Colm Summers. (Photo by Emily Pinto)
NEW YORK CITY: Working Theater, a New York City-based theatre firm devoted to representing the voices and tales of working individuals, has named Colm Summers its new creative director. He succeeds Laura Carbonell Monarque, who stepped down in May.
“It’s an honor to join Working Theater, a company which has long represented the best of the American Theater,” stated Summers in an announcement. “In a cardinal year for the labor movement in America, I plan to double down on our community programming and union alliances, creating access to the arts for more working New Yorkers than ever before. I look forward to strengthening the foundational programming that embodies the heart of Working Theater and putting the stories of working people centerstage.”
Summers most lately served as director in residence on the Geffen Playhouse (the place his staging of Every Brilliant Thing with Daniel Okay. Isaac is presently working). He was beforehand a resident director at Ireland’s Abbey Theatre and a 2023 BRICLab resident artist. Known for producing thought-provoking and socially related new works, Summers’s imaginative and prescient builds on Working Theater’s dedication to solely creating and producing new American performs for, about, and with working individuals.
“Colm impressed us with his passionate resonance to our mission, our programming, and the importance of working people’s stories,” stated Bill Henning, board president of Working Theater, in an announcement. “We are excited to usher in this next great era of Working Theater with him at the helm as we continue to find new ways to create access to the arts for working people.”
Under Summers’ management, Working Theater will look towards furthering neighborhood engagement efforts and forging deeper connections between the theatre and the various working communities of New York City, particularly these which were historically underrepresented within the arts. In its thirty ninth season, the corporate will proceed to champion the tales and voices of working individuals with the enlargement of the TheaterWorks! Program, together with a co-produced bilingual presentation with People’s Theatre Project directed by Reza Salazar, the event of two new one-act performs by the Mark Plesent Commission Fund, and a co-production with Keen Company of Fish by Kia Corthron, directed by Adrienne D. Williams.
Founded in 1985, Working Theater believes the transformative expertise of dwell theatre shouldn’t be a luxurious however part of everybody’s on a regular basis life. The firm presents creative and academic programming for and about Americans working within the industrial and repair economies, who could also be unable to afford industrial theatre or really feel that it doesn’t resonate with their lives and expertise.
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