CARLSBAD — New Village Arts has announced three musicals and two plays as part of its upcoming 23rd season.
This will be the second season for New Village Arts in the renovated and renamed Dea Hurston New Village Arts Center. The season will focus on diverse voices that examine what it means to believe in something, according to the nonprofit cultural arts hub.
Four of the five productions have never received full productions in the San Diego-area before, and three of the five shows are written by women playwrights.
“New Village Arts’ 23rd season is all about belief: belief in music to soothe the soul, belief in history and knowing what is ‘true,’ belief in magic, belief in self and strong-ass women, and belief in community,” writes Founder and Executive Artistic Director Kristianne Kurner. “What does it mean to put your trust in something and what happens when things don’t turn out quite as you had expected? Who (or what) do you turn to? This season, we turn to music, history, family, science, art, love and back to music. These are the things that bring us together throughout our lives and it’s only through the magic of theatre in NVA’s intimate space that we are able to experience these things fully.”
This season’s directors include Gerilyn Brault, Daniel Jáquez, Faith Carrion, Kay McNellen, Kym Pappas and Juliana Frey-Méndez.
New Village Arts kicks off the season in August with nostalgia in “8-Track: The Sounds of the ‘70s,” directed by Brault.
“8-Track” is a fast-paced musical romp through one of the most impassioned decades of the 20th century. This music lovers’ dream come true features the hits of The Emotions, The Carpenters, Labelle, Barry Manilow, Marvin Gaye, The Doobie Brothers, The Bee Gees, Helen Reddy, KC and the Sunshine Band and many others.
“8-Track” performers include Kevane La’Marr Coleman, Melissa Fernandes, Juanita Harris and Kyros Shen with understudy Joy Newbegin.
“I’m so excited to start the season at a theatre that means so much to me,” Brault said. “This show is nothing but fun as we celebrate the great music of the 1970s. Our team is filled with delightful people that will ensure patrons have a wonderful time. I can wait to end the summer with such a fun musical review.”
The next production of the season is “The Thanksgiving Play,” where four well-intentioned theatre people walk into an elementary school to put on a Thanksgiving pageant that won’t ruffle any feathers.
Rambunctious, thorny and not altogether politically correct, “The Thanksgiving Play” serves up “the hypocrisies of woke America on a big, family-style platter,” according to New Village Arts.
“The Thanksgiving Play” is New Village Arts’ first play written by an indigenous playwright, Larissa FastHorse, which had a lauded Broadway run in 2023 and has since become one of the most produced shows in the country.
The show will feature one of San Diego’s best-known comedic actors, Samantha Ginn, as the well-meaning but somewhat clueless schoolteacher Logan. Ginn has previously appeared in multiple shows at New Village Arts and also heads up its theatrical programs for teens and young adults with neurodiversity.
Daniel Jáquez will direct the play.
“I‘ve long admired Larissa FastHorse, her integrity, her wit, her clarity, her joy and her approach to life in the arts. Her play provides an opportunity to laugh at oneself and at our valiant attempts to right some wrongs,” Jáquez said. “It’s a play that invites us to laugh and to learn more about Native Americans and about the day some call National Day of Mourning. As I dive into the play, I’ll be curious about the parallels that I, a Mexican American, might discover. My Kentucky born-and-raised mother brought all aspects of the Americana Thanksgiving celebration with her to Mexico. I love turkey and all its traditional trimmings, and we never questioned why… though Macy’s had all the answers we needed at the time.”
Next up for the holidays, New Village Arts will feature a musical adaptation of the classic “Miracle on 34th Street” told in the style of a radio play and created by San Diego artists Jon Lorenz and Lance Arthur Smith.
Two emerging directors on the San Diego theatre scene, Faith Carrion and Kay McNellen, will co-direct this show, in which Doris Walker, a no-nonsense Macy’s executive, desperately searches for a new store Santa Claus. She hires Kris Kringle who insists that he’s the real thing, but he has many skeptics including Doris and her 6-year-old daughter Susan.
