(PRINCETON, NJ) -- The 2022-23 season at McCarter features a robust lineup of theater, music, dance, comedy, spoken word, and family programming - and a special Toni Morrison project in partnership with Princeton University. The artists and stories shared are joyous, thought-provoking, moving, invigorating, and mostly brand new to McCarter.
In September the season kicks off with The Wolves, a fierce and funny play by Sarah DeLappe, directed by McCarter’s Artistic Director, Sarah Rasmussen about a young women’s competitive high school soccer team. The pack of adolescent warriors pushes and trains for their games while navigating a complicated world. More theater includes Between Two Knees, a wicked comedy and first play by The 1491s, best known for the hit FX’s series Reservation Dogs; and the return of McCarter’s holiday tradition A Christmas Carol.
Headliners and highlights of the Presented Series are Rhiannon Giddens, Indigenous Enterprise, David Sedaris, Davóne Tines, National Geographic Live, The Moth, and more. Visit www.mccarter.org for details and to purchase tickets.
Two more theater shows will be announced over the Summer, plus additional presented events throughout the year. The season will also feature a Toni Morrison Commission Project, in partnership with Princeton University, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Morrison’s Nobel Prize for Literature.
McCarter’s virtual stage will stay active with Paula Vogel’s Bard of the Gate, a digital play series, and the (free) online experience The Manic Monologues - creating conversation around mental health. McCarter’s Education Classes run year-round - including Summer Camp (limited space still available for Summer 2022!)
September 17- October 16, 2022 - The Wolves - THEATER. A play by Sarah de Lappe; Directed by Sarah Rasmussen. Meet nine young women from a competitive high school soccer team. It’s just a few weeks until nationals and the pressure is on. Relatable and resilient, this pack of adolescent warriors will push and train for their games, while also navigating a growing understanding of their complicated world. The Wolves is about life, love, and loss on and off the Astroturf.
October 8, 2022 at 3:00pm (Sensory Friendly Performance at 11:00am) Laurie Berkner Band - MUSIC/FAMILY. Princeton native and recognized universally as the “queen of kids’ music”, singer, songwriter, and author Berkner is back with her “Greatest Hits.” She also offers a Sensory-Friendly performance providing a performing arts experience that is welcoming to all individuals who are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder or other sensitivity issues.
October 9, 2022 at 3:00pm - Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi - MUSIC. World-music cross-cultural and banjo superstar (MacArthur Genius Award recipient, founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, singer, artistic director of Silk Road Ensemble,) returns with her frequent collaborator Francesco Turrisi.
October 12, 2022 at 7:30pm - David Sedaris - SPOKEN WORD. Sedaris is one of America’s preeminent humor writers and a best-selling author. He is a master of satire and one of today’s most observant writers and raconteurs. Beloved for his personal essays and short stories, his annual visit to McCarter has become a cherished tradition and celebrates his latest book Happy-Go-Lucky.
October 14, 2022 at 8:00pm - Indigenous Liberation - DANCE. A new kind of Native American dance troupe -- a collective of -Native American dancers from several tribes in what is colonially known as the USA and Canada, with colorful regalia and Jubilant dances honoring their elders, led by champion dancers from such categories as Hoop, Chicken Dance, Grass Dance, and Men’s Fancy War Dance.
October 16, 2022 at 3:00pm - National Geographic Live Series: Spinosaurus Sunday - FAMILY (1st show in 3-part series). Paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim introduces us to Spinosaurus, the largest predatory dinosaur yet discovered, and shares the incredible story of how this prehistoric giant—larger than T. rex—was found, almost lost to science, and found again. (Additional shows in the series3/19, 4/16)
October 23, 2022 at 3:00pm - Davóne Tines - MUSIC. Heralded as "[one] of the most powerful voices of our time" this bass-baritone has come to international attention as a path-breaking artist whose work encompasses a diverse repertoire and explores the social issues of today. As a Black, gay, classically trained performer at the intersection of many histories, he is engaged in work that blends opera, art song, contemporary classical music, spirituals, gospel, and songs of protest. His McCarter program is called “Recital No.1: Mass”, an exploration of the Mass form woven through Western European, African American, and 21st-century traditions.
