Voices Festival Productions’ (VFP) world-premiere story of evolving relationships within a multi-generational caregiver support group will start performances on January 9, 2024.  Who Cares:  The Caregiver Interview Project — co-written by Ari Roth, A. Lorraine Robinson, and Vanessa Gilbert, and directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer — will run from January 9 to February 2, 2025, at Universalist National Memorial Church (1810 16th Street NW, Washington, DC), with Opening Night on January 13.  For more information and tickets, visit voicesfestivalproductions.com. Previews begin with two Pay-What-You-Can performances on January 9 and January 10 and discounted preview performances through January 12 with $25 tickets.  General admission for remaining performances through February 2 is $45, with discounts available for groups, patrons under 30, affinity groups, and artists. Lise Bruneau, Joelle Denise, Kendall Arin Claxton, Laura Shipler Chico, and Kelly Renee Armstrong in ‘Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project.’ Publicity photo by Peggy Ryan. Who Cares:  The Caregiver Interview Project is a story of evolving relationships within a multi-generational caregiver support group based on interviews with local colleagues in the theater community, elder justice advocates, and close friends whose lives have been disrupted — but also transformed — by unexpected caretaking for loved ones contending with memory loss.  A fusion of verbatim testimony sprung to life to reveal dramatic confrontation, Sister Sledge dance breaks, and a group leader’s journey to sustain the love of a valiant sister facing debilitating challenges, Who Cares is frequently funny, always intimate, and powerfully informed. Moving from church basement to comedy club to a rock-star book event and beyond, this world premiere exposes fault lines within some families, unbreakable bonds within others, and moving friendships between strangers forming newly generative communities of care. The dynamic Who Cares ensemble cast features Kelly Renee Armstrong (Tempestuous Elements, Arena Stage), Lise Bruneau (Macbeth, Taffety Punk), Todd Scofield (Romeo and Juliet, Folger), Joelle Denise (Our Lady of Queens, 2024 Chelsea Film Festival), Kendall Arin Claxton (Letters to Kamala/Dandelion Peace, VFP), and British-American Laura Shipler Chico (Museum Pieces, Tristan Bates Theatre) making her U.S. stage debut, along with understudies Rachel Manteuffel, Llogan Paige, and Robert Bowen Smith. The creative team includes David Elias (Stage Manager), Nora Butler (Assistant Stage Manager), David Smith (Lighting Designer), David Lamont Wilson (Sound Designer), Brandee Mathies (Costume Designer), Heidi Castle-Smith (Scenic Designer), Tyra Bell (Props Designer), and Robert Bowen Smith (Movement Consultant). “From the moment we spoke about this project, I was intrigued by the subject matter,” said director Kathryn Chase Bryer. “I have so many friends who are living this situation right now, caring for aging parents and family members.  End of life is a part of  the human condition that everyone experiences and yet there is very little support in this country for families dealing with these circumstances.  Who Cares offers thoughts and the comfort of common experience while acknowledging the pain and the joy of taking care of our loved ones.  I am humbled and in awe of our amazing cast and design team,  who have jumped in with full commitment and love for each other, telling the stories that unite us all.” Show art and cast photos courtesy of Voices Festival Productions. “Working on Who Cares, which includes moments of my personal story caring for my sister, has been an experience of crafting and sharing some of the most personal material that I have ever been involved in within the theater,” said co-writer and VFP producing partner A. Lorraine Robinson.  “I wanted to create this piece because unexpectedly becoming a caregiver is one of the most dramatic situations I have ever experienced in my life to date. And, yet, I have to say it also has been the most awe-inspiring time, when I was able to be of help to someone in my family and both give and receive a great deal of love and care.” “It’s been a season to explore the contours of care in our community, with more than a few DC theaters, museums, and book events gathering authors, artists, and audiences to chronicle the landscape of caregiving,” notes VFP Founding Artistic Director Ari Roth.  “It’s one of our healthier post-pandemic developments: recognizing the importance of care. We all need it, and we’re all, increasingly, being summoned to give it. The grist contained in these stories is the stuff of life: real pain, real tenderness, shared in vivid detail, revealing abundant richness. This project is both documentary-based — venerating veracity of expression — and artful, imagining the dynamics of a support group where there was no group. We’ve created a new theatrical reality, and it’s been a joy to shape that group’s evolution.” The play’s verbatim testimony adapted from interviews is complemented by original stand-up material from Jim Meyer and excerpts from the work of MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient Marie Therese Connolly and her book The Measure of Our Age: Navigating Care, Safety, Money, and Meaning Later in Life. John Stoltenberg of DC Theater Arts shared his thoughts on the play after an early reading: “The real theme of this piece seems to me to be our mortality. Caretaking frames it, illuminates it, points to it, but really this dramatic experience is an encounter with the common precarity of all our lives.” BIOS A. Lorraine Robinson is an award-winning theater director, dramaturg, and community arts educator.  She was Artistic Producing Director of MuseFire Productions, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit theater & film company dedicated to multimedia and stylistically challenging work (especially voices of women & individuals of color). Recent Projects include: Director – Letters to Kamala/Dandelion Peace, #Charlottesville and Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry (You Too, August Wilson) [Voices Festival Productions]; The Piano Lesson and Raisin in the Sun [Sitar Arts Center]; Let Me Down Easy and Baltimore [St. Mary’s College of MD]; Citizen Patrol and Bulrusher [MuseFire Productions];  Pott Odds and You Were Mine (Transformation Theatre], Three Strangers Sitting Around a Backyard Firepit at Two in the Morning Listening to Bruce Springsteen’s NEBRASKA [Bob Bartlett Productions].  Regional: Having Our Say (Contemporary American Theatre Company).  Dramaturg – TopDog/Underdog [Avant Bard].  Lorraine was honored with the Dr. Arnitra Butler Award for artistic work and community service by the  DC Chapter of the Black Women’s Hook-Up.  She received TONY AWARDS®: Excellence in Theatre Education Honorable Mention Awards in 2017, 2018, and 2019.  She received the Central Ohio Theatre Critics Circle Award: Best Director and Best Production for The Laramie Project (Contemporary American Theatre Company in Columbus, Ohio). She is also a Board Member & Associated Artist with Transformation Theatre Company. Ari Roth is a playwright, producer, dramaturg, educator, and child of Holocaust refugees. He served as Artistic Director of Theater J from 1997 to 2014 and established Mosaic Theater Company of DC in late 2014 as its Founding Artistic Director. He founded Voices Festival Production LLC, in partnership with A. Lorraine Robinson in June of 2021.  Over 18 seasons at Theater J, he produced 129 productions, including 44 world premieres, and created the annual festivals, “Voices From a Changing Middle East” and “Locally Grown: Community Supported Art.” In a 2005 feature, The New York Times called Theater J, “The premiere theatr for premiers.” During his founding tenure at Mosaic, he produced 36 full productions, including 9 world premieres, fifty staged readings, “Mosaic on the Move” presentations, with over 600 post-show discussions. In 2017, Roth was given the DC Mayor’s Arts Award for Visionary Leadership. As a playwright, his work includes Born Guilty, based on the book of interviews with children of Nazis by Peter Sichrovsky, commissioned and produced by Arena Stage and directed by Zelda Fichandler; Peter and The Wolf, a sequel to Born Guilty, (Theater J, Epic Theater, Jewish Theatre of the South); a family prequel, Andy and The Shadows (Theater J), and is currently writing Born Guilty Unbound. Oh, The Innocents was directed by Joe Mantello for GeVa Theatre where it won the Clifford Davy Award. Other plays include Goodnight Irene, Life In Refusal, Love and Yearning in the Not for Profits; and Still Waiting (companion to Waiting For Lefty; all produced at Theater J, and elsewhere), along with a dozen one-acts.  His most recent play, A Calamitous Affair, was produced at VFP in 2022 (with a longer title) and presented in workshop at the Steppenwolf Theatre Garage last year. Vanessa Gilbert is a creative  producer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator from Providence, RI who works with humans, objects, and digital media.  She makes, produces, and directs performance works of varying scales, from miniature puppet theatr to multi-day performance festivals and opera.  In 17 years with Perishable Theatre, Vanessa directed and produced scores of plays and events and founded both Blood from a Turnip-RI’s only late night puppet salon and the Resident Artist at Perishable Theatr program.   