Urbanite Theatre announces its inaugural season

The Urbanite Theatre, Sarasota’s newest theatrical organization and space, have announced a trio of productions for their inaugural season. The three dramatic works personify the Urbanite Theatre’s mission: contemporary and thought-provoking.

Opening the Urbanite Theatre’s first season will be the United States premiere of “Chicken Shop” by Anna Jordan. Being presented in an original version of the play, the Urbanite Theatre’s opening salvo tells the story of Hendrix, a teenager adapting to the tumultuous highs and lows of adulthood. The play was named the 2014 London Fringe Production of the Year by the West End Frame awards. The new script, which has been a joint collaboration between Jordan and co-artistic directors Brendan Ragan and Summer Wallace, will move the play’s setting from the United Kingdom to the United States. The show will run from April 10 to May 3.

Second on the Urbanite’s theatrical docket is a production of “Reborning” by Zayd Dohrn. Running from June 12 to July 5, the play focuses on the young sculptor Kelly, who creates disturbingly realistic baby dolls, and her encounter with Emily, who is yearning to recreate her past. This is just the dark comedy’s fifth production. Dohrn, who was the son of former 1960s radical group Weather Underground leaders Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, has earned numerous artistic prizes including the 2015 Chautauqua New Play Commision, Theatre Masters’ Visionary Playwright Award and the Kennedy Center Jean Kennedy Smith Award.

Wrapping up the Urbanite Theatre’s summer season is the regional premiere of the historic-fiction work “Isaac’s Eye” by Lucas Hnath. The play runs from August 14 to September 6 and centers on a young Sir Isaac Newton as he tries to understand the concepts of human perspective, optics and light. The piece is a fusion of fantasy and history. Hnath creates his own world based on Newton’s plague-ravaged London and Newton’s journey from farm boy to one of the foundations of modern science. Hnath is accomplished in his own right with several of his plays premiering at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, KY, the South Coast Repertory in California, Playwrights Horizon in New York City and the Royal Court Theatre in London.

Open auditions for “Chicken Shop” will be held on from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Feb. 15. at the Urbanite Theatre located at 1487 Second St.