The new docu-solo from Anna Deavere Smith and older titles from Tracy Letts and Bruce Norris are on the 2016-17 season slate at Off Broadway’s Second Stage Theater.
The latest from writer-performer Smith (“Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” “Nurse Jackie”), “Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education,” is culled from more than 200 interviews centering on the realities of the U.S. education and justice systems that push poor students from schools to prisons. Directed by Leonard Foglia (“Master Class”), “Notes from the Field” will have a run this summer at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. prior to an Oct. 11 start date at Second Stage. (An earlier version of the show, directed by Leah C. Gardner, played at Berkeley Rep last year.)
“Man from Nebraska,” the 2003 play by Letts (“August: Osage County”) that was finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, centers on the far-reaching journey a Midwestern man undertakes after he loses his faith. David Cromer (“Our Town,” “The Effect”) directs a production gearing up for a winter 2017 run.
The play by Norris (“Clybourne Park”), “A Parallelogram,” originally bowed in 2010 and follows a woman who can use a remote control to switch between moments in her life. Michael Greif (“Rent”), whose Second Stage production of “Dear Evan Hansen” will move to Broadway in the fall, directs a production scheduled for summer 2017.
Full details for the shows — including casting, exact dates and a fourth show — remain to be set. During the same season, Second Stage will begin renovations on the Helen Hayes Theater, purchased to become a Broadway footprint for the New York nonprofit.
