PA Shakespeare Festival announces 2020 season
Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s Producing Artistic Director Patrick Mulcahy has announced plans for the theater company’s 2020 summer season.
Continuing his commitment to introduce the highest level of theater in the Lehigh Valley, the Festival’s upcoming season plans to deliver a summer of first-rate productions by master dramatists.
Mulcahy, now in his 17th year of leading the Festival, has assembled a diverse and expansive season of classics including masterworks by William Shakespeare, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning dramas, celebrated 20th-century icons, an epic limited engagement and an assembly of acclaimed directors.
“Midsummer dreaming is in our nature at PSF. And in summer 2020, it will be a theme for the season and the heartbeat of the festival,” says Mulcahy. “Whether it is young lovers pursuing freedom in the wilds, a prince seeking the leadership of a nation, a hardworking father chasing a deferred American Dream, aspiring Broadway dancers seeking that ‘singular sensation,’ a fever dream of war and remembrance, or young women in a bygone era dreaming of lives of their own choosing, PSF is the place this summer where the pursuit of dreams can refresh the spirit.”
Shakespeare remains at the heart of PSF’s programming. This summer, the festival will produce two of Shakespeare’s masterworks, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Henry IV, Part 2.”
The festival’s 29th season will begin on the main stage with the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prizewinning “A Chorus Line.” The musical theater classic and “singular sensation” was created by choreographer Michael Bennett and legendary composer Marvin Hamlisch. In a colorful mix of song, dance, and drama by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante, “A Chorus
Line” illuminates the ambitions of ensemble dancers in the final chorus audition of an upcoming Broadway show.
One of Broadway’s longest running musicals, “A Chorus Line” boasts classic numbers such as “What I Did for Love,” and “One.”
This production will be under the direction of Associate Artistic Director Dennis Razze, who returns following his wellreceived PSF productions of “Ragtime” (2018), “Evita” (2017), “West Side Story” (2016) and “Les Misérables” (2015).
“I’m very excited to direct ‘A Chorus Line’ this summer for PSF. I recall seeing the touring company in 1977 when it came to the Fisher Theatre in Detroit — when I was in graduate
school. It was an amazing experience in so many ways — the innovative concept, the terrific score by Marvin Hamlisch, the brilliant lighting by the legendary Tharon Musser (which was the first time a musical had lighting controlled by a computer). But most of all the fantastic choreography by Michael Bennett, which placed him in that same stratosphere as Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse,” remarked Razze.
The summer season will continue at Schubert Theatre for August Wilson’s groundbreaking Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning drama, “Fences.” An epic work of stunning poetry by the Pittsburgh native, “Fences” has been hailed by critics as “a blockbuster piece of theater” and “the strongest, most passionate American dramatic writing since Tennessee Williams.”
“Fences” depicts the yearnings and struggles of the Maxson family, led by their patriarch Troy — a former Negro League home run king, who now works as a garbage man to support his family. Set in 1950s Pittsburgh against the backdrop of a rapidly changing America, “Fences” is a timeless American story of fathers and sons, husbands and wives, dreams and realities.
The festival welcomes director and actor Christopher V. Edwards, who will make his PSF debut directing “Fences.” Edwards is the artistic director of the Actor’s Shakespeare Project in Boston. He’s also served as artistic director of Nevada Conservatory Theatre in Las Vegas, and was the associate artistic director with the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in New York — where he directed and acted in over 30 productions.
Playing in repertory on the Main Stage will be Shakespeare’s masterfully orchestrated comedy, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” In the Bard’s treasured production, trickster Puck trips up young lovers as the king and queen of the fairies mingle with a clownish Athenian craftsman and his band of hapless players. All yields a magical night of moonlit merriment and revelry. Barrymore Award-winning director Matt Pfeiffer returns — following his critically-acclaimed PSF productions of “Twelfth Night,” “As You Like It,” and “The Taming of the Shrew.”
Hailed as “the region’s most reliable director of William Shakespeare,” Pfeiffer says, “This is some of Shakespeare’s best language and his most iconic characters. It’s a story about the irrationality of love. Love is inexplicable. It is the offspring of imagination, not reason. This play is a celebration of that. That irrational spirit inside all of us, that allows us to give over to love. The world is a pretty challenging place these days. It’s never felt more important to share love and light with each other.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream will play in repertory with a fresh and funny adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility.” Through hopes and heartbreak, the Dashwood sisters discover the cruelties and unpredictability that can come with the search for true love — whether measured or impulsive.
Austen’s razor-sharp wit shines in this adaptation of her beloved classic from Olivier Award-winning writer Jessica Swale.
Following the success of last season’s “Crazy for You” and “King Richard II” in 2018, director and veteran Broadway actress Gina Lamparella will lead the production. Lamparella’s Broadway acting credits include “The Phantom of the Opera,” “A Little Night Music,” “Fiddler on the Roof ” and “Les Misérables.”
Additionally, her PSF directing credits include “Beauty and the Beast,” and the Linny Fowler WillPower Tours of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Macbeth,” “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Hamlet.”
She has also directed in New York and Florence, Italy.
Wrapping up the season in the Schubert Theatre is the next chapter in Shakespeare’s epic cycle, “Henry IV, Part 2,” which continues Shakespeare’s historical tetralogy on the rise of the royal House of Lancaster. In this chapter, King Henry IV is in failing health, with enemies threatening his kingdom — as Prince Hal must reconcile his public and private life as the mantle of kingship passes from father to son.
Falstaff faces his duty with an eye to a future when Hal is king in Shakespeare’s dramatic tale of family, betrayal, and rebellion.
In the “Extreme Shakespeare” tradition, this production will be rehearsed as Shakespeare’s companies would have — with actors arriving with lines learned, rehearsing on their own, wearing what they can find, and opening in a matter of days. All of this with no director and no designers — just accomplished actors, a brilliant play, pure adrenaline, spontaneity and creativity.
New to the Festival this year, a limited engagement will pair a beloved PSF actor with an indelible work of literature in “An Iliad” — a Lehigh Valley premiere. Starring PSF and Philadelphia veteran actor Greg Wood, this modern retelling of Homer’s classic features a lone storyteller and a live musician delivering a visceral and refreshing recollection of heroes, gods and humanity’s attraction to destruction and chaos.
Obie Award–winning director Lisa Peterson and Tony Award–winning actor Denis O’Hare have adapted Robert Fagles’ lauded translation of Homer’s “The Iliad” into an ambitious solo performance piece. According to PSF, “In a dynamic theatrical event, Wood returns to PSF in a virtuosic turn to weave a powerful, poetic and epic tale that captures both the heroism and horror of war.”
The 29th season begins with “A Chorus Line” on the Main Stage, with previews on June 10 and June 11, and opening night on June 12.
The official opening in the Schubert Theatre begins with “Fences,” which will preview on June 18 and
June 19, and opens June 20. The season will run through Aug. 2.
Tickets for the 2020 season will go on sale in November 2019 for renewing subscribers. Single tickets, new subscriptions and package sales will begin in early February.
For updates and casting announcements visit pashakespeare.org
For more info, call the PSF box office at 610-282-WILL [9455].