A final nod to Kelley in 50th season
A Lauren Gunderson regional premiere, “Ragtime” and a new “Pride and Prejudice” musical are among the highlights of TheatreWorks’ upcoming 201920 season, the company’s 50th and its final under founding artistic director Robert Kelley.
The season kicks off with Julia Cho’s “The Language Archive” ( July 10-Aug. 4), about a linguist who studies endangered languages but struggles to communicate with his wife, followed by the company’s annual New Works Festival (Aug. 7-18) and Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of “The 39 Steps” (Aug. 21Sept. 15), which the company also produced in 2011.
Fall brings the West Coast premiere of Randal Myler and Dan Wheetman’s “Mark Twain’s River of Song” (Oct. 2-27), a musical voyage down the Mississippi River with its most famed chronicler. For the holidays, Paul Gordon returns to TheatreWorks with the world premiere of a “Pride and Prejudice” musical (Dec. 4-29). He’s previously adapted Jane Austen’s “Emma” for the company; both shows were developed in TheatreWorks’ New Works Festival.
Next year begins with the fifth collaboration between the company and Hershey Felder, who specializes in pianodriven biographical solo shows. This time he directs Mona Golabek in “The Pianist of Willesden Lane” ( Jan. 15-Feb. 19), working from his adaptation of her book about her Jewish mother’s escape from Vienna at the start of World War II. The season continues with Laurel Ollstein’s “They Promised Her the Moon” (March 4-29), about Jerrie Cobb, an aspiring female astronaut during the Space Race, and “Ragtime” (April 1-26), the Tony-winning musical by Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens about different ethnic groups at the beginning of the 20th century.
The regional premiere of Gunderson’s “The Book of Will” ( June 3-28), about the first effort to publish Shakespeare’s works, wraps up the 50th season. It’ll be the last show Kelley directs as artistic director of the company he founded almost 50 years ago.
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Fall brings the premiere of “Mark Twain’s River of Song.”