Robert J. Orchard News

Six years after its original Boston run, ArtsEmerson will welcome back Tony Award-winning actor Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson with their Obie Award-winning adaptation of Homer's classic, An Iliad.

ArtsEmerson, Boston's leading presenter of contemporary world theatre, proudly announces its 10th Anniversary Season featuring five new commissioned works and five reprises from six different countries. The 2019/20 season continues ArtsEmerson's commitment to international work and to contemporary artistic forms including circus, mixed media, music theatre and first person narrative all from diverse perspectives. The landmark anniversary season will feature the world premiere of Detroit Red (produced by ArtsEmerson and written by Will Power) which uplifts Malcolm X's under-examined, life-shaping experiences as a young man who called Boston home. It will also feature the U.S. Premiere of Plata Quemada (TEATROCINEMA), the gritty true story of Argentina's most daring bank heist.

Tickets go on sale today, May 15, for White Snake Projects' I Am a Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams, the newest opera from creator and librettist Cerise Jacobs, premiering September 20-22 on the Robert J. Orchard Stage of Boston's Emerson Paramount Theater. Composed by Jorge Sosa, the opera explores immigration, dislocation, and transformation in America. In conjunction with the premiere, White Snake Projects has launched the new multi-year community engagement initiative SING OUT STRONG, designed to foster the creation of new songs on themes arising from the company's mainstage operas. Also in the works is a collaboration between White Snake Projects and Juventas New Music Ensemble, a Boston-based incubator for promising musical pioneers that has had a season-long focus on American voices, perfectly dovetailing with the opera and the SING OUT STRONG initiative. The two organizations partnered earlier this month on Juventas's "Voices of America" concert, an evening of new music that shared stories of immigrants and refugees and included a special preview of excerpts from the opera. Tickets for I Am a Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams can be purchased here.

On the heels of Cambodian New Year, ArtsEmerson is honored to welcome See You Yesterday, a moving performance by Global Arts Corps which explores the painful history of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. Directed by Michael Lessac, nineteen Cambodian performers utilize their extraordinary physical skills, including acrobatics and circus arts, to travel back in time and shatter a legacy of silence.

ArtsEmerson is honored to welcome/peh-LO-tah/ a futbol framed freedom suite created byMarc Bamuthi Joseph,a child of Haitian immigrants turned poet-performer activist, and now Artistic Director of Social Impact at The Kennedy Center. 

ArtsEmerson is honored to open its 10th Anniversary season with the U.S. premiere of Passengers, marking the return of The 7 Fingers (Reversible, Cuisine & Confessions, Traces, Sequence 8, PSY) and their signature electrifying - and endearing - mix of circus, theatre, illusion, music and dance.

ArtsEmerson is honored to host the return of the award-winning American Moor written and performed by Keith Hamilton Cobb, an urgent solo work examining the experience and perspective of black men in America through the metaphor of William Shakespeare's character, Othello. The 2018 IRNE and Elliot Norton award-winning play received wide-spread acclaim from Boston audiences and critics - American Moor plays ArtsEmerson for two weeks of performances, April 10-21, at the Emerson Paramount Center Robert J. Orchard Stage.

Around this time last year, Chicago-based theatre troupe Manual Cinema made its debut appearance at ArtsEmerson: The World On Stage with a five-day run of ADA/AVA. Having been a big hit, they have returned for a second visit, presenting THE END OF TV for a two-week run at the Emerson Paramount Center. If you can't decide whether to watch television, see a movie, or go to a live performance, Manual Cinema has got you covered with their multimedia style of entertaining storytelling. In addition to live-action silhouettes, overhead projection, video, puppetry, and humans, it is all backed up by a five-piece band playing and singing an original score.

ArtsEmerson, Boston's leading presenter of contemporary world theatre, is excited to announce the return of Manual Cinema with their production, The End of TV. After thrilling Boston audiences with Ada/Ava in 2018, the ingenious artists of Manual Cinema cast a theatrical spell through live-action silhouettes, video feeds, overhead projection and a five-piece band performing an original score with their new creation.

ArtsEmerson, Boston's leading presenter of contemporary world theatre, proudly welcomes Dead Centre's (Ireland) Hamnet, co-directed and co-written by Bush Moukarzel and Ben Kidd. A multimedia theatre experience, Hamnet brings Shakespeare's only son, who died at age 11 without knowing his famous father, to the stage.

