(R)Evolution

JEREMY O. HARRIS AND RAPHAEL PICCIARELLI REIMAGINE WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL

By Dr. Joshua Sherman and Benjamin Lerner

Jeremy O. Harris, left, Williamstown Theatre Festival’s inaugural creative director, and Raphael Picciarelli, the festival’s managing director of strategy & transformation. BY MATTHEW LEIFHEIT

FOR OVER SEVEN DECADES, Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF) has stood as a beacon of theatrical innovation. The legendary festival has served as both an incubator for emerging talent and as a proving ground for established artists, including Matthew Broderick, Audra McDonald, Uma Thurman, and Blair Underwood, among many others. But, as the American theater landscape evolves, so, too, must its institutions. 

Enter Jeremy O. Harris, WTF’s inaugural creative director, and Raphael Picciarelli, the festival’s managing director of strategy & transformation. Their goal is to restore the festival’s “hum” of creative energy while embracing a new structure inspired by modern music festivals, such as Coachella and Lollapalooza. Harris, a Tony-nominated playwright (Slave Play) and screenwriter (Zola), has built a reputation for provocative, socially incisive work that challenges audiences and reshapes theatrical conventions. Picciarelli, a producer and strategist, has an artistic background steeped in both theater and dance. Together, they hope to reignite WTF’s legacy while adapting it for the future. 

The 2025 season, from mid-July through early August, centers around an homage to Tennessee Williams, one of America’s greatest playwrights. The festival’s flagship production, Camino Real, will be reimagined by Lucille Lortel Award-winning director Dustin Wills, embracing the feverish surrealism of Williams’ 1953 play. Meanwhile, Not About Nightingales, an early work by Williams that tackles themes of incarceration and systemic oppression, will find new resonance under the direction of Robert O’Hara (Slave Play). Harris’ new play, Spirit of the People, also will receive its world-premiere production. The piece confronts the complexities of land, power, and destruction in contemporary society. 

Adding to the festival’s experimental edge, Will Davis will direct a site-specific Williams-inspired performance on ice at the Peter W. Foote Vietnam Veterans Skating Rink in North Adams, embracing the playwright’s themes in an unexpected setting. Opera also makes an entrance this season with Vanessa, Samuel Barber’s Pulitzer Prize-winning chamber opera, reimagined in collaboration with Heartbeat Opera. 

With multiple productions running in repertory, the festival invites audiences to experience a dynamic and unpredictable summer of theater unlike anything in the festival’s history–a dynamic, repertory-style structure that invites audiences to immerse themselves in multiple productions at once. With an emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, audience engagement, and artistic risk-taking, the festival is being reimagined as a contemporary creative haven—one that channels the adventurous spirit of WTF’s past while forging a bold new future.

A Festival That Feels Like a Celebration

To envision the future of WTF, Harris dove deeply into modern music festival culture—Coachella, Bonnaroo, and Lollapalooza. “They do a really good job of creating a sense of community,” he says. 

Harris and Picciarelli didn’t develop this novel approach in a vacuum. They talked with artists, producers, and curators who have worked at the intersection of disciplines, including those with direct experience in music festivals and immersive arts events. “We asked ourselves and others: How do we bring that same sense of immediacy, spontaneity, and discovery into theater?” Picciarelli says. The answer? “Instead of a linear lineup of standalone productions (one after the other), the new model stages multiple core productions at once, running in repertory. It allows audiences to plan a visit that feels truly immersive, hopping from show to show like they would at a major festival.” 

Beyond the theatrical restructuring, the design of the festival’s experience is also getting a makeover. Inspired by the way music festivals map out schedules, the WTF website now allows patrons to chart their own theatrical journey. With a weekend pass model, festival-goers can navigate multiple performances over the course of a few days. 

“It’s not just about the shows—it’s about the interactions, the in-between moments, the social engagement,” says Harris. “We’re bringing that back to Williamstown. We want people to leave not just with memories of great theater, but with a deeper connection to the artists, the community, and the experience itself.”

Bringing Williams to Williamstown

At the core of the 2025 festival is a thematic homage to one of America’s most legendary playwrights. Harris saw a perfect synergy between Williams’ works and the festival’s new direction. Although best known for his plays The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams was “fearless, experimental, and deeply personal in his work,” says Harris. “His plays push the boundaries of realism, much like how we’re pushing the boundaries of what a theater festival can be. What excites me most about this summer’s lineup is that we’re not just celebrating Tennessee Williams—we’re interrogating his work. It’s not about recycling the classics.”

Fostering Discovery 

This bold vision doesn’t come without challenges. WTF has long been a cherished institution with a fiercely loyal audience, many of whom have grown accustomed to a particular model of summer stock theater. Harris and Picciarelli are acutely aware of the delicate balance of honoring tradition, while pushing the form forward. 

Harris views this shift not as a departure from Williamstown’s legacy, but as a natural evolution. “The Williamstown of the 2000s was not the Williamstown of the ’90s, and it definitely wasn’t the Williamstown of the ’70s,” he says. “People who have been coming here for years know this. They’ve watched the festival change dynamically, in five-year cycles, constantly. The core of Williamstown has always been young artists coming together, creating a new community, pushing boundaries, and engaging in a passionate exchange of ideas. That’s what we’re doing. We’re just doing it in a new way.” 

Indeed. WTF has historically been a training ground for early-career artists, but this year’s festival doubles down on that ethos. Harris, who spends quite a bit of time in the Williamstown community, often chats with young Williams College students at the local coffee shop, eager to pass on the wisdom his own mentors once gave him. 

“Knowing that artists who were older and more established saw me, heard me, and wanted to support me was life-changing,” Harris says. “Tony Kushner did that for me. He saw my work and made space for me. That’s the greatest gift an artist can receive, and I want to create that same space here.” 

For Harris and Picciarelli, the reinvention of WTF is more than just programming. It’s about fostering an environment where artists, audiences, and future generations of theater-makers can engage in meaningful dialogue. It’s about bringing back the vibrancy, the risk-taking, and the sense of shared discovery that has always defined the best iterations of Williamstown. 

“The Williamstown Theatre Festival has always been an experimental space,” notes Picciarelli. “What we’re doing isn’t breaking tradition—it’s living up to it.”