Princeton Summer Theater announces its 2024 program

In a season opening June 13, Princeton Summer Theater (PST) will produce a trio of mainstage shows — a reimagined “Dracula,” a musical and a one-actor tour de force set in New York – this bridge the historic and the contemporary. The 2024 season continues PST’s popular children’s programming with a “whodunnit” fairy tale titled “Granny’s Home: A Fairytale Mystery.”

Layla Williams, Class of 2025, is the artistic director of the 2024 season of Princeton Summer Theater, a student-run company presenting a season of three plays. “The main stage season invites our audiences to engage with the power of adopting a new perspective, even if it’s just for one evening,” she said.

The season runs through August 3 at the Hamilton Murray Theater on the campus of Princeton University.

“The Main Stage Season invites our audiences to engage with the power of adopting a new perspective, even if it’s just for one evening,” said Layla Williams, a member of Princeton’s Class of 2025 and director artistic of this year. “Perhaps we see more clearly the monsters among us, the complexities of fate and love from the broken perspective of a relationship, or the disbelief of our nation’s history when placed in a modern context.”

The 54th Main Stage opens with “Dracula” on Thursday, June 13. It continues with “The Last Five Years” by Jason Robert Brown and “Emergency” by Daniel Beaty.

Williams is a rising senior who specializes in African American Studies and Pursuit of Minors in Theater, Musical Theater, and Creative Writing. In addition to overseeing this summer’s PST season, she recently received funding from the Lewis Center’s Mallach Senior Thesis Fund to support the writing of an original play next year.

“Dracula”: June 13 to 30

Kate Hamill’s adaptation is a “whimsical feminist revenge fantasy, loosely based on the classic tale of the same name,” Williams said. She thinks audiences will appreciate the spirit of Hamill’s script.

Eliana Cohen-Orth – a 2021 graduate who has directed numerous PST productions and served as artistic director for the 2020 virtual season – returns to direct “Dracula.” “I’m thrilled that Eliana is bringing her vision of stage magic to life,” said Williams.

“The last five years”: July 4 to 21

The musical “The Last Five Years” follows the relationship of protagonists Catherine Hiatt and Jamie Wellerstein in two directions, Williams said: “Catherine steps back from her tumultuous ending and Jamie moves forward from his happy beginning.”

“The Last Five Years,” written by Jason Robert Brown – who won the Tony for Best Original Score for “Parade” in 1999 and “The Bridges of Madison County” in 2014, premiered in Chicago in 2001, followed by a Off-Broadway production in 2002. In PST’s production, Kate Short plays Catherine, a struggling actress, and Julien Alam plays Jamie, an emerging novelist. Both actors are members of the Class of 2023.

Eliyana Abraham, who also graduated in 2023 and served as artistic director of PST in 2023, directs.

Jordan Kilgore plays Dracula, shown here with Meg Moynahan as Lucy, in Princeton Summer Theater’s version of the classic.

photo by

Matthew Raspanti, Office of Communications

“Emergency”: July 25-August. 3

The main stage season concludes with “Emergency,” which Williams will direct.

“Emergency by Daniel Beaty is a brilliant play,” she said, exploring “the chaos that ensues when a 400-year-old relic washes up on the shores of New York.”

The relic is a ship that transported slaves. The website TheaterMania.com describes the comedy-drama as a “vivid portrait of the African-American experience in modern-day New York.”

The star of the production is Destine Harrison-Williams, a member of Princeton’s Class of 2026. Harrison-Williams is involved in theater at the Lewis Center for the Arts and in the student-run Princeton Playhouse Ensemble and Triangle Club. He is a former co-student director of Trenton Youth Theater with Trenton Arts in Princeton. Over the course of the series, he plays 40 different characters, from teenagers and news anchors to ghosts and TV hosts.

Some performances of the main stage shows will feature post-show discussions.

Destin Harrison-Williams as Jonathan Harker and Meghana Kumar as Mina Harker in “Dracula.”

photo by

Matthew Raspanti, Office of Communications

Children’s programming

This summer’s children’s show is written by John Venegas Juarez ’25, a first-generation student from Houston who has appeared in several productions in the Lewis Center’s theater and musical theater programs.

Filled with mischief, mystery and surprising revelations, “Granny’s Home: A Fairy Tale Mystery” is sure to provide an enchanting theatrical experience. Alongside iconic fairy tale characters like Little Red Riding Hood, the Gingerbread Man and Hansel and Gretel, the young audience will put on their detective hat to gather the clues to find the one who destroyed the house. Even.

Performances take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings, from July 5 to 28.

Visit www.princetonsummertheater.org for ticketing and performance information.

Previous slide
Next slide

• 
• 
• 
•