Providence’s Wilbury Theatre: Upcoming Season Features Original Rose Weaver Play and More
Saturday, June 18, 2022
The Wilbury Theatre Group in Providence has announced its productions for their upcoming 2022-23 Season.
The shows include the 2016 Tony Award winner for Best Play, The Humans, by Stephen Karam; Obie Award winner We’re Gonna Die by Young Jean Lee; Indecent from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel; and the world premiere of a new musical by playwright and poet Darcie Dennigan, Off With Their Heads.
Also in the lineup? The world premiere of veteran Rhode Island actress Rose Weaver’s Silhouette of a Silhouette.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWinner of the 2018 National Theater Company Award from the American Theatre Wing, The Wilbury is a professional, nonprofit theatre company that “engages the community in thought-provoking conversation through new works, reimagined classics and adventurous playmaking” — and Artistic Director Josh Short said he is particularly excited for the upcoming season.
“The pandemic really gave us an opportunity to refocus and reevaluate our values,” Short told GoLocal. “We were caught in a cycle where our new works had been sort of ‘second tier’ to our ‘main tier’ — the upcoming season it’s really about refocusing on our commitment to supporting local artists.”
Weaver’s Latest Act
According to Wilbury, Silhouette of a Silhouette is the world premiere work from acclaimed and award-winning Rhode Island actress Weaver.
Inspired by loss, it is a story of redemption and hope told through music, song, and scenes – the story of a family struck by tragedy, and how we pick the pieces up to move on again.
“I love telling stories…I just love it,” said Weaver in an interview with GoLocal.
Weaver said it was in the course of working with Short and playwright and director Don Mays on God Talks to an Agnostic at the Wilbury, that Short asked Weaver if she had original material she could share.
Not only did Weaver have a play — she had a trilogy.
“They’re all based on things that happened in my family,” said Weaver. “One of my brothers go into drugs and got AIDS from needle use, and toward the end, he started seeing the devil.”
“He was trying to be like my stepfather, who was an industrious man who couldn’t read a lick but knew how to hustle, who said if Joe Kennedy can sell liquor, so can I,” said Weaver. “All the boys got involved in drugs. So in this play, the devil and God are fighting for Bobby’s soul — we tried to save him. Us humans don’t have power against that kind of power. Good and evil exist in everyone. Oftentimes we practice both of them.”
“We’re trying to save him, and this setting is difficult,” said Weaver, of the first play in her trilogy. “He ends up in the house of some white people in Georgia while he’s hallucinating, and their life’s another story. All of these stories are silhouettes of something else.”
Weaver, who has been splitting time between her home state of Georgia and Rhode Island, said she is excited to be partnering with The Wilbury to bring her play to the stage.
“They’re good,” said Weaver of The Wilbury. “People like Josh have hung in there and done some really excellent work which he was trained to do. Everyone can’t work at Trinity and PPAC. But they are giving Trinity a run for their money.”
Currently, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 is running through June 26.
Main Photo by Erin X. Smithers
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