A mix of new and old productions
Westport Country Playhouse announces all-virtual 90th anniversary season
While many other theaters plan to reopen their doors this summer and fall, Westport Country Playhouse has announced an all-virtual season for 2021.
The season will feature full online productions of the new comedy “Tiny House” by Michael Gotch, directed by WCP Artistic Director Mark Lamos, and John Patrick Shanley’s award-winning religious drama “Doubt,” directed by Associate
Artistic Director David Kennedy. There will also be screenings of archival HD video recordings of two Westport Playhouse productions from previous seasons: Lamos’ mounting of “The Man of La Mancha” from 2018 and another show yet to be announced because the rebroadcast rights have not yet been secured.
There will also be four new entries in the playhouse’s “Script in Hand” playreading series, including the off-Broadway comedy hit “Rent Control” written and performed by Evan Zes, whom Hartford Stage audiences might remember from “Murder on the Orient Express” in 2018.
This will be Westport Country Playhouse’s 90th season. The theater was founded as a summer stock theater in 1931
by the New York producer Lawrence Langner. Scores of Broadway and Hollywood stars trod the Westport stage for decades. It changed to a nonprofit theater in 1973. In the early 2000s it underwent a lavish $30
million renovation spurred by the involvement of Joanne Woodward, who served as its artistic director from 2000 to 2005.
Mark Lamos, the former artistic director of Hartford Stage, became artistic director of Westport Country Playhouse in 2009.
The playhouse says its virtual 2021 season will be offered on-demand, with an option of open captions in Spanish. The new productions will be rehearsed and filmed under COVID-19 safety protocols.
The playhouse traditionally runs its seasons from April through December, in contrast with most of the other regional theaters in the state which follow a school-year schedule of September to May. With April fast approaching and other theaters not committed to reopening until fall, Westport’s decision is a sensible one.
The theater announced a 2020 season, but after some attempts at postponements and reschedulings ended up staging no live events all year. It was announced that the 2020 season would be staged instead this year, but the virtual season announcement has changed that. Now Westport Playhouse says two musicals that were part of the 2019 slate — “Next to Normal,” directed by Marcos Santana, and “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” directed by Camille A. Brown — will be seen in the 2022 season. The director LA Williams, who was scheduled to direct “Blues for an Alabama Sky,” will be part of the 2022 season as well, directing a different play.
The playhouse plans to adapt its pre-show and postshow events like the Sunday Symposium, talkbacks, Backstage Pass series and LGBT Night Out, as virtual gatherings. Free online talks and presentations are also planned, including the Lamos-hosted “Cocktails with Mark” discussions with theater artists, the behind-the-scenes “From Concept to Curtain” series exploring previous Westport productions such as “Mlima’s Tale” and “Flyin’ West” and an intriguing “Radio Suspense Theater” program co-produced by WSHU Public Radio.
Season ticket packages will go on sale April 1, with single tickets on sale May 1, via westportplayhouse. org, 203-227-4177, or email at boxoffice@westportplayhouse.org. The theater building and its box office remain closed, with box office staff working from home.