November 11, 2022 at 8:00pm - The Hot Sardines - MUSIC. The Hot Sardines make old sounds new again and prove that joyful music can bring people together in a disconnected world. With vocals from a chanteuse who transports listeners to a different era, this unique jazz collective combines covers and originals effortlessly channeling New York speakeasies, Parisian cabarets, and New Orleans jazz halls.
November 16, 2022 at 7:30pm - Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Internationale Bachakademie Of Stuttgart - MUSIC. With the Gachinger Kantorei, Orchestra Bach-Collegium and Soloists of the Internationale Bachackademie Stuttgart. Arguably one of the greatest Western choral works ever written, with a chorus & orchestra of 65 people, the Bachakademie has been regarded as one of the most outstanding concert choirs in the world for several decades.
December 7- 24, 2022 - A Christmas Carol - FAMILY/THEATER. Adapted and Directed by Lauren Keating. The tradition is back and just as spectacular as audiences remember. Follow Ebenezer Scrooge on a magical journey through Christmas past, present, and future, and watch as this story comes to life around you. This annual holiday tradition will usher you into the spirit of the season with all the joy, wonder, and generosity that Scrooge himself discovers.
January 31 – February 12, 2023 Between Two Knees - THEATER. Directed by Eric Ting. A Co-Production with Seattle Rep In Association with Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Yale Repertory Theatre. An outrageously funny and wickedly subversive intergenerational tale of love, loss, and connection. The acclaimed intertribal sketch comedy troupe “the 1491s” (creators of FX’s Reservation Dogs) brings us a bold play that fractures traditional narratives of the US through the lens of the Native American experience. Smashing through where most textbooks stop teaching Native history—the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee— the play takes us from the forced re-education at Indian boarding schools, through WWII, Civil Rights, Vietnam, and the 1973 takeover at Wounded Knee.
Photo by T. Charles Erickson
March 15, 2023 at 7:30pm - Ragamala Dance Company: Fires Of Varanasi - DANCE. Fires of Varanasi: Dance of the Eternal Pilgrim evokes an elaborate ritual where time is suspended and humans merge with the divine. This theatrical reimagining of classical dance from India expands upon the birth-death-rebirth continuum in Hindu thought to honor immigrant experiences of life and death in the diaspora.
March 17, 2023 at 8:00pm - Randall Goosby - MUSIC. Signed exclusively to Decca Classics in 2020 at the age of 24, this American violinist is acclaimed for the sensitivity and intensity of his musicianship alongside his determination to make music more inclusive and accessible and to bring under-represented composers to light. Goosby, 26, is a protégé of Itzhak Perlman, and focuses on the interchange of African-American and European musical traditions, challenging the traditional repertory. He has already won the Sphinx Medal for Excellence, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and played with the orchestras of Los Angeles (with Dudamel), Cleveland, New York, and London.
March 19, 2023 at 3:00pm - National Geographic Live Series: Untamed With Filipe Deandrade - FAMILY. Wildlife filmmaker and conservationist Filipe DeAndrade, star of Nat Geo WILD’s Untamed, gives his unfiltered look at what it’s like to come face-to-face with wild animals, survive extreme environments, and make unexpected discoveries. (2nd show in 3-part series. Other days 10/16, 4/16.)
March 24 -25, 2023 - Toni Morrison Anniversary Commission Project - SPECIAL EVENT. McCarter and Princeton University have a successful shared history of collaborations and unique creative partnerships that fuse arts and ideas and provide a forum for dynamic dialogue.
30 years ago, the late author and Princeton University Professor Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize in Literature. A much-anticipated exhibition, “Sites of Memory: The Archival World of Toni Morrison,” will open in Spring 2023, in Firestone Library’s Milberg Gallery on the Princeton University campus. Conceived by Autumn Womack, Assistant Professor of African American Studies and English, the exhibition is a multi-faceted, immersive journey into the Morrison archives. Drawing upon drafts and outlines of published and unpublished writing, speeches, essays, and correspondence, the exhibition will reveal previously unknown aspects of Morrison’s creative life and practice.
