A Tony Award-winner straight from Broadway, a 20th century classic and a beloved tale from Shakespeare paired with a tour de force musical by Stephen Sondheim highlight the 2014-2015 Mainstage Season from PlayMakers Repertory Company’s.
“Our new season features plays fresh from award-winning New York runs, along with contemporary American classics, and a magical pairing of Shakespeare and Sondheim in our rotating repertory,” said PlayMakers producing artistic director Joseph Haj. “It’s a lineup of compelling, thought-provoking, spectacularly entertaining theater that we can’t wait for Triangle audiences to see on our stage.”
The theater will also present its popular PRC2 second-stage series. Negotiations are pending, with details to be released soon, for three timely, topical plays to continue PlayMakers’ dynamic combination of presenting exciting stories onstage followed by a “second act” of engaging post-show dialogue between the artists and the audience.
PlayMakers is the professional theater company in residence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All performances will be presented in UNC’s Center for Dramatic Art on Country Club Road. Mainstage productions will be in the Paul Green Theatre; PRC2 shows, in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre.
Subscription packages for 2014-2015 are available for purchase. Renewing subscribers can secure their current seats for the new season through March 31. Call (919) 962-PLAY (7529) or visit https://playmakersrep.org for information.
Mainstage productions for 2014-2015 are:
“Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” by Christopher Durang: Sept. 17 to Oct. 5, 2014
The season opens with the regional premiere of a new play straight from an acclaimed Broadway run. Take one part Chekhov, add a heaping portion of hilarity with a dash of misery, mix with pop culture and shake furiously with laughter. The New York Times raved, calling the 2013 Tony Award-winner for Best Play, “Deliriously funny! Comic acting raised to the level of high art.” USA Today proclaimed the show “a wild, winning ride! Hugely entertaining!” The playwright’s reputation for outrageous, often absurd comedy prompted Entertainment Weekly to cheer “Entirely, indisputably, oh-no-he-didn’t Durang!”
“Into the Woods” music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine, originally directed on Broadway by James Lapine, orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare: Performed in rotating repertory Nov. 1 to Dec. 7, 2014
PlayMakers will take audiences into the dark reaches of the forest with two tales of magic and transformation, in the theater’s annual rotating repertory event.
A childless couple. A witch. A curse. In “Into the Woods,” Sondheim reveals the shadow side of Grimm’s classic fairytales in a funny and poignant exploration of the wishes we make, and what happens when they really do come true. The Los Angeles Times called the multiple Tony Award-winner “at once magical and scary… [it leaves you] restored, amazed and gasping for air.” Newsday said it is “a fairytale fantasia…you could get lost and not care if you emerge from its enchantment.” “If you’re in the mood for entertainment both magical and meaningful, step ‘Into the Woods,’” agreed Broadway World.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is perhaps the theater’s first “fairy tale,” featuring the King and Queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania, their mischievous servant Puck and a spritely court. Shakespeare’s lyrical comedy weaves together a trio of stories set in a magical wood. During the course of a moonlit evening, four young lovers escape to the forest on a fantastic adventure that leaves them changed forever.
“Trouble in Mind” by Alice Childress: Jan. 21 to Feb. 8, 2015
Broadway, 1957. In rehearsals for a groundbreaking racially integrated production, the leading actress must wrestle with a choice between the role of a lifetime or compromising her values. The Washington Post called the Obie Award-winner “wise and extraordinarily winning,” “scathingly funny” and “one of the best plays about racism ever written.” Broadway World described the bitingly satiric classic a “vibrant, humorous and heartbreaking look at racism through the lens of the theater in America.” Childress, an award-winning novelist and screenwriter, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.
“An Enemy of the People” by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Arthur Miller: Feb 25 to March 15, 2015
When a man discovers an environmental threat to his community, he is forced to stand alone, courageously exposing the corruption and lies threatening to destroy the town he loves. “An Enemy of the People” is a contemporary dramatic classic from the pen of two great masters, with Ibsen’s story retold in a powerful, politically relevant adaptation by Pulitzer Prize-winner Miller. PlayMakers is presenting the play to mark the centennial of Miller’s birth. London’s Financial Times described it as “provocative, startling, breathtaking.” The Daily Mail said it “confronts and makes us wonder.”
“4000 Miles” by Amy Herzog: April 1 to April 19, 2015
An elderly grandmother with a fading memory opens her door – and her life – to her wayward grandson. As an overnight couch-surf turns into an extended stay, “4000 Miles” unearths surprising commonality across generations in this emotionally compelling and humor-filled drama. A finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, “4000 Miles” also won the Obie Award for Best New American Play. Time Magazine and The New York Times called it the best play of the season, with the Times going on to say it was “funny, moving, altogether wonderful.” The Washington Post called it “a trip worth taking,” describing Amy Herzog as “a playwright of distinction.”
For information on PlayMakers’ 2013-2014 season, currently presenting Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” (through Feb. 9), followed by the regional premiere of “Love Alone” (Feb. 26-March 16) and Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning musical “Assassins” (April 2-20), visit www.playmakersrep.org or call (919) 962-PLAY (7529).
Based in the College of Arts and Sciences, PlayMakers is the Carolinas’ premiere resident professional theater company. New York’s Drama League has named PlayMakers one of the “best regional theatres in America.”
PlayMakers website: www.playmakersrep.org
PlayMakers contact: For more information, contact Connie Mahan, (919) 962-5359, cmahan@email.unc.edu.