TheatreSquared’s executive director Martin Miller and artistic director Bob Ford announce their upcoming season
Courtesy
Musicals, Tony Award-winners, world premiers, new twists on old classics, off-Broadway hits and more. TheatreSquared just released the lineup for their upcoming 12th season, and at first glance, it appears to have something for everyone.
The company will perform Tony Award winning musical Fun Home beginning in August, followed by the world premier of Amy Evans The Champion, a new twist on Frank Capra’s classic film in It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, one of the most acclaimed plays in recent memory with Stephen Karam’s The Humans, Arkansas native Qui Nguyen’s off Broadway hit Vietgone, before concluding their season with an adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Artistic director Robert Ford is calling the upcoming season “unmissable.”
“We’ve secured the rights to both the 2015 Tony Award Winner for Best Musical and the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play, immediately after their Broadway runs,” he said. “We’ll launch the world premiere of a gripping new play based on untold events in the life of Nina Simone. We’ll bring home an Arkansas playwright’s acclaimed new play—told partly in rap, with comic verve—of how his parents first met as refugees in south Arkansas. And we’ll reimagine two classics with abundant theatrical invention.”
Subscription packages for the season are on sale now, and start at $89 for a six-play package, $79 for five-plays, and $67 for a four-play package. Single tuckets will go on sale in the summer of 2016.
For more information, or to purchase a subscription, visit theatre2.org.
TheatreSquared’s 2017-18 season
Descriptions provided by TheatreSquared
Fun Home
Book and Lyrics by Lisa Kron
Music by Jeanine Tesori
Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel
August 23 – September 17, 2017
Winner, Best Musical
2015 Tony Award, Obie Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Off-Broadway Alliance Award, and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award.
Finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
A five-time Tony Award-winner and one of the most significant new musicals of the 21st century. When her father dies unexpectedly, graphic novelist Alison dives deep into her past to tell the story of the volatile, brilliant, one-of-a-kind man whose temperament and secrets defined her family and her life. Moving between past and present, Alison relives her unique childhood playing make-believe at the family business — the Bechdel Funeral Home. Fun Home is a refreshingly honest, cathartic, and wholly original musical about seeing your parents through grown-up eyes. Directed by Amy Herzberg; featuring Rita Harvey and Rob Sutton (Next to Normal).
“A rare beauty, extraordinary and heart-gripping. The best new musical to open on Broadway.” — The New York Times
“Stunning, deeply moving, funny, and fresh — it hooks you instantly.” — Associated Press
The Champion
by Amy Evans
A TheatreSquared World Premiere
October 11-November 5, 2017
Based on untold true events. It’s 1962 and music legend Nina Simone is holed up in a snowstorm in a greasy spoon somewhere in North Carolina, waiting for the trains to start running. Tempers flare between band members, and as secrets surface, it’s soon clear this small diner in unfriendly territory may well be the place where life-changing decisions are made. Suddenly, the band find themselves accused of a crime they didn’t commit. A sharply drawn, exciting new play that intimately portrays a cultural icon and the turbulent era during which she rose to fame. Directed by Reginald Douglas; featuring Joy Jones as Nina Simone.
Developed in part at the 2016 Arkansas New Play Festival in Fayetteville and Bentonville.
It’s a Wonderful Life
adapted by Joe Landry
November 29-December 31, 2017
This inventive twist on Frank Capra’s classic film brings the ever-timely story of disaster, redemption and holiday magic to life on stage before your eyes and ears. It’s Christmas Eve, 1946, and five actors have gathered in WFMK Studio A for a live radio broadcast, ready to take on dozens of characters and recreate Bedford Falls with live foley sound effects and virtuosic, high-energy performances. Even the cynics among us will cheer as George Bailey, standing on the brink of despair, famously learns that “no man is a failure who has friends.” For all ages.
“One of the best holiday shows around. Fresh and inventive. Highly recommended.” — Chicago Tribune
“Evocative and heartwarming.” — The New York Times
The Humans
by Stephen Karam
January 24-Febraury 18, 2019
Winner—Best Play
2016 Tony Award, New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama League Award, Drama Desk Award
Finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The most acclaimed and awarded American play in recent memory will have its first independent production in Northwest Arkansas following its record-breaking Broadway run. After a sleepless night, Mr. Blake brings his family from Pennsylvania to his daughter’s new apartment to celebrate Thanksgiving. As darkness falls outside the ramshackle pre-war duplex, mysterious things start to go bump in the night, secrets are revealed, and family tensions reach a boiling point.
“The best play of the year.” – Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, NPR, New York Times, Forbes, Time Out New York, Newsday, New York Magazine
“A major discovery. Blisteringly funny and altogether wonderful.” – The New York Times
“This is why we go to the theatre. Rackingly funny even as it pummels the heart.” – New York Magazine.
Vietgone
by Qui Nguyen
March 14-April 8, 2018
A modern twist on the All-American love story, Vietgone pulses with contemporary energy. It’s the classic boy meets girl – except this boy and girl are refugees from the Vietnam War newly settled in a relocation camp in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Borrowing from up-to-the-minute popular culture to recreate the playwright’s own parents’ meeting, Vietgone ranges from hilarity to heart-wrenching drama, skipping through time and around the globe. Fresh from its acclaimed 2017 New York debut — and written by an Arkansas native — Vietgone presents a fresh theatrical take on one real family’s history. Directed by Kholoud Sawaf.
“A raucous, immensely moving comedy with a fresh, impish voice.” – The New York Times (Critics’ Pick)
“Four stars. A high-energy triumph.” – The Guardian
“Sexy, sassy and exuberant.” – Time Out NY
The Hound of Baskervilles
Freely adapted by Steven Canny and John Nicholson
from the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
April 25-May 20, 2018
Packed full of verbal and visual ingenuity and abundant comedy, this sublimely funny reimagining of the most celebrated Sherlock Holmes mystery is a hyper-theatrical tour de force. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the moors with a look of terror still etched on his face, the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes is summoned from Baker Street to unravel the mysteries surrounding his death and investigate an ancient curse. A hit in London’s West End called “gut-bustingly funny” by The Times, this clever new adaptation brings the silly-yet-dignified tone of British sketch comedy to a classic Holmesian whodunnit. For all ages.
“Hysterical, my dear Watson.” – The Telegraph
“A happy spoof of what was once a serious piece of fiction, with a winning, welcome playfulness.” – The New York Times
