Second Thought Theatre, one of Dallas’ most thought-provoking theater companies, is marking its twentieth season with two regional premieres, an American premiere and a new playwrighting initiative.
Founded in 2003, the theater company is known for its intimate productions that challenge audiences to reconsider pressing issues and feature North Texas’ top talent. This season is designed to foster empathy and anticipates what is coming up in 2024. All performances will take place at Bryant Hall on the campus of the Kalita Humphrey Theatre in Dallas.
The 2024 season begins with the regional premiere of Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Texas native playwright and filmmaker Will Arbery, directed by Jay Duffer and assistant directed by Alejandro Saucedo. The show runs March 27 – April 13.
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Heroes is “intentionally selected for a Dallas audience in an election year,” said Second Thought Theatre’s Executive Director, Parker Gray.
“When four alumnus of a conservative college reunite under the stars, they find themselves confronting theology, politics, and personal responsibility,” said Carson McCain, the Dallas theatre’s Artistic Director. “Will Arbery masterfully crafts this haunting play all about the vicious fight to be known and understood.”
Heroes of the Fourth Turning was a 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama Finalist, the winner of the 2020 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, the New Your Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, and Whiting Award for Drama.
The Scene
McCain explains why this show fits the 2024 season.
“Growing up in rural Texas, I found myself particularly enthralled by these characters. This play is uniquely able to invoke horror and foster empathy. Rarely have I encountered characters I disagree with so wholeheartedly, and yet they want what we all do; to be heard. To make a difference. I chose this play for STT not only because of Will Arbery, but because it made me uncomfortable. And this particular discomfort, I think, can be incredibly useful,” she said.
The season continues with the regional premiere of Jen Silverman’s Wink, directed by Jenna Burnett and starring Garret Storms as Wink the Cat. The show runs June 26-July 13.
“Few things in this world make sense to me,” Gray said. “But four things that make absolute, perfect sense to me? The combination of a Jen Silverman play, directed by Jenna Burnett, starring Garret Storms as a cat, and all on a Second Thought stage. That’s a perfect, wacky, holy, theatrical quadrinity, if you ask me."
Wink follows unhappy housewife Sofie and her breadwinning husband, Gregor, who both seek weekly counseling from an unorthodox therapist, Doctor Frans. Their current topic of disagreement: the cat, Wink. When Wink goes missing, violent desires, domestic anarchy, and feline vengeance emerge, threatening the neatly ordered reality Sophie, Gregor, and Doctor Frans have constructed.
Storms recommended the play about a vengeful cat to McCain a couple of years ago.
“This play explores our base desires, our violent urges, our need for connection, the parts of us we do and don’t like. If you’ve ever wanted to be a fly on the wall in someone else’s therapy session, this is the play for you,” McCain said.
The season wraps up with the national premiere of British playwright Debbie Tucker Green’s hang, directed by Sasha Maya Ada, running October 16 – November 2. The play is quite simple: His life. In her hands. green’s hang is a shattering play about one woman’s unspeakable decision.
“Is punishment justice? Or is it revenge?” McCain said. “hang asks us to take a cold hard look at injustice and forgiveness. It asks us to consider a legacy of pain, and how systems are complicit. But it also asks us to consider individuals as complicated and nuanced.”
Gray promises the show will be provocative.
“This play is a punch. A punch to the head, a punch to the heart, a punch to the gut. When Carson and I read this play, we knew immediately it was a Second Thought play, and that Sasha Maya Ada needed to direct it. Admirers of Second Thought's 2022 hit production of Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over can expect Sasha and Second Thought to deliver a similar, but altogether singular experience with this American premiere by Debbie Tucker Green - that will be sure to leave you talking in the parking lot afterwards," Gray said.
2024 marks the inauguration of Second Thought Theatre’s playwriting initiative, Thought Process: A Playwriting Cohort. This year-long, monthly meeting of local writers provides a safe, low-stakes space for playwrights to interact with their peers, share pages from old, new, or commissioned work, and most importantly: write. This cohort seeks to give each playwright the experience they want for their work in order to serve their play, without the pressures of an institution making the work “producible”.
“Opportunities for theatre artists in DFW are growing - and when Carson and I looked around the community for ways to continue serving and cultivating the incredible talent we have in the metroplex, one group stood out to us: playwrights. There are so many incredible writers we know here in DFW, and many, I’m sure, we have not been introduced to yet. However, opportunities for local writers to develop and experiment with their work are few and far between. So: enter Thought Process. In the metroplex - reading festivals exist, full productions exist, but a space for the hard work before a reading? Or the middle ground where a script is between drafts? That’s what we want to offer: a safe, supportive, and enticing space for local writers to ‘write around and find out’,” Gray said.
Learn more: Second Thought Theatre
