Missed Connections
Intersection for the Arts and company-in-residence Campo Santo are on a roll. Having debuted Chinaka Hodge’s marvelous Mirrors in Every Corner this February, they’re now introducing another impressive young emerging playwright with Sharif Abu-Hamdeh’s Habibi. This is no coincidence. The result of long development processes through Campo Santo’s new play lab, these plays constitute a sort of trilogy of world premieres by first-time playwrights, along with Dennis Kim’s New Tree Legends next fall.
Unhappy in Its Own Way
Aurora’s first main stage production to come out of its annual Global Age Project new works series, Joel Drake Johnson’s The First Grade isn’t at all what the title or the set might lead one to expect. Nina Ball’s scenic design is themed around a first grade classroom, with a hand-printed alphabet banner, inspirational posters on the wall and lockers that look drawn in crayon or chalk. Wall panels rotate to form a kitchen interior or the exterior of a house.