New Village Arts’ first production of 2025 will be “The Half-Life of Marie Curie,” which, according to the nonprofit, revels in the power of female friendship as it explores the relationship between two brilliant women, both of whom are mothers, widows and fearless champions of scientific inquiry.
In 1911, Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for her discovery of elements radium and polonium. By 1912, she was the object of ruthless gossip over an alleged affair with the married Frenchman Paul Langevin, all but erasing her achievements from public memory.
Weakened and demoralized by the press lambasting her as a “foreign” Jewish temptress and a homewrecking traitor, Curie agrees to join her friend and colleague Hertha Ayrton, an electromechanical engineer and suffragette, and recover from the scandal at Hertha’s seaside retreat on the British coast.
Kym Pappas, the director, also recently directed the critically acclaimed “Fun Home” and appeared most recently as an actor in the nonprofit’s production of “Doubt” and “The Ferryman.”
“The thing that excites me the most about ‘The Half-Life of Marie Curie’ by Lauren Gunderson is that it centers the friendship of two brilliant, remarkable, imperfect women,” Pappas said. “It is a beautiful love story – an examination of the way we show up for each other and challenge each other… and ultimately carry each other through.”
The final show of the season will step back to the 1960s to honor La Havana Madrid, a real nightclub in Chicago where newly arrived Latino immigrants gathered to dine, dance and find community. Sandra Delgado’s “La Havana Madrid” is inspired by real stories of Cuban, Puerto Rican and Colombian immigrants who found refuge in that vibrant second-floor supper club in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago.
As the rhythms of mambo and salsa form the heartbeat of an ever-changing city, audiences learn the stories of Latine newcomers seeking a home in Chicago, discovering their destinies and falling madly in love.
“I am absolutely thrilled to be directing ‘La Havana Madrid’ at New Village Arts in the upcoming season,” said Juliana Frey-Méndez. “For me, this play is a celebration: a music-filled kaleidoscope of the history of a long since forgotten nightclub in Chicago.
This season’s sponsors include Prebys Foundation, Jazzercise, County of San Diego, City of Carlsbad Cultural Arts Office and Visit Carlsbad. Sponsorship opportunities are available upon request.
Subscriptions for the 23rd show season are now on sale starting at $135 with both a four-show and five-show option. More information can be found at newvillagearts.org or by calling the box office at 760-433-3245.
New Village Arts Season 23 Shows:
“8-Track: The Sounds of the ‘70s”
- Created by Rick Seeber
- Directed by Gerilyn Brault
- Musical direction by EY Washington
- Choreography by Joy Newbegin
- Previews: Aug. 16 to 23
- Opening Night: Aug. 24
- Ends: Sept. 15
“The Thanksgiving Play”
- Written by Larissa FastHorse
- Directed by Daniel Jáquez
- Previews: Oct. 4 to 11
- Opening Night: Oct. 12
- Ends: Nov. 3
“Miracle on 34th Street”
- Adapted by Lance Arthur Smith
- Original Songs and Arrangements by Jon Lorenz
- Directed by Faith Carrion and Kay McNellen
- Previews: Nov. 22 to 29
- Opening Night: Nov. 30.
- Ends: Dec. 24
“The Half-Life of Marie Curie”
- Written by Lauren Gunderson
- Directed by Kym Pappas
- Previews: Jan. 24 to 31, 2025
- Opening Night: Feb. 1, 2025
- Ends: Feb. 23, 2025
“La Havana Madrid”
- Written by Sandra Delgado
- Directed by Juliana Frey-Méndez
- Previews: March 21 to 28, 2025
- Opening Night: March 29, 2025
- Ends: April 27, 2025
Performance Days and Times
- Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday Matinees at 2 p.m.
- Thursday, Friday and Saturday Evenings at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets and Subscriptions
- Subscriptions for the season range from $135 to $297.
- Single Tickets are on sale now ranging from $35 to $60 for plays and $40 to $70 for musicals.
