JAGfest 6.0

JAG Productions Back On Stage for JAGfest 6.0 With Three New Shows.

After a slate of radio plays in last season’s JAGfest 5.0, JAG Productions will return to the stage with in-person audiences at the Briggs Opera House, May 13-15 with two new plays and a full musical for JAGfest 6.0. These three works will receive a week of in-depth, collaborative development prior to the staged readings over the weekend. Tickets are $25 for a single ticket or $50 for a weekend pass. Tickets go on sale April 25 and can be purchased at jagproductionsvt.com. 

For the first time in the workshop’s history, JAGfest playwrights were selected by a panel review. The applicants had to meet the criteria of creating or developing a Black and queer, devised, ensemble piece that contributes to the cultural and aesthetic diversities of the modern theater with the potential to deepen engagement. 

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This year’s lineup will feature the musical Chasing Grace by Elizabeth Addison, Padiddle by Kevin Renn, and Your Maximum Potential by travis tate. 

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Of the JAGfest 6.0 cohort Founder and Producing Artistic Director Jarvis Green says, “We're excited to work with three incredible young talents who personify the best in creativity and imagination. Each of their works explores different facets of what it means to exist in this world, and we're privileged to be part of their journeys."

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MAY 13 @ 7:30 PM

Your Maximum Potential by travis tate slides into the surreal world of influencers, gurus, and lifestyle coaches, as five friends determine whether or not this or that brand of self-care is right for them. 

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“Your Maximum Potential is a play about the thrall of social media, the examination of queer desires and, most importantly, about how we let the internet change our lives; for better or for worse,” tate says.

MAY 14 @ 7:30 PM

Chasing Grace by Elizabeth Addison is the first full musical JAGfest will workshop over the course of the week-long residency, after having done the first act of If This Be Sin in 2019 JAGfest 3.0. Chasing Grace is the continuation of Addison’s musical This is Treatment, and highlights the struggle of one woman's journey in addiction treatment, while chasing Broadway dreams. 

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Addison says of Chasing Grace, “I am one of those women. I was in residential treatment for a year. Part of writing this story was about honoring those of us in this struggle and giving a voice to those who often go unseen and unheard. We deserve to recover and tell our story."

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MAY 15 @ 2:00 PM

Padiddle by Kevin Renn is a play about two best friends, Toledo and July, recounting the highs and lows of their fifteen-year friendship–from high school in Indiana all the way to adulthood in Portland, Oregon. 

Renn says, “I think overall, the root of Padiddle is about change–how we can’t prevent change and growth in ourselves, and how we grow apart. There’s a beauty in the naivety of being a child, and having such young platonic love. You don’t really understand what the world will be like, or what you will be like, by the time you’re 30, and what does that do to our friendships and our personal lives?”

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ABOUT JAG PRODUCTIONS

At the confluence of the White and Connecticut Rivers, which separate Abenaki land into the states of Vermont and New Hampshire, JAG has nurtured and sustained a multi-generational and multi-racial theatre company with Black artists and community organizers at its center. JAG’s mission is to bring more compassion, empathy, and love into the world by telling stories that challenge hierarchies of race, gender, class, and sexuality. These stories are written and produced by and for Black, Brown, Queer, and Trans folx and the people that love them. JAG strives to tell these crucial stories and provide an artistic sanctuary for creatives seeking rejuvenation, time for reflection, and a space in nature to develop art that will change the world. Since its founding, JAG has curated, produced, and directed contemporary and classical Black theatre to engage and sustain individual and collective transformations that unsettle hierarchies of race, gender, and sexuality. JAG’s primary programming includes: JAGfest, an annual new playwrights’ festival; Theatre on the Hill, five weekends of workshops, concerts, burlesque, and staged readings hosted on the gorgeously picturesque lawn at King Arthur Baking Company in Norwich, VT; and the JAG Musical Theatre Lab, a multi-year lab that offers audiences a new vision of American musical theater storytelling. JAG is committed to expanding its artistic development and presence in New York City as part of its strategic vision to establish greater ties with New York-based theatres and the artist community. Today, JAG Productions offers productions five months out of the year, bringing in nearly 5,000 people each season to experience dynamic artists and education programming just five minutes from Dartmouth College.