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“The political turmoil in Richard II speaks in striking ways to the political turmoil we’ve been living through in recent years. We understand what it is to be disillusioned with our leaders and skeptical of the laws that order our everyday lives. I find now that I feel a certain degree of empathy for Richard in a way that my younger self did not….How do you go on when the world around you is imploding? How do you make sense of a universe you no longer recognize? How do you reckon with loss? These are questions that we all understand—even though we’re not kings.” Naomi Iizuka, Playwright
Playwright
Naomi Iizuka
Naomi Iizuka’s plays include 36 VIEWS, POLAROID STORIES, ANON(YMOUS), LANGUAGE OF ANGELS, ALOHA, SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS, TATTOO GIRL, SKIN, AT THE VANISHING POINT, CONCERNING STRANGE DEVICES FROM THE DISTANT WEST, LAST FIREFLY, CITIZEN 13559, and WAR OF THE WORLDS (a collaboration with Anne Bogart and SITI Company.) Her plays have been produced at theatres across the country including Berkeley Rep, the Goodman Theatre, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie Theater, Cornerstone Theater Company, Children’s Theater Company, Seattle Children’s Theatre Company, the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, the Huntington Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, the Public Theater, Dallas Theater Center, and Soho Rep. Iizuka’s plays have been published by Overlook Press, Playscripts, Smith and Kraus, Dramatic Publishing, and TCG. lizuka is an alumna of New Dramatists and the recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Award, an Alpert Award, a Joyce Foundation Award, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Stavis Award from the National Theatre Conference, a PEN Center USA West Award for Drama, a Hodder Fellowship, and a Jerome Fellowship. Her play GOOD KIDS was commissioned by the Big Ten Consortium’s New Play Initiative and has been produced at universities nationwide. Recent projects include an adaptation of SLEEP by Haruki Murakami which premiered at the 2017 BAM Next Wave Festival and WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, a play written in collaboration with US Marine Corps combat veterans and their families, and produced by La Jolla Playhouse and Cornerstone Theater Company in 2018. Iizuka was the Berlind Playwright-in-Residence at Princeton University this past academic year and heads the MFA Playwriting program at the University of California, San Diego.
Dramaturg
Joy Meads
Joy Meads is recently the Director of Dramaturgy and New Works for A.C.T. in San Francisco. Formerly the Literary Associate and Artistic Engagement Strategist at Center Theatre Group, where her dramaturgy credits include Forever by Dael Orlandersmith, Marjorie Prime by Jordan Harrison, The Royale by Marco Ramirez, and A Parallelogram by Bruce Norris. Previous to CTG, Joy was Literary Manager at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Associate Artistic Director at California Shakespeare Theater, where she ran the theater’s New Works/New Communities program. Joy has also worked with Portland Center Stage, the O’Neill, South Coast Rep, Chicago Dramatists, The Playwrights’ Center, Native Voices at the Autry, NYTW, and Campo Santo + Intersection for the Arts.
In Print
Richard II
Shakespeare’s history play reimagined by Naomi Iizuka.
Following the events of the final two years of his life, Richard II interrogates royal power and the forces that threaten it. After banishing his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, Richard begins to lose grip of his throne and strives to find meaning in the churn and chaos of the events unfolding around him. In her new translation, Naomi Iizuka ventures into the mystery of the work, scraping away the layers of received wisdom and cracking the play open for contemporary audiences.
