American Theater Company has announced complete casting for the Season 33 productions WELCOME TO JESUS, directed by Artistic Director Will Davis, WE’RE GONNA BE OKAY, also directed by Davis, and DIAGRAM OF A PAPER AIRPLANE, directed by Bonnie Metzgar.

“At ATC we champion theater makers who are bold and curious about what is possible on stage,” comments Davis. “The Season 33 line up of artists exemplifies our commitment to equity, theatricality, and adventure, and we cannot wait to share their work with you.”

American Theater Company’s 17/18 Complete Casting (from the press release): 

World Premiere
Welcome to Jesus
Written by Janine Nabers
Directed by Will Davis
October 26–December 3, 2017

Cast: Taylor Blim (Dixie Danver), Theo Germaine (Bud Henderson), Rashaad Hall (Him), Casey Morris (Officer Mike Danver), Josh Odor (Coach Arthur Henderson), John Henry Roberts (Sheriff Paul Danver Sr.) and Stacy Stoltz (Ma Danver).

In fictional Hallelujah, TX, football reigns, and the quarterback is king. Janine Nabers’ darkly funny and powerful new play unearths the tyranny of small town life and the power of prejudice to define our fate. Staged in a field of wood chips, about a town in search of some good news, Welcome to Jesus fuses fable and horror in a twenty-first century take on the Southern Gothic tradition.

Chicago premiere
We’re Gonna Be Okay
Written by Basil Kreimendahl
Directed by Will Davis
January 25–March 4, 2018

Cast: Adithi Chandrashekar (Leena), BrittneyLove Smith (Mag), Saraí Rodriguez (Deanna), Avi Roque (Jake), Kelli Simpkins (Efran) and Penelope Walker (Sul).

In the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy addressed the nation, “My fellow citizens: let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out…But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.” Well, Efran and Leena and Mag and Sul are thinking about doing something. Something big. Straight from Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American Plays, Basil Kreimendahl’s We’re Gonna Be Okay confronts the fears of the American middle class as two families wrestle with macrame, female empowerment and a shared property line.

World Premiere
Diagram of a Paper Airplane
Written by Carlos Murillo
Directed by Bonnie Metzgar
May 3–June 10, 2018

Cast: Nicholas Bailey (Mario), David Cerda (Alvaro), Lawrence Grimm (Herman), Rebecca Spence (Valerie) and Allyce Torres (Lila).

Javier C. is dead, and in his wake are fragments and scraps of his magnum opus mailed mysteriously from New Mexico to his group of ex-friends in New York. Called “an absolutely extraordinary achievement from a writer at the height of his powers” by American Theatre Magazine, Carlos Murillo’s Diagram of a Paper Airplane is the first in a trilogy of plays that examine the capacity of friendships to withstand the unimaginable. Director Bonnie Metzgar brings life to a night of mourning and celebration that will leave them wondering if Diagram of a Paper Airplane ever existed at all.

For more information on ATC’s 17/18 season visit atcweb.org.