New Musical This Ain't No Disco by Hedwig Collaborators Set for Atlantic Theater Company

The 2017-2018 season of off-Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company will include New York and world premieres of plays and musicals. A highlight of the season will be the world premiere musical This Ain’t No Disco, with music and lyrics by Hedwig and the Angry Inch collaborators Stephen Trask and Peter Yanowitz. Also set for the season will be new works by Martin McDonagh, Simon Stephens and Rajiv Joseph.

The season will begin with a New York premiere play by Curious Incident Tony winner Stephens. On the Shore of the Wide World, directed by Neil Pepe, will run August 23-October 1, 2017 at the Linda Gross Theater. Set over the course of nine months, On the Shore of the Wide World is a play about love, family, Roy Keane and the size of the galaxy.

Next up is a world premiere co-production with the Alley Theatre by Pulitzer finalist Joseph. Describe the Night, under the direction of Giovanna Sardelli, will run at the Linda Gross Theater from November 1-December 17, 2017. Set in Russia over the course of 80 years, this new play by Joseph traces the stories of seven men and women connected by history, myth and conspiracy theories.

Ngozi Anyanwu's world premiere play The Homecoming Queen will run January 10-February 11, 2018 at Atlantic Stage 2. In the play, a bestselling novelist returns to Nigeria to care for her ailing father, but before she can bury him, she must relearn the traditions she's long forgotten. 

A U.S. premiere by McDonagh, Hangmen, will play January 18-March 4, 2018, at the Linda Gross Theater. Matthew Dunster will direct. In his small pub in the northern English town of Oldham, Harry is something of a local celebrity. But what's the second-best hangman in England to do on the day they've abolished hanging? Amongst the cub reporters and pub regulars dying to hear Harry’s reaction to the news, his old assistant Syd and the peculiar Mooney lurk with very different motives for their visit.

The world premiere musical This Ain't No Disco, with a book by Rick Elice and a score by Trask and Yanowitz, will run at the Linda Gross Theater from May 11-July 1, 2018. Trask, the composer and lyricist of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, worked with Yanowitz on the recent Broadway production of the cult-favorite rock musical. Trip Cullman is set to direct This Ain't No Disco. Set against the grit, the garbage strikes, the graffiti of 1979 New York City, This Ain't No Disco tells the story of drifters and dreamers searching for their place in the night world of Studio 54 and Mudd Club. In their uptown/downtown quest for revelry and kinship, every decision is fateful in a city where one’s fate can turn on a dime bag.

Lauren Yee's New York premiere play The Great Leap will run May 23-June 17, 2018 at Atlantic Stage 2. Inspired by events from her father’s life and (short-lived) basketball career, playwright Lauren Yee makes her Atlantic debut with this tender and sharp-paced play.

The Atlantic Kids season will include the New York City premiere of Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical, an original concept by Douglas Lyons with a book by Melvin Tunstall III, music by Greg Borowsky and Douglas Lyons and lyrics by Lyons. Inspired by the events of the Little Rock 9, Polkadots serves as a colorful history lesson for children, reminding them that our individual differences make us awesome, not outcasts.