A double volume featuring the final installments of Nelson’s critically acclaimed Rhinebeck Panorama, The Michaels brings to a close a twelve-year theatrical journey that has chronicled the lives of interconnected families in a small upstate New York village. Following the Apple family and the Gabriels, Nelson turns his attention to the Michaels, a family deeply rooted in the world of modern dance.

 

The first play in the collection, The Michaels: Conversations During Difficult Times, unfolds in the kitchen of renowned choreographer Rose Michael. As meals are prepared, dances are rehearsed, and family members gather around the dinner table, conversations drift across art, mortality, family, politics, and the state of America. Quietly profound and deeply observed, the play captures a family navigating uncertainty while remaining committed to the sustaining power of artistic practice.

 

In What Happened?: The Michaels Abroad, the cycle reaches its conclusion as the Michaels gather in Angers, France, in September 2021. Emerging from the isolation and upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, they attend a student dance festival while reflecting on a world forever changed. Together, the two plays offer a moving meditation on family, creativity, resilience, and the fragile bonds that connect us through moments of crisis and renewal.

 

“Over the course of more than a decade, Richard Nelson has created one of the most remarkable and intimate theatrical chronicles of American life,” said Alisha Tonsic, Co-Executive Director of National Operations and Business Development at TCG. “With The Michaels, Nelson concludes this extraordinary cycle with characteristic grace, capturing the ways families sustain one another through uncertainty and change.”

 

 

“Truly moving… The Michaels is as hopeful as it is heartbreaking.” — The New York Times on The Michaels

 

“[A] spare, deceptively simple but ultimately heart-wrenching play.” — The Hollywood Reporter  on The Michaels

 

“These extraordinary plays have left us scrambling with each new visit to recall how things stood 'when last we left them,' and wondering what will happen next.” — The New York Times on What Happened?

 

“Without pedantry or pretense, What Happened? shines a fierce light on COVID’s devastating impact not just on artists, but on the vast majority of individuals who, whatever their backgrounds, were not thriving to begin with under the grossly deformed model of capitalism that has overtaken the American economy.” — New York Stage Review

 

Since its founding in 1984, TCG Books has grown to become North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 22 winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on its book list. The book program commits to the life-long career of its playwrights, keeping all of their plays in print. TCG Books events are supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

 

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, leads for a just and thriving theatre ecology. Since its founding in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 750 organizations (including member theatres, affiliates, universities) and over 3,000 individual members. Through its programs and services, TCG reaches over one million students, audience members, and theatre professionals each year. TCG offers networking and knowledge-building opportunities through research, communications, and events, including the biennial TCG National Conference, one of the largest nationwide gatherings of theatre people; awards grants and scholarships to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and through the Global Theater Initiative, TCG's partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute. TCG is North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 21 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. TCG believes its vision of “a better world for theatre, and a better world because of theatre” can be achieved through individual and collective action, adaptive and responsive leadership, and equitable representation in all areas of practice. TCG is led by Emilya Cachapero, LaTeshia Ellerson and Alisha Tonsic. www.tcg.org.

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