SEASON PREVIEW
Hartford Stage announces eclectic 2022-23 season, including two new shows, Agatha Christie and Shakespeare
Having nearly made it through its first full season since the pandemic, Hartford Stage has announced its full 2022-23 slate of six shows, including two new plays, a classic African American drama from the 1950s, the return of both William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie plus the second go-round of the holiday show “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“Of the six plays, four are by women,” notes Hartford Stage Artistic Director Melia Bensussen. They include the Agatha Christie murder mystery “The Mousetrap”; Alice Childress’ landmark Black backstage drama “Trouble in Mind”; and two new plays, Kate Snodgrass’ “The Art of Burning,” and Christine Quintana’s “Espejos: Clean.”
Hartford Stage’s current 2021-22 season will end next month with the new musical “Kiss My Aztec” by John Leguizamo, Tony Taccone and Benjamin Velez. This was the first full season to be overseen by Hartford Stage artistic director Melia Bensussen, who joined the theater in early 2019, programmed half the 201920 season with her predecessor Darko Tresnjak and then saw the next two seasons compromised by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here’s what’s coming next season, with commentary by Bensussen and Hartford Stage’s Managing Director Cynthia Rider.
‘The Mousetrap’ by Agatha Christie
Directed by Jackson Gay; Oct. 13 through Nov. 6
“The Mousetrap,” which Christie based on her radio play (later a short story) “Three Blind Mice,” opened in London’s West End in 1952 and ran there continuously until COVID closed it for 14 months in 2020-21, after which it opened again. It’s the longest running play in theater history, which is all the more remarkable because, since it’s a murder mystery with a surprise ending that once divulged would presumably discourage repeat viewings.
“We were looking for a title that brings suspense to the theater,” says Bensussen, who selected this 70th anniversary production of “The Mousetrap” to open the season. “It’s different when you watch something suspenseful with an audience. This is the joy of coming back to a new season at Hartford Stage.”
Also joyful: director Jackson Gay, a top regional theater talent whose Connecticut productions include the world premiere of Bess Wohl’s “Make Believe” at Hartford Stage in 2018 and Rolin Jone’s Merseybeat/Shakespeare mash-up “These Paper Bullets!” at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2014.
“When I mentioned this to Jackson,” Bensussen says, “she said ‘Oh my god! I love that genre.”
‘It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play’
Adapted by Joe Landry, Nov. 25 through Dec. 24
Hartford Stage is not quite ready to return to “A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas.” Though Rider insists that the theater company
“still thinks of ourselves as the ‘Christmas Carol’ theater,” the decision was made to remount
“It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play” because “not enough people saw it last year. ‘A Christmas Carol’ will be back sometime in the future.”
Connecticut-based playwright Joe Landry’s popular adaptation of the classic Jimmy Stewart holiday film is drawn from the original short story “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern and the film screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra and Jo Swerling.
When it was first presented
in November and December of 2021, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was co-directed by Bensussen and Hartford Stage Artistic Associate Rachel Alderman (who also co-directed the theater’s current production of Neil Simon’s “Lost in Yonkers,” with Marsha Mason.) This year, just Alderman will be directed. The production will change a bit, and will feature a different cast.
Hartford Stage is considering doing other holiday-themed theater events this year, possibly a repeat of the reading of Thornton’s Wilder’s “The Long Christmas Dinner” by
Hartt School students and possibly even a reading of “A Christmas Carol.”
‘Espejos: Clean’ by Christine Quintana
Spanish translation and adaptation by Paula Zelaya Cervantes
Directed by Melissa Crespo, Jan. 12 through
Feb. 5
“This is the first time Hartford Stage has done a completely bilingual play,” Bensussen says. That begins with its title, since the words “espejos” and “clean” do not mean the same thing.
In the play, one character speaks in Spanish while another speaks in English.
“Whichever language you speak, you’ll be able to understand everything,” says Bensussen, who has her own experience as a director and translator of Spanish-language plays.
She describes Quinlan’s play as “the journey of two women in Mexico — one works there, and the other is planning her sister’s wedding. It’s about those Club Med-type places, where they’re so beautiful that it’s easy to forget about the locals who have to work there.”
The production is a co-production with Syracuse Stage, where “Espejos: Clean”’s director Melissa Crespo is the associate artistic director.
‘The Art of Burning’ by Kate Snodgrass
Directed by Melia Bensussen, March 2 to 26
This is a world premiere, about the custody battle over a 15-year-old child. “The Art of Burning” is a co-production between Hartford Stage and the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, which will stage it first, in January and February. Both Bensussen and playwright Kate Snodgrass have long associations with the Huntington.
‘The Winter’s Tale’ by William Shakespeare
Directed by Melia Bensussen, April 13 through May 7
It’s back-to-back directing duties for Bensussen in 2022, first with the world premiere of “The Art of Burning” and then with this 400-year-old Shakespeare play, considered one of the Bard’s so-called problem plays because it apparently doesn’t know if it wants to be a comedy, a romance or a psychological thriller. For many, such an intriguing mixing of genres is not any kind of problem. The Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven did a joyous production of “The Winter’s Tale” in 2012 and a much bleaker one in 1986. Hartford Stage has not done it before, but Bensussen has, at Actors’ Shakespeare Project in Boston in 2015.
“When I was hired here,” Bensussen says,
“it was partly because my strengths as a director were Shakespeare and new works.” She adds that Shakespeare plays have been among the most popular shows at Hartford Stage: “Shakespeare sells better than anything except musicals.”
“‘The Winter’s Tale’ speaks to me about the last few years,” Bensussen says.
Rider says she’s seen three different productions of “The Winter’s Tale” and “each time, it’s a new play. You don’t feel you’ve seen this before. As an audience member, it’s so exciting to experience.”
‘Trouble in Mind’ by Alice Childress
Directed by Christopher D. Betts, May 25 through June 18
Bensussen describes Childress’ 1955 drama, about a Black actors rehearsing a play about racism by a white author, as “a perfect play for a theater like Hartford Stage. It’s right up there with the Arthur Miller plays of this period.” It will be directed by Christopher Betts, who directed the new production of Tarell Alvin
McCraney’s “Choir Boy” at Yale Repertory Theatre this month and will be at Hartford Stage for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons as the theater’s inaugural Joyce C. Willis fellow.
“The Roberts Foundation [which funds the Willis grant] originally suggested that we get a playwright, but Cynthia and I felt that the person who really changes the culture in a theater is the director. We liked Christopher Betts’ energy and his commitment. He’ll be a part of the season programming while he’s here. We did not specify that he direct a Black play, but we did discuss a number of them, and he was excited to do ‘Trouble in Mind.’ ”
“Our commitment,” Bensussen says of all the plays in the 2022-23 season, “is to the artists on our stage showing their best selves.”