McCarter joins this campus-wide celebration by commissioning genre-defying artists to create brand-new work inspired by the archives. Commissioned artists: multi-hyphenate Daniel Alexander Jones, Samantha Spies (performer and Co-Artistic Director of the acclaimed Urban Bush Women,) and MacArthur Fellow and 3x Grammy-winning jazz vocalist and composer Cécile McLorin Salvant, in a partnership with Princeton University Concerts.
Artists will spend time interfacing with the archives to inform their work which will culminate in a public sharing of work by Daneil Alexander Jones and Samantha Speis on March 24 and 25 at McCarter (details forthcoming) in conjunction with the Symposium led by Professor Womak; and a concert with Cécile McLorin Salvant at Richardson Hall April 12.
April 12, 2023 at 6:00pm & 9:00pm at Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall - Cécile McLorin Salvant - MUSIC. In partnership with Princeton University Concerts and the Princeton University Library in celebration of the Toni Morrison Anniversary Project: MacArthur Fellow and 3x Grammy-winning jazz vocalist and composer Cécile McLorin Salvant creates and performs a brand-new work inspired by Morrison’s archives. Tickets will go on sale on August 1 at this link: Concert. (This is a Princeton University Concerts event.)
April 14, 2023 at 8:00pm - The Moth - SPOKEN WORD. “New York’s Hippest and Hottest Literary Ticket” is back. True stories, told live and without notes, celebrate the ability of true, personal storytelling to illuminate the diversity and commonality of human experience. The Moth allows people all over the world, from all walks of life: astronauts, exonerated prisoners, veterans, Nobel laureates, and everyone in between, to share their stories in front of a live audience. Each Moth event features simple, old-fashioned storytelling by 5 wildly divergent raconteurs around a theme.
April 16, 2023 at 3:00pm - National Geographic Live Series: Life On The Vertical With Mark Synott - FAMILY. Mark Synnott is a man ever on the brink of new discovery. A big wall rock-climber of the highest order, he’s made legendary first ascents of some of the world’s tallest, most forbidding walls, from Baffin Island to Pakistan. Today, he uses his skills to break scientific ground, reaching incredibly inaccessible environments in search of rare species. (Final show in 3-part series. Other dates 10/16, 3/19.)
ON THE DIGITAL STAGE - STREAMING
McCarter keeps its digital stage active with Paula Vogel’s Bard of the Gate, and the (free) digital experience The Manic Monologues - creating conversation around mental health.
Bard at the Gate - Virtual Reading Series - A partnership with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel (‘22 Tony Nominee for HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE) this series of virtual readings of powerful plays continues, led by a curatorial team of top leaders in the theater industry. Free access for Students and General Tickets here.
The Manic Monologues - Online Experience - Free, bi-lingual digital theater experience on mental health in collaboration with Princeton University Health Services, The 24 Hour Plays, and Innovations in Socially Distant Performance at the Lewis Center for the Arts. Take a journey through the minds and voices of people who bravely share the way mental illness has affected their lives, performed by a celebrated cast of actors – enhanced by interactive design and technology.
EDUCATION/CLASSES: The creativity continues with McCarter's wide range of 2022-23 education classes for students of all ages. Youth class highlights include musical theater performance, a circus-themed course with stage combat, clowning, and an Escape Room Adventure. For adults, McCarter offers Creative Collective, a performance and devising course for all skill levels, led by a professional theater director and guest artists.
An independent not-for-profit performing arts center located between New York City and Philadelphia – and on the campus of Princeton University – McCarter is a multi-disciplinary creative and intellectual hub offering theater, music, dance, spoken word, and educational programs for all ages that inspires conversations, connections and collaborations in our communities. We lead with our values of justice and joy, and we seek beauty in belonging. Celebrated for developing new work and winner of the 1994 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, world premieres include Christopher Durang's Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike (Tony, Best Play), Tarell Alvin McCarey's The Brother/Sister Plays, Emily Mann's Having Our Say. Renowned artists who have appeared at McCarter include: Alvin Ailey, Yo-Yo Ma, Audra McDonald, David Sedaris, The Moth, Terence Blanchard, Roseanne Cash, the rock band Lake Street Dive, Shawn Colvin, more. McCarter connects with the community year-round with a Shakespeare Reading Group, digital programming, on-site classes and in-school residencies. McCarter and Princeton University share a long history of unique partnerships and creative collaborations.
