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40 And Fabulous: Louisville's Humana Festival

Gothamist Getaways

Published Mar 19, 2016

Modified Mar 19, 2016

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Published Mar 19, 2016

Modified Mar 19, 2016

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Jump into Gothamist Getaways, where we bring you stories about travel, food, new products and handy tips for making your trips—both near and far—more enjoyable. So kick back, dream about your next journey, and let us know if you have any hints for us—email [email protected].

The Cast, The Glory Of The World (Bill Brymer/Actors Theatre of Louisville, 2015)

Let's face it: theater-going in New York City can deplete bank accounts (even pre-Hamilton, Forbes reported a record secondary market average ticket price of $355.83), and navigating Times Square is enough to jangle anyone's nerves. So theater aficionados looking for a more exotic stage locale should consider hopping a nonstop on Delta or United offer to Louisville, Kentucky, between now and April 10 when the Actors Theatre of Louisville celebrates its 40th Humana Festival of New American Plays.

This renowned festival, which has been in full swing since the start of the month, boasts more than longevity, considering it's in a city where March blooms in full regalia and a good bourbon pour is steps away. And forget getting side-checked on your ascent to the mezzanine. Louisville—nestled on the Ohio River, which has long been regarded as a delineation of where the South begins—is a northern bastion of Southern hospitality.

The Humana Festival is the birthplace of countless dramas that later end up on and off-Broadway, including three Pulitzer prize winners: The Gin Game, Crimes of the Heart, and Dinner with Friends. Numerous other Humana Festival premieres have won OBIE awards including Appropriate, Big Love, Tony Kushner's Slavs! and others. Lucas Hnath's provocative play about faith in America, The Christians, made its debut at the Humana Festival in 2014. It recently enjoyed a successful run at Playwrights Horizons. The list of Festival hits is lengthy.

Curtain Up
So what's on tap for 2016? Actors Theatre Artistic Director Les Waters (who directed The Christians) thinks every one of 2016's six new plays has the potential to be added to America's dramatic canon. The line-up will be in rotation at three theatres in Actors Theatre's downtown complex: the 633-seat Pamela Brown Auditorium, 318- seat Bingham Theatre and 159-seat Victor Jory Theatre. Here's a synopsis of each play excerpted from the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

From the 37th Humana Festival of New American Plays: Dan Waller as Peter and Kate Eastwood Norris as Stranger 2 in Gnit (Kathy Preher/Actors Theatre of Louisville, 2013)

Residence by Laura Jacqmin
New mom Maggie returns to her sales job, checking into an extended-stay hotel and pursues the commission that will get her back on track. When she befriends two hotel employees intent on making her visit a five-star experience, they discover their lives are all on shaky ground—it's a sharply-observed story about hanging onto the end of your rope and when letting go might be the responsible choice.

For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday by Sarah Ruhl
Decades ago, Ann played Peter Pan at an Iowa children's theatre. Her physician father even interrupted his rounds to bring her flowers. Now, she and her siblings are saying goodbye to their dying father. They argue about politics, tell jokes, and wonder what it means to grow up. The play is a love letter to a large family contending with the march of time and the allure of Neverland. Ruhl's In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) was nominated for three Tony Awards in 2010.

This Random World by Steven Dietz
We want to believe serendipity brings us together, but does it? Mining the comedy of missed connections, this play asks the question of how often we travel parallel paths without noticing. From an ailing woman who plans one final trip and her daughter who plans one great escape to her son falling for a prank gone wrong, this funny and heartbreaking story explores lives happening just outside of our reach.

Wellesley Girl by Brendan Pelsue
It's 2465 and American politics hasn't changed much—except now America is just a handful of New England towns in a walled-in citadel. When an army encamps at the border Congress struggles to move beyond personal agendas and procedural bickering to decide our nation's fate. With astute humor and wicked intelligence, this play exposes an unsettling truth: Sometimes all you can do is flip a coin and hope history proves you right.

From the 39th Humana Festival of New American Plays: Sharon Washington, Kevin R. Free and Marjorie Johnson in Dot (Bill Brymer/Actors Theatre of Louisville, 2015)

Cardboard Piano by Hansol Jung
On the eve of the millennium in Northern Uganda, the daughter of an American missionary and a local girl exchange vows in a secret wedding ceremony. When an escalating civil war encroaches on their union, they cannot escape its consequences. Confronting the cost of intolerance, this powerful drama examines violence and the struggle to rebuild in its wake.

Wondrous Strange by Martyna Majok, Meg Miroshnik, Jiehae Park and Jen Silverman
Members of the Actors Theatre Apprentice Company—one of America's oldest pre-professional training programs—wrote this production. Four imaginative playwrights use Kentucky's ghost lore to examine what haunts us and what we'll leave behind. A wide-ranging exploration of the supernatural, it reveals what our ghost stories say about us.

Before and After
The Humana Festival offers special events throughout its six-week run such as Friday Festival happy hours and Saturday panel conversations with artists and innovators. These events are free but ticketed, so plan ahead. For first timers, it's important to note the Festival builds to a crescendo as new plays are added each weekend. If you want to see most or all of them, it's best to book a later weekend.

To catch some rising stars, go for College Days (March 25-27), when hundreds of theater students will descend on Louisville to see four world premieres and be inspired by this year's keynoter, Rajiv Joseph. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and award-winning playwright, Joseph wrote the hit, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.

The Festival's finale (April 7-10) is a showstopper gathering the nation's top producers, staff, artists, agents and others under one roof. It's also the weekend of the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association awards (separate charge) and the Humana Festival Bas—a closing celebration toasting another season of America's newest dramatic talents.

Exterior of Actors Theatre (Bill Brymer)

Downtown Louisville offers a range of accommodations from upscale 21c Museum Hotel—a full-service hostelry that doubles as an eclectic modern art museum; to the recently-opened Courtyard by Marriott Louisville Downtown just around the corner from Actors Theatre. Both of these hotels (and many others) offer special Festival pricing.

Between shows, check out Louisville's culinary and drink options:

The Oakroom at the Seelbach Hotel—The Great Gatsby's Daisy Buchanan had her wedding reception here, so you know it'll be full of decadent flourishes. Enjoy a seven-course tasting menu for $115 or consider Sunday brunch, which was a favorite of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Proof on Main—the hip eatery adjacent to 21c Museum Hotel, one of America's original art-focused accommodations, also offers more than 75 of Kentucky's finest bourbons.

Urban Bourbon Trail—go old school with a printed passport-style booklet, or download the app to discover all the local haunts. Visit six and receive a Trailblazer T-shirt and official Citizen of Bourbon Country certificate.

For general Louisville trip planning, visit GoToLouisville.com/.

A portion of travel was provided as a professional courtesy.

Sarah Jaquay is a travel writer in Cleveland who writes for AAA Journeys Magazine, TheWineBuzz Magazine, Currents, Country Living and many other publications. She plans her theater escapes during the first snowfall.

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