(Pray) and Travels Headline Ars Nova’s 2023-24 Season

The delayed world premiere of (pray) will open the 2023-24 season at Ars Nova, the off-Broadway company behind recent musicals like Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 and Oratorio for Living Things.

Written, directed, and choreographed by nicHi douglas, (pray) features music by S T A R R Busby and JJJJJerome Ellis. According to an official description, “Through music, movement, and human connection, (pray) celebrates and reckons with the complexity of spiritual inheritance, summoning the curiosity, anger, confusion, and bliss that transcends generations of Black women across the African diaspora. Channeling the joy and vitality of a Sunday Baptist Church service through a surreal and Afrofuturist lens, (pray) serves as an invitation to examine one’s own spiritual practices and holds space to inspire human transformation through the liberation of the Black feminine divine.”

Ars Nova commissioned the piece, which is a co-production with National Black Theatre. It had been scheduled to make its world premiere last spring, but was postponed. It will now perform September 23-October 28 at Greenwich House, Ars Nova’s downtown satellite.

From March 15-April 13, Ars Nova’s uptown space will host the world premiere of James Harrison Monaco’s Travels. According to a press release, “This cross-continental play-meets-electronic-music-set fuses synthesizers with storytelling to share accounts of modern-day travel  – from vacation to work trips, border-crossing, asylum-seeking and long-distance relationships. Over the span of a setlist sown with adventure, heartbreak and euphoria, audiences traverse the complex topography of language, borders, power and privilege one beat at a time.” Andrew Scoville (associate director of Here Lies Love) helms the piece.

Once again this season, all tickets to Ars Nova will be “Name Your Price,” allowing patrons to name their own ticket price, starting at $5.

You can read more about Ars Nova’s upcoming season, and the special events that will be presented in addition to the two off-Broadway productions, here.