Announcing Available Light’s 2015-16 Season

Did you miss our Season Announcement Party? Don’t worry, we’ve got all the details right here. This is, in fact, almost exactly what we read to the crowd. There’s much more to come, so stay-tuned to avltheatre dot com.

Feed Your Soul ’15
August 29, 2015 @ The Riffe Center for the Arts
Mark your calendars for the sixth edition of the most fulfilling fundraiser in town. Feed Your Soul returns with Columbus’s most creative silent auction, good eats for all, and a one of a kind performance.

The Grown-Up
Written by Jordan Harrison // Directed by Eleni Papaleonardos
We’ll kick off the season with this sad, funny, time-bending adventure about how to survive growing up. NPR called it “charming and painfully universal.” All we’ll tell you now is that it involves a empty stage, a magic doorknob, and an extended metaphor about the power of of imagination and storytelling.

One Night with Available Light
October, December 2015 and April 2016
This year we’ll introduce a series of one-night-only performances in which Available Light will stage consequential plays that every theatre-goer should consider essential viewing.

Dedalus (A Portrait of the Artist)
Adapted by Matt Slaybaugh from A Portrait of an Artists As a Young Man by James Joyce
November 2015
Here’s a surprise: Available Light wants to adapt a strange and difficult novel into a strange and challenging stage-play. This time around the book is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, which celebrates its Centennial in 2016. This will be, of course, a radical adaptation, titled “Dedalus” after the main character of Joyce’s novel. In our version, Stephen Dedalus will be played by a dozen different actors as the play twists through the dreams and memories of a blossoming artistic soul.

The Next Stage Initiative 2016
January 2016
The Next Stage Initiative returns with 6 hot playwrights and their works in progress, including at least one play destined for production in a future AVLT season. As usual, it will be six nights of new collaborations, co-produced by Jennifer Schlueter of OSU and the for/ward company.

Jane Austen’s Pride@Prejudice (On Tour!)
Written by Daniel E. Kramer // Directed by Eleni Papaleonardos
Spring 2016
A crowd favorite is back by popular demand. Available Light will hit the road once again with a show that requires no introduction. We have unfinished business with places like Dublin, New Albany, Westerville, and Granville. We hope to meet all our suburban neighbors at the theater for performances of this beloved classic.

Thom Pain (based on nothing)
Written by Will Eno // Directed by Matt Slaybaugh
February 2016
Playwright Will Eno has been called “a Samuel Beckett for the John Stewart generation.” If there’s such a thing as stand-up existential comedy, this play, “Thom Pain (based on nothing),” is it. Company Member Jordan Fehr will perform this surreal, one-man meditation on the way life never quite lives up to the awesomeness of living.

24 Hr Thtr 2016
March 2016
One Friday night last fall, we gathered more than 30 amazingly talented local actors, playwrights, directors, and theatre-makers, and gave them 24 hours to create six original works. And we had a blast. We made new friends, rekindled old partnerships, and filled Studio One to the brim for a raucous one night only slugfest. When it was all over, everyone said the same thing: “We have to do this again next year.”

Robin & Peter Hersha present… as yet untitled
Directed by Eleni Papaleonardos
May 2016
To cap off our season, the entire company will – for the first time ever – work together to create a single show: Robin & Peter Hersha present… AS YET UNTITLED. Amongst ourselves, we call it “Body Movin” or “Dance Dance Revolution,” and suffice to say, it will be physical. Recognizing how easily we disconnect from our bodies in the digital age, we’ll explore what it means to have a body, how to find joy in inhabiting our bodies, and the many ways we’ve forgotten about how our bodies relate to the world. 

And… that’s the season. We’ve got new staff, new leadership, new programs, new shows, and new opportunities for up-and-coming artists to make their Available Light debut. It going to be a huge year for anyone who’s into what Available Light’s is up to.

But, as you may have heard, there is one more thing.

Follow this link to support our new season and our dream project about Columbus: http://avlt.co./dont-wait-columbus