LA JOLLA–The La Jolla Playhouse has announced the dates, selected projects and collaborators for its third Without Walls (WoW) Festival of immersive and site-based work.
The 2017 WoW Festival will take place October 19 to 22 in downtown San Diego and surrounding areas, in collaboration with several major partners, including Horton Plaza Park, Westfield Corporation; The New Children’s Museum; the San Diego Public Library; Bread and Salt and Border X Brewing; as well as ArtPower. Also new to this year’s event is the appointment of Meiyin Wang as Festival Director.
“Building on the success of our previous Without Walls Festivals, our 2017 outing will showcase works that redefine our conception of theatre, as well as the customary relationship between audience and art. In a new twist, we’re bringing this year’s Festival to downtown San Diego and environs, giving the Playhouse an opportunity to expand our reach, develop new community partnerships and offer audiences even more innovative sites and experiences,” said La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director and 2017 Tony Award winner Christopher Ashley. “We are also extremely pleased to bring on board Meiyin Wang to oversee this year’s Festival. Her extensive curatorial and producing background will help us take the WoW Festival to new heights.”
Like previous WoW Festivals, the 2017 event will showcase multiple performances by acclaimed local, national and international artists, along with a selection of family-friendly offerings, occurring simultaneously throughout the weekend. Confirmed projects include Super Night Shot by the Berlin-based Gob Squad, to take place at the San Diego Public Library, and a Playhouse-commissioned, performative installation entitled Model Home, by 2017 Tony Award-winning scenic designer and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Mimi Lien (Playhouse’s Milk Like Sugar), to take place at Horton Plaza Park. The WoW Festival will also feature projects by such local companies as Sledgehammer Theatre (2015 WoW Festival’s Heaven on Earth) with a production of Charles Mee’s Under Construction: An American Masque, produced in association with UC San Diego Department of Theatre & Dance, to take place at Logan Heights’ Bread & Salt; the storytelling group So Say We All, with the piece Incoming: Sex, Drugs, and Copenhagen, to take place in Barrio Logan’s Border X Brewing; a new version of the 2015 WoW Festival’s popular interactive family adventure, The Quest 3.0, developed in collaboration with The New Children’s Museum, where the piece will take place; and Trisha Brown Dance Company’s In Plain Site, presented by ArtPower at their UC San Diego space, in association with the WoW Festival. Additional projects will be announced at a later date.
Since its inception in 2009, the Playhouse’s signature Without Walls series has become one of San Diego’s most popular and acclaimed performance programs. Over the last eight years, the Playhouse has been commissioning and presenting a series of immersive and site-specific productions at locations throughout the San Diego community, including Susurrus (2010), The Car Plays: San Diego (2011), Sam Bendrix at the Bon Soir (2012), Accomplice: San Diego (2013), El Henry (2014), The Grift at the Lafayette Hotel (2015) and The Bitter Game (2016), as well as the biennial WoW Festival.
The 2017 Without Walls Festival is supported in part by The James Irvine Foundation and The Wallace Foundation, as well as a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Tickets for WoW Festival productions, range from free to $29, and will go on sale later this summer. For more information, visit LaJollaPlayhouse.org.
