The 2021 Humana Festival of New American Plays

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A Virtual Exhibition Of New Work And Emergent Technologies

Actors Theatre of Louisville is an arts and culture organization as social enterprise, sharing experiences centered in a commitment to create a more just society. In pursuing this synthesis of art and service, we’ve begun a deep dive into digital production and have become an interdisciplinary laboratory for a storytelling (r)evolution.

The Humana Festival of New American Plays has always been about bringing together extraordinary artists and expanding the possibilities of form and content, and in that spirit, this year we’re transforming our annual celebration of world premieres into a 2021 virtual exhibition of new work and emergent technologies. 

Continue reading the full scoop about this year’s festival.

Projects will become available on a rolling basis over the coming months. Share your email to stay in the know!

Block Association Project

written by Michael Yates Crowley
directed by Michael Rau
created by Wolf 359
April 20 – May 1, 2021
Welcome to the Oak Street Block Association, a group of neighbors fired up to work for the common good...if anyone can agree on what that means. Join our inaugural Zoom meeting and participate in neighborhood decisions in this funny, thought-provoking look at what makes a community, and what breaks it.


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Professional Training Company Projects

created by the 2020-2021 Actors Theatre of Louisville Professional Training Company
April 16 – May 31, 2021
This collection of boldly imaginative short pieces is the culmination of the Professional Training Company’s season spent learning how to create, film, edit, and produce their own work.
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Still Ready

created and performed by
Christina Acosta Robinson and Ken Robinson
directed by Robert Barry Fleming
commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville
Coming May 2021
This three-part docuseries is fueled by the creative sparks that fly between the Robinsons: a married couple who have navigated careers as Black performers on the Great White Way, inspiring each other through their art and music.

Meet the Artists

Ali Summit

written by Idris Goodwin
directed by Robert Barry Fleming
produced in collaboration with
Crux Cooperative
commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville
Coming May 2021
Inspired by the 1967 summit of prominent Black athletes who met to question Muhammad Ali about his conscientious objection to military service, this virtual project is a collaboration between playwright Idris Goodwin, director Robert Barry Fleming, and the extended reality storytellers and immersive artists of Crux Cooperative.

Meet the Artists

Beyond the Crossroads

created by Candrice Jones and Ruffin
produced in collaboration with
Crux Cooperative
commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville
Coming May 2021
In this interactive adventure from the minds of two remarkable Black women—writer Candrice Jones and creative media technologies thought leader Ruffin—you can help a young Blues singer chart her own path and liberate the music that’s in her heart.

Meet the Artists

Plague Doctor:
Contagion 430 BCE–2020 AD

a video game developed in partnership with Two Scoop Games
game design by Alex Bezuska
story by Robert Barry Fleming
and Jenni Page-White
In Development
In this new interactive video game, explore the profound upheaval unleashed during four public health crises that changed history—and race against time to control the outbreaks for the sake of humanity.

Meet the Artists

Louisville Sessions: Full Jam

Featuring Tiny Tiny, Chanson Calhoun, Bridge 19, Kiana & the Sun Kings, Sasha Renee, Tez of 2Deep, and more.
Coming Summer 2021
Celebrating the vast sound, feel, and artistry of Kentucky’s music scene, this compilation features original music videos from extraordinary local bands and solo artists—each responding to the current moment through an original song captured visually.

Meet the Artists & Watch Previous Sessions

The Clinic

Artistic Director and Founder: Tara Rynders
In Development
Actors Theatre of Louisville is developing a partnership with nurse and dancer Tara Rynders, artistic director of The Clinic, to support nurses in our region. Through immersive experiences and resiliency moments that counteract compassion fatigue and nursing burnout, this work helps frontline healers rediscover the joy of caregiving. More About The Clinic

Meet Tara Rynders

More about the 2021 Humana Festival

This year’s Humana Festival continues Actors Theatre of Louisville’s evolution as a company that embraces transmedia storytelling on multiple platforms. Adding to our growing library of digital experiences, we’ll be rolling out projects that seek to transport audiences into surprising, previously unimagined story worlds where you can journey with a young Blues singer or with history-making athletes through virtual and extended reality, immerse yourself in an interactive video game that unfolds in four historic time periods, jam at an R&B concert in a virtual pub and supper club, join a community built online over email and ZoomOSC, and more.

Actors Theatre of Louisville’s unique creative innovation partners in this laboratory include narrative technology company Wolf 359, the Louisville-based game development studio Two Scoop Games, nurse, dancer, and Artistic Director Tara Rynders of The Clinic, and Crux Cooperative, a Black-led home for artists working in XR. These remarkable collaborators, hailing from our home state and around the globe, share the aim of building new bridges across disciplines and communities. By bringing them together with many other formidable talents, Actors Theatre of Louisville is investigating how the intersection of art, civic discourse, liberatory practices of anti-oppression, and emergent technologies can aspire to bring about socioeconomic transformation, abundance and prosperity in comprehensive health and wellness outcomes, through an investment in holistic human-centered service and creative artmaking.

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