| Mint Theater to present NY Premiere of Sump'n Like Wings by Lynn Riggs author of Green Grow the Lilacs the basis for Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 07:34 am EDT 07/10/24 | |
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| Mint Theater Company To Present the New York Premiere of Sump'n Like Wings By Lynn Riggs Directed by Raelle Myrick-Hodges This Limited Off-Broadway Engagement Runs September 21st through November 2nd at Theatre Row Opening Night Is Set for October 10th Tickets on Sale Now Mint Theater Company (Jonathan Bank, Artistic Director) will present the New York Premiere of Sump'n Like Wings by Lynn Riggs, author of more than thirty plays including Green Grow the Lilacs, the basis for Rodgers & Hammerstein's landmark musical Oklahoma! Written in 1925, Sump'n Like Wings was published in 1928. Raelle Myrick-Hodges directs. Cast and creative team will be announced shortly. Mint will offer audiences the rare opportunity to see this 99-year-old play, which remains a resonant and compelling story about love, family and home. This Off-Broadway engagement at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street) will begin September 21st for a limited run through November 2nd. Opening Night is set for Thursday October 10th. "A good play often means different things to different people. As the father of a 16yr-old, for me Sump'n Like Wings is a play about parenting — I see that everywhere. You may see it as a play about growing up, or about friendship, or family, or about the need for independence or freedom — and the dangers that accompany both. Riggs has written a remarkable play about home. I'm grateful that we get to introduce it to you," said Mint Artistic Director Jonathan Bank. "When I began looking into the production history of Sump'n Like Wings, all I could find were a few ‘squibs' in the papers announcing that one producer or another had purchased an ‘option,' but no production. I started to wonder if I might have another World Premiere on my hands, like Becomes A Woman (and others). My hopes were dashed when I confirmed that the play was performed for a single night by the Detroit Playhouse at the Institute of Arts, on November 27th 1931, then a year later, November 13th 1932, in Brussels (Quelque chose comme des Ailes). Three New York producers took out options on Sump'n Like Wings, but those options all lapsed without a production. Until now!" Sump'n Like Wings is the story of Wille Baker, a 16-year-old girl too proud and too wild for the life she's living. Her mother runs the dining room in the hotel her uncle owns. Willie is stuck helping her, squirming under her thumb while her uncle argues for tenderness and compassion. Sump'n Like Wings is a story of the lessons learned by families about freedom and limits — about love, respect, and safety. It's a story about home and about leaving home. Sump'n Like Wings is set in Oklahoma, six years after the Indian and Oklahoma Territories combined to become the 46th state in the Union in 1907. Lynn Riggs owes his lasting fame to the musical named after his home state, Oklahoma!, based on his acclaimed 1930 play Green Grows the Lilacs. EnrichMINT Event Get more insight into the life & career of Lynn Riggs from Jace Weaver, the Founding Director of the Institute of Native American Studies at the University of Georgia. Weaver has written about Riggs several times, including in his seminal work of Native American literary history, That the People Might Live: Native American Literature and Native American Community. From Jace Weaver's Forward to The Cherokee Night and Other Plays: "Silence — even taciturnity — seldom makes for great drama, but Lynn Riggs knew Oklahomans. More so than his contemporary John Steinbeck, he heard them and gave them voice. In his preface to Green Grows the Lilacs, writing of the task of a dramatist, he concluded, ‘And sometimes, his characters may do stirring things he could never have calculated. And sometime, if he is fortunate, he may hear from the people he has set in motion (as Shakespeare and Chekhov often heard) things to astonish him and things to make him wise.'" Free & open to the public, on Saturday September 28th, following the matinee performance. ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT Rollie Lynn Riggs (August 31st 1899 – June 30th 1954) An enrolled Cherokee of mixed descent, Lynn Riggs wrote about the people, places, and events of his childhood, growing up in Oklahoma in the eventful years at the turn of the century. Riggs attended the University of Oklahoma but left before graduating to pursue a career in writing and theater. He spent time in Santa Fe before moving to New York City in the 1920s, where he became part of the literary and artistic community of Greenwich Village. His first major play, Big Lake, was produced in 1927 in a production that featured a young Stella Adler. However, it was Green Grow the Lilacs, written in 1930 and produced by the Theatre Guild in 1931, that brought him the most recognition. The play served as the basis for Oklahoma! by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1943, a milestone in musical theater history. As a gay man, Riggs lived cautiously and was discreet about his sexuality, but his plays reveal a deep understanding of the outsider and their complex relationship to the larger community. Some of Riggs's other notable plays include Rancor (1928), A Lantern to See By (1928), Roadside (1930), The Cherokee Night (1932), Russet Mantle (1936), and Out of Dust (1940). He continued to write until his death from stomach cancer in 1954 in New York City. By the end of his life, Riggs had written some thirty plays and scripts for fourteen films produced between 1930 and 1955. His works remain an important part of American literary and theatrical history, offering rich portrayals of rural life and cultural heritage, though they are seldom staged. ABOUT THE DIRECTOR Raelle Myrick-Hodges has directed shows nationally and internationally. Recent projects have included: Father Comes Home for the Wars: Parts 1, 2, and 3 (Philadelphia Premiere, Quintessence Theater), Dirty White Teslas Make Me Sad (World Premiere, Magic Theatre/Campo Santo, San Francisco) and Pearl Cleage's Flyin' West (Indiana Repertory Theater, Indianapolis). She has recently been with MaYi Company working with playwright David Zheng on Kidnapping Jane Doe. She is a member of Under the Radar's Devised Working Theater Group (2023 season) with her work-in-progress about father/daughter relationships called He Had the Prettiest Handwriting which is a collaboration with her father Ray Hodges. She has directed at Playmakers Repertory Company, Arden Theater Company, Azuka Theater, National Black Theater, and the Public Theater, among others. She also is a curator of performance (Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; Charles H. Wright Museum, Detroit). This is Raelle's first production for Mint Theater. ABOUT MINT THEATER COMPANY "Of all the countless Off-Broadway troupes with which the side streets of Manhattan are dotted, none has a more distinctive mission — or a higher artistic batting average — than the Mint Theater Company, which 'finds and produces worthwhile plays from the past that have been lost or forgotten.' If that sounds dull to you, don't be fooled: I've never seen a production there that was a sliver less than superb. Rachel Crothers's Susan and God, John Galsworthy's The Skin Game, Harley Granville-Barker's The Madras House, N.C. Hunter's A Day by the Sea, Dawn Powell's Walking Down Broadway, Jules Romains's Doctor Knock, John Van Druten's London Wall: All these fine plays and others just as good have been exhumed by the Mint to memorable effect in the 13 years that I've been reviewing the company, a tribute to the uncanny taste and unfailing resourcefulness of Jonathan Bank, the artistic director," said Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal. Mint was awarded an OBIE Award for "combining the excitement of discovery with the richness of tradition" and a special Drama Desk Award for "unearthing, presenting and preserving forgotten plays of merit." TICKET INFORMATION: Tickets for Sump'n Like Wings, which are on sale now, start at $39 and may be purchased online at Theatre Row Box Office. Tickets may also be purchased by phone at 212/714-2442, ext. 45 (daily from 12 Noon to 5PM), or in person beginning August 5th at the Theatre Row Box Office (located at 410 West 42nd Street). Service fees will apply for online or phone orders. Performances will be Tuesday through Saturday at 7PM, with matinees Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 2PM. There will be no 7pm performances on 9/21, 9/25, 10/02, 10/11, 10/16, or 10/23. Theatre Row, located at 410 West 42nd Street (between 9th & 10th Avenues), is a fully accessible venue: all bathrooms are accessible; there is an elevator to all floors; the bar and lounge are fully accessible; assisted listening devices are available. For more information, including photos and videos of previous Mint productions, visit minttheater.org. |
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