Sunday, January 24, 2010
La Jolla Playhouse Announces 2010-2011 Season
La Jolla Playhouse has announced five of six productions in its 2010-2011 season, including the world-premiere musical comedy A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, book by Robert L. Freedman, music by Steven Lutvak, lyrics by Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak.
A Gentleman’s Guide (Sept-Oct) will star Tony Award-winner Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife) playing multiple roles in a deliciously witty romp through manners, mores and murder in Edwardian England. In a tale with strikingly contemporary resonance, a young man of little means discovers he’s eighth in line for a great fortune and a title. Driven by revenge and torn between two beautiful women, he discovers just how low he is willing to go on his climb to the top.
Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley also re-imagines Shakespeare’s classic A Midsummer Night’s Dream (July-August) in an innovative and gravity-defying production. In a Victorian court of rules and constraints, Hermia faces the threat of an arranged marriage. When she and her forbidden lover escape into the forest, her jilted fiancé follows in hot pursuit. But the woods and its mischievous fairies have their own surprises, and the lovers soon find themselves in a world turned upside-down -- literally. The piece will be interwoven with music from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream score, performed live by an on-stage orchestra.
The season will open with Surf Report (June-July) by San Diego playwright Annie Weisman. The world premiere comic drama centers on Judith, who spends her days serving as assistant and caretaker for her demanding venture capitalist boss in a coastal southern California town. Her husband Hal spends his nights trying not to pick a fight with Judith; and her daughter Bethany, a struggling artist in New York, spends every waking moment trying to stay as far away from home as possible. But when Bethany returns to California for a family emergency, the shadows of the past and the specter of an uncertain future threatens the very core of this turbulent threesome. This funny and poignant play examines the sacrifices we make – or avoid – for our families.
Also in the season is Notes from Underground (Sept-Oct), a haunting, compelling play based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s (Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov) landmark 1864 novella. This astonishing adaptation is brought to the stage by acclaimed director Robert Woodruff, frequent Playhouse artist during the ‘80s and ‘90s and leading avant-garde director, and Obie Award-winning actor Bill Camp, who gives a tour-de-force performance as the Underground Man. Having resigned his position as a civil servant to live in isolation, the Man holes up in a squalid office cluttered with discarded equipment and wet snow, ready to take vengeance on a corrupt world. He begins a descent into madness that is at times heartbreakingly funny, at times disquieting, but always honest, searing and unforgettable. Contains nudity, violence and strong language.
The Playhouse will also present Lynn Nottage’s phenomenal hit off-Broadway play Ruined (Nov-Dec). As a civil war rages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mama Nadi runs a canteen where any soldier can put down his weapon, have a beer and spend an evening in the company of beautiful women -- for a price. But the good-time atmosphere of this cozy brothel cannot hide the battles waged on the women who work there. They have been torn from their families, brutalized at the hands of violent men and bartered as a commodity by the shrewd Mama Nadi, but despite the atrocities inflicted on them, their courage, humor and hope survive. Winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Ruined was extended multiple times off-Broadway and has earned numerous awards, including the Obie Award for Best New American Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.
Subscriptions to La Jolla Playhouse’s 2010/11 season are available by calling (858) 550-1010 or by visiting www.lajollaplayhouse.org.
