The three-week retreat at the Banff Centre, from March 27-April 17, allows writers to see their developing work presented in a supportive environment with the aid of a professional director and cast.
Scottsboro Boys and Passing Strange actor Domingo will be represented with the dark comedy Wild with Happy, under the direction of Robert O'Hara. Domingo, who also starred in his own solo play A Boy and His Soul, will explore "the surreal, bizarre and outrageous comedy that lies in everyone’s search for answers as they try to deal with death and healing," when a young man named Gil plans to scatter his mothers ashes in the place where she was the most happy: Disneyland.
Tony Award winner Ted Sperling (The Light in the Piazza, Titanic) and Jonathan Butterell (The Light in the Piazza, Giant) will co-direct Like Water for Chocolate, which features a book by Tony Award nominee Quiara Alegria Hudes (In the Heights), and music by Mexican singer-songwriter Lila Downs and her longtime collaborator Paul Cohen.
Like Water for Chocolate, which "incorporates Mexican cooking and the power of food, the magical realism of Mexican folk tales, and both contemporary and ancient theater techniques," will have design by Michael Levine and puppet design by Michael Curry.
Sundance will also guide Africa Kills Her Sun, which was last developed as part of the Sundance Kenya Lab. The work was created by adapter/performers Mrisho Mpoto and Irene Sanga, as well as composer Elidady Msangi and assistant director and performer Gilbert Lukalia. Indhu Rubasingham will direct. The play, based on the novel by Nigerian author Ken Saro-Wiwa, is described as "a condemned man’s last letter to his loved one." The original text is combines with slam poetry and storytelling to explore corruption and the abuse of power in Africa.
Trip Cullman will direct Janine Nabers' Annie Bosh Is Missing, which centers on a young, recovering drug addict who returns home to her Houston family and attempts to reconnect during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Jennifer Haley's Froggy, about a young woman who winds up in a Mojave Desert ghost town after spotting her long lost lover in a bootleg video game, will be directed by Matt Marrow.
Light Years to the Delling Shore is Sam Marks' play about two grown men with a competitive past, who take their college-age daughters along with them for a weekend of catching up over wine, cheese, literary games and bad behavior.
Chay Yew will direct the new musical Stuck Elevator, written by Aaron Jafferis with a score by Byron Au Yong. The work is based on the true story of an undocumented immigrant who survived 81 hours in a Bronx elevator.
The Debate Society will be represented with Untitled Worlds Fair Play by Hanna Bos and Paul Thureen. Oliver Butler will direct the Chicago-set play, which takes place in 1893 and in 1933, as the unfinished business of the past resurfaces.
Sundance provides each selected artist with a $500 honorarium, as well as artistic support including actors, dramaturges, rehearsal space and stage management. Each lab culminates in a presentation for the theatre lab community and a feedback session with Sundance staff.
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