ArtsEmerson, Boston's leading presenter of contemporary world theatre, proudly announces the 2018/2019 Season, it's ninth, featuring eleven productions from seven countries. The season showcases three U.S. Premieres, including JB Priestley's Classic Thriller An Inspector Calls, Dead Center's Hamnet, and Global Arts Corps' See You Yesterday. The season also marks the return of multi-media storytellers Manual Cinema, and presents Shakespeare stories from Ireland, Russia, and New York; as well as a diversity of contemporary narratives on incarceration, racism, DACA, and what comes after the end of the world.

ArtsEmerson, Boston's leading presenter of contemporary world theatre, proudly welcomes the return of Belgium's Astragales with Cold Blood, by choreographer Michele Anne De Mey and filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael, the creators of the unforgettable Kiss & Cry. A fabulous journey to the heart of the infinitely subtle, Cold Blood draws images of an overwhelming simplicity: the memories we carry when we pass from life to death. Filmed live on stage, skillfully choreographed hands move within miniature film sets and are projected on the big screen.

In the video below, Playwright Claudia Rankine discusses themes found in her new play, 'The White Card,' playing February, 24 - April 1, 2018 at the American Repertory Theater in Boston!

The White Card plays now through April 1, 2018 at Emerson's Paramount Center's Robert J. Orchard Stage. Tickets now on sale by phone at 617.824.8400, in person at the Paramount Center Box Office (559 Washington Street, Boston), and online at artsemerson.org.  at americanrepertorytheater.org.

ArtsEmerson and the American Repertory Theater present the world premiere of THE WHITE CARD by playwright and poet Claudia Rankine. The groundbreaking piece of theater begins a conversation and challenges us to stay in the room to talk about race in America. It suggests that society cannot progress if whiteness stays invisible and unexamined. At the end of the play, Act II encourages the audience to participate in the dialogue with facilitators guiding the process.

The White Card plays now through April 1, 2018 at Emerson's Paramount Center's Robert J. Orchard Stage. Tickets now on sale by phone at 617.824.8400, in person at the Paramount Center Box Office (559 Washington Street, Boston), and online at artsemerson.org.  at americanrepertorytheater.org.

ArtsEmerson and American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) announce casting for the world premiere production of The White Card. Written by acclaimed author, poet, and MacArthur Fellow Claudia Rankine and directed by A.R.T.'s Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director Diane Paulus, The White Card performs February 24 through April 1, 2018 at the Emerson Paramount Center's Robert J. Orchard Stage, located at 559 Washington Street in downtown Boston. ArtsEmerson presents the American Repertory Theater production.

ArtsEmerson, Boston's leading presenter of contemporary world theatre, proudly presents the world premiere of American Repertory Theater's (A.R.T.)production of The White Card, written by acclaimed author, poet, and MacArthur Fellow Claudia Rankine. Directed by A.R.T. Artistic Director Diane Paulus, The White Cardperforms February 24 through April 1, 2018 at the Emerson Paramount Center's Robert J. Orchard Stage, located at 559 Washington Street in downtown Boston.

ArtsEmerson, Boston's leading presenter of contemporary world theatre, proudly welcomes the return of celebrated Arab theatre-maker Sulayman Al Bassam (The Speakers Progress, 2011) with In The Eruptive Mode, which gives voice to six stories of endurance and resistance by Arab women caught in the turmoil of the Arab Spring. In The Eruptive Mode is performed and subtitled in Arabic and English and accompanied by live music. The production runs one week only, January 24 through 28, 2018 at the Emerson Paramount Center's Robert J. Orchard Stage, located at 559 Washington Street in Downtown Boston. Tickets range from $20-80, and may be purchased online at www.ArtsEmerson.org, by phone at 617.824.8400, or in person at the box office. Student, senior and group discounts are available.

ArtsEmerson and American Repertory Theater invite individuals and groups from the Greater Boston area to sign up for Citizen Read, a 4-part series of dynamic events activating a public dialogue on race and identity in America. From January through March 2018, participants in Citizen Read will engage in works by acclaimed author, poet, playwright, and MacArthur Fellow Claudia Rankine through text, facilitated conversations, and performance, exploring the questions Rankine investigates through her work.