She has developed and taught classes in theater history, theater for social change, directing and producing for learners of all ages. Vanessa  is a proud member of the Magdalena Project, an international network for women in contemporary theater for which she instigated Magdalena USA, the first of only two Magdalena Project festivals in North America.  Vanessa is also an associate artist with Sleeping Weazel, an expansive theater company based between Boston, MA and the internet. Her work has been featured at Perishable Theatre, the HERE Arts Center,  The Castle of Imagination Festival (Ustka and Gdansk, Poland,) the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, among others.  She received her MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College in May 2015. Since moving to DC in 2018, Vanessa has worked with Rorschach Theatre, Voices Festival Productions, and ExPats Theatre. Kathryn Chase Bryer is the Associate Artistic Director of Imagination Stage.  She is a theater artist with a background in directing, acting, dramaturgy, teaching, and administration and holds a B.S. from Northwestern University. For Imagination Stage, Kathryn has directed over 50 productions in the last 25 years and has helped to develop and commission over a dozen scripts.  In addition, she has worked at many theaters in the DMV to develop and direct new scripts, including Breast in Show by Joan Cushing and Shoah Business by Jennie Eng.  In 2014, she directed The BFG (Theatre for Young Audiences) which won the 2014 Helen Hayes for Best Scenic Design and Best Production. In 2015 her production of Wiley and the Hairy Man (Theatre for Young Audiences) won the 2015 Best Production.  In 2018, Kate won the Helen Hayes for Best Director of a Musical for her production of Wonderland, Alice’s Rock and Roll Adventures (Theatre for Young Audiences), which also won Best Production.  At Imagination Stage she recently directed Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Experience (winner 2021 Helen Hayes Best Production for Theatre for Young Audiences), and The New Kid.  In addition to her work at Imagination Stage, she has directed Scapin (2014) and Peter and the Starcatcher (winner of Helen Hayes 2018 Best Ensemble, Musical) and The Last Five Years (Constellation Theatre Company); The Late Wedding in 2017 (Hub Theatre), and Fly By Night in 2018 (1st Stage), which was nominated for 11 Helen Hayes Awards and won 5 including “Best Director of a Musical.”  Other directing credits include The Wolves at Next Stop (Theatre in Herndon, Va), The Oldest Boy (Spooky Action Theatre), American Spies and Other Homegrown Fables (Hub Theatre), A Doll House and The Late Wedding (University of Maryland) and Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Tragedy (UMBC and Urinetown at American University). For Voices Festival Productions’ recent “Middle East Festival” workshop series, she directed readings of Stay Safe, How to Remain a Humanist After a Massacre in 17 Steps, and co-directed Live from Jenin: Lessons From the War. Who Cares:  The Caregiver Interview Project, Co-written by Ari Roth, A. Lorraine Robinson, and Vanessa Gilbert Directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer With original stand-up material from Jim Meyer and excerpts from the work of M.T. Connolly and her book, The Measure of Our Age: Navigating Care, Safety, Money, and Meaning Later in Life CAST Kelly Renee Armstrong*: Rachel, Rev, Leslie, Tyra, Bee, Tanty Lise Bruneau*: Theresa, June, Nurse, Hospice Laura Shipler Chico: Sarah, IONA Program Director, Jim’s mom Kendall Arin Claxton*: Kris, Kathleen, Cecilia, Selam Todd Scofield*: Jim, P&P Owner Joelle Denise*: Lorri Understudies: Rachel Manteuffel, Llogan Paige, Robert Bowen Smith Casting: Daryl Eisenberg, CSA, Eisenberg Casting *Denotes member of Actors Equity Association CREATIVE TEAM David Elias* (Stage Manager); Nora Butler (Assistant Stage Manager); David Smith (Lighting Designer); David Lamont Wilson (Sound Designer); Brandee Mathies (Costume Designer); Heidi Castle-Smith (Scenic Designer); Tyra Bell (Props Designer); Robert Bowen Smith (Movement Consultant) Tickets: voicesfestivalproductions.com —  $22 – $45 with discounts available for groups, patrons under 30, affinity groups, and artists, with Pay-What-You-Can tickets available starting at $5 for the first week of performances. Voices Festival Productions (VFP) is an independent theater production company based in Washington DC. Our mission is to produce theatrical works that stimulate debate, discourse, introspection, and awareness. Informed by our underlying humanity in all its color and complexity. Always in dialogue with our current moment, we celebrate diverse voices and intercultural encounters through our twin programming initiatives, “Voices From a Changing Middle East” and “Voices From a Changing Nation.” SEE ALSO: Voices Festival Productions announces cast for ‘Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project’ (news story, October 16, 2024)