The 43rd Annual Humana Festival Of New American Plays Lineup!

By Laura Mullaney

Actors Theatre of Louisville proudly announces the lineup for the 43rd Humana Festival of New American Plays.  A cultural highlight for theatre lovers, artists and producers across the country, the Humana Festival runs March 1 through April 7, 2019 in Louisville.

This year’s Festival program will feature five world premieres, listed in order of first performance:

• We’ve Come to Believe by Kara Lee Corthron, Emily Feldman and Matthew Paul Olmos
• The Corpse Washer adapted by Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace, from the novel of the same name by Sinan Antoon
• The Thin Place by Lucas Hnath
• How to Defend Yourself by Lily Padilla, co-world premiere with Victory Gardens Theater
• Everybody Black by Dave Harris

By investing in the future of playwriting, Actors Theatre makes a significant impact not only on the national theatre canon, but also on the economic prosperity and cultural vibrancy of Louisville. The 2018 Festival was attended by more than 38,000 people, with visitors from 41 states and 52 colleges and universities represented in the audience.

For over four decades, Actors Theatre of Louisville has been a driving force in new play development, introducing more than 450 plays into the American theatre repertoire and representing the work of more than 400 playwrights and ensembles. The internationally acclaimed Humana Festival is recognized as a crucial incubator for new work and a launchpad for myriad subsequent productions around the country and the world. Plays  that have recently premiered at Actors Theatre—including Molly Smith Metzler’s Cry it Out, Leah Nanako Winkler’s God Said This, Jen Silverman’s The Roommate and Colman Domingo’s Dot—have continued to be produced on stages far and wide.

This year’s lineup of plays will be performed in rotating repertory in three theatres located in Actors Theatre’s downtown Louisville complex: the 633-seat Pamela Brown Auditorium, 318-seat Bingham Theatre and 159-seat Victor Jory Theatre. The 2019 Humana Festival schedule also offers a weekend of enrichment events for college students, and features special weekend packages for theatre lovers and practitioners alike. These weekends are packed with discussions, networking opportunities and parties, making Louisville an exciting destination for the American theatre this spring.

Weekend packages for the 2019 Humana Festival of New American Plays are now on sale and are available for the following weekends, enabling you to see a variety of Humana Festival plays and access special events: March 15-17, March 22-24, March 29-31 and April 5-7, 2019. Packages are available for theatre lovers and practitioners on all Festival weekends, and for college students and professors the weekend of March 22-24.. Single tickets prices start at $25, and go on sale January 3, 2019. For more information, please visit ActorsTheatre.org or call our Box Office at 502.584.1205.

Actors Theatre celebrates the 43rd Humana Festival with underwriter the Humana Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Humana, Inc. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.