Season Announcement

Fort Worth's Circle Theatre focuses on 2024 season full of heart

The season starts with Artemisia by Lauren Gunderson.

Graphic courtesy of Circle Theatre

For its 2024 season, the first from new artistic director Ashley H. White, Circle Theatre is promising new vision, new focus, and the same heart.

Its five shows are comprised of one Pulitzer Prize winner, one Pulitzer finalist, three regional premieres, and one world premiere by White herself.

"From Artemisia’s first stroke to Chad Deity’s final hit, Circle Theatre’s 2024 season packs punches, canvases emotions, straddles lifelines, and brings raw emotion to its audiences like never before," says White. "Circle Theatre 2024 reminds us to not only do whatever it takes to survive, but forces us to examine what makes us thrive."

It starts with Artemisia by Lauren Gunderson, a regional premiere directed by Taylor Staniforth.

Artemisia Gentileschi was the most celebrated female painter of the 17th century, yet her name was all but lost for centuries. Attacked at just 17, publicly shamed and tortured to prove her truth, Gentileschi nevertheless fought for her art and the freedom to make it on her own terms. She painted women from history, myth, and religion as protagonists of their stories or equal to men lacking the “classic feminine traits” of sensitivity, weakness, and timidity.

Gunderson’s Artemisia is a work of humor and warmth that celebrates the courage, artistry, and humanity of a woman who attacked the glass ceiling with every brush stroke. This play contains adult language and situations including mental, physical, and sexual abuse It runs February 1-24, 2024.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes is next, directed by Alexandra Hernandez.

We meet in Philadelphia, where Elliot has returned from Iraq and is struggling to find his place in the world. We meet in an online chat room, a digital sanctuary where recovering addicts keep each other alive, hour by hour, day by day. We meet in the moment and outside of the moment, as boundaries of family and community are stretched across continents and cyberspace. Birth families splinter and online families collide in this beautiful play that reminds us of the power of family, the need for connection, and the healing value of forgiveness.

The play contains adult language and situations, and it runs March 21-April 13, 2024.

A regional premiere musical is next: Hundred Days, with book by Sarah Gancher, music and lyrics by Abigail and Shaun Bengsons, directed by Evan Michael Woods, and with music direction by Ian Ferguson.

What would you do if you only had a hundred days to live? To love? Hundred Days is a whirlwind rock journey that pulls us into a world where raw emotions run free, where the thrill of the unknown collides with the poignant beauty of a love story, all attached to an intoxicating score. This folk-punk musical is a testament to embracing life’s unpredictability, to taking a daring leap, and to loving relentlessly.

Hundred Days contains adult language and situations. It runs June 1-17, 2024.

Imposter! Hypocrite! Tartuffe! By Ashley H. White (Based On the Play by that One Guy) is a world premiere also directed by White.

Wit, cunning, and hypocrisy are on full display in this punk-rock remake of Moliere’s classic farce. Get ready for a swift, unapologetic whirlwind that reintroduces the timeless tale of a man who deploys his charm and feigned piety in an attempt to disrupt a household, but his clever scheme is no match for the astute women of the family who decide to beat him at his own game.

With a compact cast, contemporary language, and nonstop bits, the musical delves deep into the realms of human desires and power dynamics, offering a fresh, biting take on the classic French comedy. It contains adult language and situations, and runs August 1-14, 2024.

The season finishes with The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, a Pulitzer Prize finalist directed by Alejandro Saucedo.

The show opens by introducing us to an unconventional wrestling duo. Macedonio Guerra (“Mace”), a Puerto Rican wrestling fanatic (and “jobber” in the ring), finds himself teamed up with Vigneshwar Paduar (“VP”), a Brooklynite of Indian descent. The two have found a unique bond and ambition to fight together, wrestling for fun and for funds. In an electrifying turn of events, they are picked up and cast as “terrorists” in the ring. The crowd revels in this narrative, forcing audience members to pick up the pieces.

Through Macedonio and Vigneshwar, Playwright Diaz pushes boundaries beyond the wrestling ring, addressing unspoken issues such as racism and politics — and their presence within mass media. The play contains adult language and situations, and runs October 3-26, 2024.

