The Lanford Wilson Project to Run a Pair of Wilson Plays in Repertory

Open Circle Play Factory, under the artistic direction of Mac McCarty, has announced a limited off-Broadway engagement of the Lanford Wilson Project.

Celebrating the works of Wilson (one of the founders of the Circle Repertory Company), the Lanford Wilson Project features The Mound Builders and Sympathetic Magic, both directed by McCarty and performed in repertory over a four-week period. Performances will run from November 23-December 18 at Theater Five, Theater Row.

The cast of The Mound Builders: Disunion features Carson Alexander, Angela Atwood, Steve Carlsen, Kelsey Claire, Stella Marcus, Tamra Paselk, and Jeffrey C. Wolf. The play is a mystery set around an archeological dig in Southern Illinois and is filled with characters both funny and exasperating. It looks at themes of ambition, privilege versus aspiration, the dangers of patriarchy, the repression of women, and the tragic results that occur when these issues collide in acts of hubris.

The cast of Sympathetic Magic: Coming Together features Matthew Bechtold, Taylor Lynn Carter, Pethio Dav, Katherine King, Mitch Lerner, Phil Rafferty, Alexander Spears, and Athena Torres. The story follows a group of intense and clever San Franciscans — artists, scientists, spiritual searchers and lost souls — who continue to struggle with the themes of Part 1 (The Mound Builders). While dealing with artistic failure and scientific uncertainty in the midst of a pandemic, they endeavor in their fierce and lively way to overcome the tragedies of the past and rise up.

A pioneer of the off-off-Broadway theater movement, Wilson penned 17 full-length plays throughout his career. In 1969, he co-founded Circle Repertory Company with his longtime collaborators Marshall W. Mason, Tanya Berezin, and Rob Thirkield, and in 1980, he earned the Pulitzer Prize for his play Talley's Folly.

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