A New Adrienne Kennedy Play Will Be Staged Next Year

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Adrienne Kennedy, whose surrealism-tinged dramas have addressed race and violence in American society since the 1960s, will have a new play, her first in nine years, as part of the coming season at Theater for a New Audience.

“He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box” is set in 1941 in New York City and Georgia, and “braids together the indignities of Jim Crow, rising Nazism, sexual hypocrisy, Christopher Marlowe, and the lingering shadow of a terrible crime,” according to a news release. The play will run at the theater’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center home from Jan. 17 to Feb. 11. Evan Yionoulis will direct; she oversaw Ms. Kennedy’s “The Ohio State Murders” at Theater for a New Audience in 2007.

Ms. Kennedy, 85, is an influential figure in experimental theater, whose work has been regularly taught in college courses. Her first major play, “Funnyhouse of a Negro,” was a revelation when it opened in 1964; a new production ran last year as part of a Signature Theater triple bill.

The Theater for a New Audience season also includes “Marcel + The Art of Laughter,” a double bill of comic one-acts, running Oct. 27 to Nov. 19; and two Shakespeare plays. “The Winter’s Tale,” directed by Arin Arbus, will run March 11 to April 15, and “Twelfth Night,” a coproduction of the Acting Company and the Resident Ensemble Players of Delaware will be directed by Maria Aitken and run May 10-27. More information is available at www.tfana.org.

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