The High School Playwriting Project, funded by the Kiwanis Club of Fort Worth, culminates in the Finalist Reading Series on May 5, 2024. Teachers who are interested in bringing this program to their schools can find more information at circletheatre.com/hspp or by emailing hspp@circletheatre.com.

To purchase tickets to the 2024 season, call 817-877-3040 or visit CircleTheatre.com.

theater

Ancient Sculpture News

Fort Worth museum one of only 3 in U.S. to get rare sculpture exhibit

Lorenzo di Masi/Torlonia Collection

The Torlonia Nile

A major exhibition of ancient Roman masterworks is coming to the U.S. for the first time to be viewed at only three museums — including the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.

Called Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection, it's an assemblage of works stewarded by the Torlonia Family beginning in the early-19th century, and will be installed at the Kimbell from September 14, 2025 – January 25, 2026.

As part of the Foundation’s mission to showcase these historical works to the public, the exhibition will premiere at the Art Institute of Chicago on March 15 through June 29, before traveling to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Its third stop will be at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, from March 14 - July 19, 2026.

The Torlonia Collection was established during the course of the 19th century by the Franco-Italian banker Prince Giovanni Torlonia and his son Alessandro, then handed down over generations, eventually growing into the largest private collection of ancient Roman sculptures.

Today, the Torlonia Foundation represents the culmination of the Family’s continued passion for art. Created at the behest of Prince Alessandro Torlonia (1925–2017), the Foundation’s mission is to preserve and promote the Torlonia Collection and Villa Albani Torlonia.

In 1876, Prince Alessandro Torlonia (1800-1886) created a museum to house and exhibit the Family’s holdings, which was open to small groups until its closure at the onset of World War II. The sculptures remained unseen by the public from that time until the Foundation’s first exhibition at the Musei Capitolini in Rome in 2020. That was followed by a stint at the Louvre, the first presentation of the collection outside of Rome, where it has drawn more than 600,000 visitors to date, an unprecedented feat.

The exhibit
The curators of Myth & Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection are Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katharine A. Raff of the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition is co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Torlonia Foundation, in collaboration with the Kimbell Art Museum, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and The Museum Box. All of the sculptures in the exhibition have been restored by the Foundation with the support of Bvlgari.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue co-published by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Torlonia Foundation, edited by Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katharine A. Raff, with essays by Silvia Beltrametti and Salvatore Settis.

The North American presentation will feature 58 highlights from the Torlonia Collection, including 24 newly restored works that have not been on view in nearly a century. The sculptures date from approximately the 5th century BCE to the early 4th century CE, with the majority of the works dating to the High Imperial period (1st–2nd centuries CE). Highlights include examples of the most emblematic genres of ancient marble sculpture, acquired by the Torlonia Family from the most prominent collections of Rome’s patrician families, as well as from excavations made on the Family’s own estates throughout Italy.

“The Foundation is excited to be sharing the Torlonia Collection with audiences in North America for the first time. This exceptional group of ancient sculptures is a testament to the enduring cultural legacy of ancient Rome, as well as the vision and passion of multiple generations of the Torlonia Family,” said Alessandro Poma Murialdo, President of the Torlonia Foundation.

The presentation is organized thematically in six sections, featuring sculptures found on the Torlonia Family’s properties in Rome and the surrounding suburbs and their estate in Porto, Portugal, as well as a number of exceptional sarcophagi (stone coffins), among the largest sculpted works in marble to survive from ancient Rome.

The tour reinforces the work of the Foundation to advance the appreciation and understanding of this unparalleled collection and the rich cultural heritage it represents. The Foundation’s mission is carried out through a continuous joint effort between the public and private sectors, including with the cooperation of the Italian Ministry of Culture. The Foundation is supported by a longstanding collaboration with Bvlgari as the principal sponsor of the restoration project since its inception in Rome and throughout the global tour, and Chiomenti, who has lent invaluable support to the Foundation’s core activities.

galleries

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Fort Worth museum one of only 3 in U.S. to get rare sculpture exhibit