By Heidi Schreck
Directed by Cady West Garey
Runs September 28-October 26, 2024
Winner of 2019 and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best New American Play
Heidi Schreck’s multiple award-winning play, WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME, is at once hilarious, touching, inspiring and thought-provoking. The playwright takes us back to her teenage years when she traveled the country giving speeches about the Constitution at American Legion halls to help her pay for college. Using her very personal journey, along with the stories of her mother and grandmother, she dissects the document penned by our “founding fathers” over 200 years ago. Act Two forefronts a live debate: Should we abolish the United State Constitution?
“It would be hard to identify a work for the theater with its finger more on the pulse of America right now.” —The Washington Post
WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME is sponsored by The Caplin Foundation, Pamela Friedman & Ronald Bailey, Molly & Matthew Shadel.
THE WIZARD OF OZ
By L. Frank Baum
With Music & Lyrics by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg
Background Music by Herbert Stothart
Directed by John Gibson, co-directed by Ray Nedzel
Musical Direction by Lance Brenner
Choreography by Christine Wyatt
Runs Nov. 22–Dec. 15, 2024
Featuring the oh-so-catchy musical score from the 1939 classic film, this enchanting adaptation of THE WIZARD OF OZ sweeps us from the Kansas prairie way up high and over the rainbow. Director John Gibson brings his uniquely personal vision to L. Frank Baum’s fantastic tale about young Dorothy Gale, her dear friends, Professor Marvel and the yellow brick-laden road they travel together.
“ … enough to make you click your glitter-dusted ruby slippers far more than three times. And to send you home with a whole lot more smarts, heart and courage.” – WTTW News, Chicago
THE WIZARD OF OZ is sponsored by Woodard Properties.
MARYS SEACOLE
by Jackie Sibblies Drury
Directed by Aiyana Straughn
A Virginia Premiere
Runs Feb 14-March 2, 2025
Based on the real-life Mary Seacole, 19th century Jamaican nurse, adventurer and entrepreneur, MARYS SEACOLE sets sail on a kaleidoscopic voyage across oceans, time-shifting through the centuries. We meet many Marys–a West Indian nanny watching her charge on a Manhattan playground, a nursing school practicing triage; a contemporary nursing home; Mary on the Crimean battlefield; and more Marys everywhere and every-when, else. MARYS SEACOLE is the tale of an extraordinary woman, that chronicles the strength and empathy of all women through the centuries paid to care.
“ … an act of remembrance for the unremembered. … an exhortation to see both past and present better.” – Sara Holdren, Vulture
MARYS SEACOLE is sponsored by Bernie Murphy & Patricia Simpson.
THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL
by Horton Foote
Directed by Susan E. Evans
Runs March 21-April 12, 2025
A tender and deeply poignant play by one of the most celebrated American playwrights of the 20th century. Cooped up together in a two-bedroom Houston apartment with her weary middle-aged son and his bossy wife, Carrie Watts longs to get away. Homesick and determined, she sets out on a bus trip pilgrimage back to the small town of Bountiful, Texas, a place precious in her memories, one last time.
“ … one of the half-dozen greatest American plays … I’ve never been more deeply moved by a theatrical production of any kind.” —The Wall Street Journal
THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL is sponsored by Charles & Janet Cheeseman and Barbara & Jay Kessler.
2025 WATERWORKS Festival
New Works on Water Street
Curated by New Works Director Adrienne Oliver
Runs May 16-June 1, 2025
WATERWORKS leaps into its third year of celebrating new theatrical voices with a three-week festival, putting the playwright at center stage and diversifying the stories told on the Charlottesville stage. The festival spotlights several pieces developed throughout the season, including THE COLOUR WOMAN west indian play obeah play by Petron Brown, a new play juggling with the intersecting themes of colorism and Caribbean folklore. And it wouldn’t be WATERWORKS without Locally Sourced, the annual short play festival showcasing original pieces developed by Live Arts Playwrights’ Lab, plus a multitude of readings, workshops, and much more!
WATERWORKS is presented by The Madwoman Project, and supported by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
About Live Arts
Founded in 1990, Live Arts is celebrating more than 34 years of forging theater and community. Powered by more than 1,000 volunteers, Live Arts is a national model for engaged community theater, known for exceptionally high caliber productions, provocative programming and for supporting new works. Live Arts is guided by these organizational priorities: Artistic Integrity; Educational Excellence; Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion; and Volunteer & Community Engagement. As the anchor tenant in a four-story space, Live Arts proudly serves as a vital cultural resource in the heart of downtown Charlottesville with two state-of-the-art stages, rehearsal studio space, a library, and a rooftop event space.
Live Arts acknowledges that it occupies the unceded ancestral home of the Monacan and Manahoac Nations and that it exists on stolen land. Live Arts recognizes the Monacan and Manahoac people as the original stewards of this land and pays respect to their elders—past, present, and emerging.
The 2024/25 VOYAGES Season is made possible by:
The generous support of C-VILLE Weekly, WTJU 91.1FM, Ting, PJ Networks Computer Services, the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and by hundreds of theater lovers. Live Arts is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which receives support from the Virginia General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
For more information
Please contact Marketing Coordinator Madison Patterson by email at madison@livearts.org or 540-447-4563; or phone at 434-977-4177 x103, or visit livearts.org.
