WTF IS NEXT

A mini festival-within-the-festival, WTF IS NEXT previews the future of the Williamstown Theatre Festival experience from Thursday, August 1 through Sunday, August 4. From the moment you arrive, you’ll be immersed in a full slate of experiences and exclusive events that reflect an expansive expression of theater within the breathtaking natural beauty of the Berkshires.

You’ll start your time with a welcoming experience that will both ground and orient you for what’s to come. Depending on when you arrive, you then may find yourself at a dining experience, or a show. Or both. Either way, you’ll end your night with a Night Cap. Over the course of the weekend, you may find yourself at an outdoor concert, a live taping of a popular podcast, a world-premiere play, an outdoor community happening, a burlesque-inspired variety performance – a full schedule of expansive programming. No matter what, we won’t send you home without a proper sendoff and an understanding of what you can come to expect from the Festival as it transforms into its next chapter. You’ll have to experience it to know it.

WTF IS NEXT PROGRAMMING:

KICKOFF:
Sarah Kay
Thursday, August 1 at 4:00 PM & Friday, August 2 at 4:00 PM
at The Festival Stage at ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance (1000 Main St, Williamstown, MA 01267)

Sarah Kay has shared her poems in cornfields in Iowa, an orthodontist’s office in Nepal, a ship on a fjord in Norway, a nightclub in Singapore, the Royal Danish Theatre in Denmark, Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the back rooms of dive-bars, middle school gymnasiums and once on top of someone’s dining room table. Now, she’s electrifying the Festival stage with a spoken word performance that blends the heart with the mind and brings poetry to life.

DINNER EXPERIENCE:
StoryCourse
By Adam Kantor
Thursday, August 1 at 5:30 PM & Friday, August 2 at 5:30 PM
at The Williams Inn Ballroom (101 Spring Street, Williamstown, MA 01267)

StoryCourse is where theater and food come together. A multi-chapter, multi-course, interactive, and narrative dining experience where the story informs the menu and the menu informs the story, StoryCourse breaks down the walls between the kitchen and the dining room, between strangers sitting together at a table, between chefs and the mouths they feed, between experience and possibility. Created for and with the Williamstown community by Adam Kantor (The Band’s Visit) with special collaborators, this is a StoryCourse experience you won’t be able to have anywhere else.

NIGHT CAP:
Open Mic Night
Created and Performed by Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey
Thursday, August 1 at 10:00 PM & Friday, August 2 at 10:00 PM
The Directing Studio at ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance (1000 Main St, Williamstown, MA 01267)

An experimental theater piece about the end of an experimental theater. As one-time proprietors of Brooklyn’s late and much-lamented DIY space Life World, Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey have already lived through the artist’s pain of building up and then losing a scene. A long goodbye to an imaginary experimental theater, Open Mic Night’s (New York Times Critic’s Pick) recursions and subversions reveal the easy fellowship that comes from mixing dark rooms, cheap beer, and a small crowd facing the same direction.

MORNING SHOW:
Britton & The Sting Unplugged
Friday, August 2 at 10:00 AM
The Reflecting Pool at The Clark Institute (225 South St, Williamstown, MA 01267)

Through the testimony and mesmerizing grooves of gospel, alternative rock, and soul, Britton & The Sting creates an intimate, sacred gathering to uncover just how tethered we are to the element of water. Like water, in what ways do we boil, flood, rain, and renew ourselves?

This 45-minute experience features original music, personal testimony, and dialogue about the creation process, vision, and future of the full-length piece, MAMA. Why is a funk liberation band writing music about water? What is the relationship between spirituality and this work? How does Britton’s identity as a Black, queer Southerner living in Brooklyn influence this new creation?

DINNER EXPERIENCE:
Tu Le + 328North
Friday, August 2 at 5:30 PM

Join local Chef Tu Le and his micro farm 328North as they reinvent the classic pig roast barbecue in the backyard of a local Berkshires home. With locally sourced ingredients grown specifically for this occasion, Tu Le builds a casual bespoke experience that explores how a combination of summer, good food, and the outdoors naturally brings people together.

NIGHT CAP:
MAMA
Friday, August 2 at 10:00 PM
Baxter Great Hall (39 Chapin Hall Dr, Williamstown, MA 01267)

Britton & The Sting guides us into the deep end of our oceanic selves to remember the spirit of earth’s original drop of potential. Water. For billions of years, she has reigned as our planet’s most essential element of life. Across our differences, she is MAMA.

Through testimony and mesmerizing grooves of gospel, alternative rock, and soul, Britton & The Sting creates a sacred gathering of community to uncover just how tethered we are to Mama and why. In what ways do we boil, flood, rain, and renew ourselves like her? In this era of great divide, oppression, empathetic drought, what does Mama want to remind us as we reach towards evolution and salvation?

This 70-minute experience invites its audience to participate as a unique congregation of seekers. Britton & The Sting creates an environment of joy, reflection, and curiosity so that we may each experience the benefits of radical sanctuary to align with the purpose of this sacred element within ourselves and each other.

Originally commissioned, developed, and produced by Little Island. 

