Williamstown Theatre Festival has announced full casting and creative teams for their Summer 2023 Main Stage Reading Series, which will feature Hamish Linklater's Paris, ACTORS!; Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters; and Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman.
This season will focus on minimally staged productions in order to focus their resources on reimagining the Festival's operations in light of many current and former employees speaking out against the festival's work culture.
The Williamstown Theatre summer programming will kick off with comedian Hasan Minhaj (The Daily Show, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj), who will work through his new material in Experiment Time. The six-performance engagement will play July 12-15. He will be followed by Tony winner Laura Benanti, who will present a one-night-only concert engagement July 16.
The Main Stage Reading Series begins July 22 and 23 with Hamish Linklater's backstage farce Paris, ACTORS!, which will be directed by Tony winner Jack O'Brien and star Linklater and Lily Rabe alongside Gus Birney, Noah Robbins, and Jordan Tyson. Set in 1944 Paris, film actor—and Nazi—Werner Krauss is aiming to star in a propagandist play, but the French theatre producing it is teeming with secrets. Paris, ACTORS! is "The Last Metro if Truffaut were unavailable to direct, but the Marx Brothers were."
Next, running July 29 and 30, Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters will star real-life sisters Grace Gummer, Mamie Gummer, and Louisa Jacobson, alongside Henry Wolfe Gummer, John Rothman, Edmund Donovan, Tony Award winner Robert Sean Leonard, and Dario Ladani Sanchez. Paul Schmidt will translate the Chekhov classic, which follows three Russian sisters in the wake of their father's death and a changing Russia, grappling with existential longing, unrequited love, and family conflict. Further casting and creative team will be announced shortly.
The series will conclude August 5 and 6 with Martin McDonagh's psychological thriller The Pillowman, directed by Drama Desk and Obie Award winner Lila Neugebauer. Set in a totalitarian dictatorship, a young author is interrogated by authorities after a string of murders that seem to imitate his short stories. The dark comedy begs the question: can art really be separated from the artist? Casting for The Pillowman will be announced shortly.
For more information, visit WTFestival.org.
