Park Avenue Armory Season Spotlights Homelessness and Medical Ethics

An immersive drama about homelessness, a moral thriller about the intersection of faith and medical ethics, and the world premiere of a theatrically staged solo performance of the composer Franz Schubert’s final songs are among the 2023 season offerings the Park Avenue Armory announced on Tuesday.

Each of the featured artists in the season, which spotlights social issues, will “push the limits of their respective forms” and “offer perspectives that speak to the important issues of our communities here in New York and around the world,” Rebecca Robertson, the Armory’s founding president and executive producer, said in a statement.

The season begins in February in the Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall with the North American premiere of the British playwright and director Alexander Zeldin’s “Love,” a 90-minute drama in which actors are seated among the theatergoers (Feb. 25-March 25, 2023). The show, which premiered at London’s National Theater in 2016, brings audiences into the lives of several homeless families staying in a shelter in the days before Christmas.

It will be followed in June by the transfer of another critically acclaimed British show, the director Robert Icke’s “The Doctor” (June 3-Aug. 19, 2023). A combative play about medical ethics, identity politics and antisemitism, “The Doctor” opened at London’s Almeida Theater in 2019 and is now playing in the West End. Juliet Stevenson (“Truly, Madly, Deeply”), will reprise her role as the Jewish doctor at the center of the drama in what will be her first New York stage appearance in 20 years.

Next up will be the pandemic-delayed world premiere of “Doppelganger,” the German opera director Claus Guth’s theatrical staging of Franz Schubert’s “Schwanengesang” (“Swan Song”), a collection of the composer’s final songs made into a cycle by his publisher (Sept. 22-28, 2023). The compilation, which had originally been set to debut in the Drill Hall in 2020, will be performed by the star tenor Jonas Kaufmann.

October will bring another world premiere, “Mutant;Destrudo,” an electronic music-infused production directed by the experimental Venezuelan musician Arca (dates to be announced).

The Drill Hall’s season concludes with a double program that will pair a new piece, “common ground[s],” a duet featuring the dancers Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo, with a restaging of the German choreographer Pina Bausch’s rendering of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” (Nov. 29-Dec. 14, 2023). Performed by a company of 36 dancers from 14 African countries on a dirt-covered stage, the work explores the raw violence of ritual and sacrifice.

Beyond the Drill Hall, the Armory’s intimate Recital Series will include the baritone Stéphane Degout (April 3 and 5, 2023); the British tenor Allan Clayton, who sang the title role in the American premiere of “Hamlet” at the Metropolitan Opera (April 27 and 29, 2023); and the soprano Julia Bullock, who recently appeared at the Armory in the technologically ambitious chamber opera “Upload” (Sept. 11 and 13, 2023).