LIVE PODCAST:
Normal Gossip
With host Kelsey McKinney and producer Alex Sujong Laughlin
Saturday, August 3 at 11:00 AM
The MainStage at ’62 Center for Theatre & Dance (1000 Main St, Williamstown, MA 01267)

Divulge and indulge in Normal Gossip Live, a morning of juicy, strange, funny, and utterly banal gossip about people you’ll never know and never meet, coming to the stage straight from the stream of the hit podcast. This entertaining performance with host Kelsey McKinney, producer Alex Sujong Laughlin, and special surprise guests dives into the lives and decisions of complete strangers.

OUTDOOR BLOCK PARTY
FREE FOR ALL MEMBERS OF THE WILLIAMSTOWN COMMUNITY
Featuring Fogo Azul
Saturday, August 3 at 5 PM
Paresky Lawn (39 Chapin Hall Dr, Williamstown, MA 01267)

The Williamstown community comes together for a joyful happening outdoors surrounded by the rolling hills of the Berkshires. Food trucks, drum lines, cirque performers, dancers, and more make this performance-party hybrid a moment of celebration, connection, and community. The event features Fogo Azul, the nation’s premiere Brazilian Samba Drumline made up of all female-identifying and non-binary humans, joined by various artists

NIGHT CAP:
Speakeasy
Created by Holly-Anne Devlin
Saturday, August 3 at 7:00 PM & 10:00 PM
Baxter Great Hall (39 Chapin Hall Dr, Williamstown, MA 01267)

Sultry sirens and celebrations rule the night in Speakeasy, an all-in-one immersive mixology experience that combines the worlds of cirque, burlesque, and musical theater with an upscale cocktail flight of five cocktails and a delicious appetizer from Sweet Hospitality’s world-class team. Created by Broadway’s Holly-Anne Devlin (Jersey Boys), Speakeasy features a cast of Broadway and nightlife legends.

MORNING SHOW:
The Wake
Created and performed by Lindsey Noel and Francis Menotti with Jon Gruver
Sunday, August 4 at 9 AM & 11 AM
at The Williams Inn Ballroom (101 Spring Street, Williamstown, MA 01267)

This magical and musical immersive theatrical whirlwind explores the space between life and death and invites all participants to sink into and revel in the unknown. Come along with the Director, the Spiritualist, and the Orator as we navigate the Deceased brain’s final firings. As electrical impulses continue beyond heart beats, will anyone ever truly cross over or are we stuck in the seemingly eternal dream state of increasingly infinitesimal electric impulses? Magic show? Seance? Concert? Play? Choose Your Own Adventure? Yes. Created and performed by magicians Lindsey Noel and Francis Menotti with musician Jon Gruver.

In addition, WTF IS NEXT includes performances of Pamela Palmer, a WTF Cabaret, an encore reading of KILL CORP, and The Plastic Bag Store.

Programming, casting, and public health protocols are subject to change.

Pick one of two pass options:

4-Day Pass – $850 per person
Includes tickets and meals as follows (subject to change):

Aug 1 at 4pm – Kickoff: Sarah Kay
Aug 1 at 5:30pm – Dinner Experience: StoryCourse
Aug 1 at 8pm – WTF Cabaret
Aug 1 at 10pm – Open Mic Night
Aug 2 at 10am – Britton & the Sting Unplugged
Aug 2 at 1pm – The Plastic Bag Store (Assigned Group 1)
Aug 2 at 3pm – The Plastic Bag Store (Assigned Group 2)
Aug 2 at 5:30pm – Dinner Experience: Tu Le & 328North
Aug 2 at 8pm – Pamela Palmer
Aug 2 at 10pm – MAMA
Aug 3 at 11am – Normal Gossip Live
Aug 3 at 3pm – Encore reading of Kill Corp
Aug 3 at 5pm – Outdoor Block Party
Aug 3 at 7pm – Speakeasy
Aug 4 at 9am – The Wake
Aug 4 at 1pm – Sendoff

3-Day Pass – $625 per person
Includes tickets and meals as follows (subject to change):

Aug 2 at 4pm – Kickoff: Sarah Kay
Aug 2 at 5:30pm – Dinner Experience: StoryCourse
Aug 2 at 8pm – WTF Cabaret
Aug 2 at 10pm – Open Mic Night
Aug 3 at 11am – Normal Gossip Live
Aug 3 at 1pm – The Plastic Bag Store (Assigned Group 3)
Aug 3 at 3pm – Encore Reading of Kill Corp
Aug 3 at 5pm – Outdoor Block Party
Aug 3 at 8pm – Pamela Palmer
Aug 3 at 10pm – Speakeasy
Aug 4 at 11am – The Wake
Aug 4 at 1pm – Sendoff
Aug 4 at 3pm – The Plastic Bag Store (Assigned Group 4)

WTF IS NEXT is a curated weekend journey; 4-day passholders and 3-day passholders will be on different tracks. The Festival will assign each passholder specific curtain times and seating assignments closer to the mini-festival weekend. Tickets will be issued at each respective Kickoff event. Due to limited capacity for the weekend and within each venue, performance times cannot be exchanged. Passes are non-transferable and badges will be issued for use by one person only.