‘Fun Home’ finally coming to stage
Theaterworks Hartford’s 2022-23 season will finally deliver the musical “Fun Home,” and will also offer recent works by acclaimed playwrights Lynn Nottage, Hilary Bettis and Jessica Dickey.
The theater finally gets to stage “Fun Home,” delayed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, while the three plays on the subscription series are in the well-established Theaterworks tradition of recent New York hits or new works.
For the company’s producing artistic director Rob Ruggiero, the season shows how Theaterworks doesn’t pull any emotional punches. “Every one of our plays next season were penned by important female voices and will be cast in ways that reflect our world,” he says.
He notes that the four main subscription shows is a shorter-than-usual season for the company that customarily has done five or six. Each show’s run will be a little shorter as well — a month each rather than the accustomed five weeks. Theaters are still recovering from the uncertainty of the COVID19 era, he explains. Doing four shows, especially when one of them (“Fun Home”) is a grander production than Theaterworks often does, makes the season more manageable and allows the company to stabilize while audiences are still just starting to return.
‘Fun Home,’ Oct. 8-30
“We’re opening the season with ‘Fun Home!,’ Ruggiero exults. “We’ve promised it twice. It’s a very important story.”
The Broadway production of the show in 2015 won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical (by Lisa Kron) and Best Original Score (by Jeanine Tesori). It’s based on a memoir written and drawn by cartoonist Alison Bechdel about her father’s closeted homosexuality, her own coming out as a lesbian and her childhood adventures growing up in a funeral home.
Ruggiero likens “Fun Home” to another sensitive modern musical, “Next to Normal,” which Theaterworks staged in 2017.
“Doing ‘Next to Normal’ in our space surprised even us,” says Ruggiero, who directed that show and will also helm “Fun Home.”
“What excites me is that it represents what our audience responds to in terms of complex relationships and contemporary social issues,” he says. “I’m also excited, as a middle-aged gay man, to direct this piece, A lot depends on how the father’s journey is crafted.”
‘Queen of Basel,’ Feb. 4-March 5
Hilary Bettis’ drama “Queen of
Basel” is a contemporary adaptation of August Strindberg’s classic drama of adultery and power, “Miss Julie,” set in Miami with Latinx characters. The show had its world premiere in Washington, D.C., in 2019. Ruggiero calls it “dangerous and sexual and visceral and provocative.”
‘The Rembrandt,’ April 29-May 28
A centuries-spanning drama of art philosophy, passion and beauty, Jessica Dickey’s “The Rembrandt” starts when a museum worker makes contact with a famous painting, leading to dialogues that involve Rembrandt himself.
“The Rembrandt” will be directed by Tracy Brigden, whose previous Theaterworks productions include, “Lifespan of a Fact,” “Hand to God” and “Midsummer.” Ruggiero says the theater will partner with the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art to augment the art-world themes of “The Rembrandt.” He also says he is committed to a “diverse cast” for this “life-affirming” play.
‘Clyde’s,’ July 8-Aug. 6, 2023
This is the newest of several newish plays in the 2022-23 season. Lynn Nottage, who has won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice (for “Sweat” and “Ruined”), crafted this comedy about a truck stop sandwich shop that hires the formerly incarcerated. The characters discuss their hopes and dreams and some exceptional sandwich-making skills.
The play’s New York run was just six months ago, and Theaterworks will be among the first regional theaters in the country to stage it. The director has not been announced.
‘Christmas on the Rocks’
While not on the subscription season, Theaterworks’ homegrown holiday show, “Christmas on the Rocks,” is returning for its 10th go-round.
Ruggiero is planning to refresh it for this anniversary with one or two new scenes. The show consists of short sketches by established playwrights, showing characters from famous Christmas specials as adults struggling with midlife crises.
There hasn’t been a new scene added to “Christmas on the Rocks” in five years, though the show’s cast has undergone several changes. “Christmas on the Rocks” will return in November/ December, with exact dates yet to be announced.
Ruggiero also promises that Theaterworks’ New Works Festival, with readings of works-in-progress, will return, as will concerts and special theatrical events.