A Sondheim, a couple of Broadway hits, a couple of brand spankin’ new shows, and a boatload of cabarets. Signature Theatre’s 2018-2019 follows the familiar contours of recent seasons. But this year, Signature is announcing not only next year’s productions, but some of the artists who will be making them happen. Also, the undead will be there.
Signature opens its season with James Lapine-Stephen Sondheim collaboration Passion. Lapine and Sondheim famously created Into the Woods together, but the lesser known Passion also won the Best Musical Tony. In it, Giorgio, an army captain in 1860s Italy is transferred to a remote outpost, where the beautiful but ailing Fosca falls passionately in love with him. Here’s the catch: Giorgio is already in love with another woman — and Fosca is the cousin of Giorgio’s superior officer. Natascia Diaz plays Fosca in this Matthew Gardiner-directed production. From August 14 to September 23, 2018.
In the Ark, Signature will be producing another play about a woman’s unquenchable passion: Simon Stephens’ Heisenberg, in which a young woman, getting off a train, falls passionately and inexplicably in love with a much older man — a reticent Irish butcher in retirement. If this sounds like a 30’s screwball comedy, here’s the take of the New York Times’ Ben Brantley: “Alex, understandably, retreats and disappears. Georgie tracks him down. Is she a dangerous stalker, a lovelorn nut with a thing for older men, or a con artist zeroing in on her prey? These are not mutually exclusive options….The range of possibilities between the spaces in ‘Heisenberg’ resonates in your mind long after it’s over; the unheard melody lingers on.” Joe Calarco will direct this latest play by Stephens, who is best known for his theatrical adaptation, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. From September 18 to November 11 of this year.
For the last two months of the year, Signature will be producing the Broadway mega-smash, Billy Elliot: The Musical, the Tony-Award winning musical in which an 11-year-old boy, the son of a British miner about to embark on a doomed strike, wants more than anything in the world to become a dancer. Gardiner will direct this show, which features music by Elton John. From October 30, 2018 to January 6, 2019.
Signature opens the new year with another Tony-winning musical, Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show, the Richard Maltby Jr. – Murray Horowitz-created musical revue featuring music by the great Fats and lyrics by a slew of collaborators. This two-act production, which Calarco will direct, will feature Kevin McAllister, Nova Y. Payton and Awa Sal Secka, who was last featured in Signature’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar, doing (if the production is the traditional one) thirty-one songs. From January 23 to March 10 of next year.
Also next winter, Signature will be performing the world premiere of DC Playwright Heather McDonald’s Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, a story about an art restorer taken captive in an absurd hundred-year-long war and compelled to restore a damaged Rembrandt. McDonald has been gestating this play for a while — it was featured in an Arena Stage showing of plays in progress in 2014 — but it’s ready now to be staged with local megatalents Holly Twyford and Felicia Curry. Nadia Tass will direct; from February 26 to March 31, 2019.
Next spring, Signature will perform the slice-of-life musical Grand Hotel: the Musical at the MAX theater. This Luther Davis — Robert Wright — George Forrest musical is set in 1928 Berlin, where everything was free and easy until it was not. The Signature production, which Eric Schaeffer will direct, will feature McAllister, Diaz, Bobby Smith and Nicki Elledge. Grand Hotel didn’t win the Tony for Best Musical — though it was nominated — but a 2005 revival won the Laurence Olivier Award in London. From April 2 through May 12 of next year.
The short stories of Zora Neale Hurston form the basis of Spunk, an adaptation by George C. Wolfe (The Colored Museum) of Hurston’s stories about men and women and the harm and good they do each other. When the play debuted, Frank Rich of the New York Times said, “in ‘Spunk,’ the exuberant show at the Public Theater celebrating the fiction of Zora Neale Hurston, George C. Wolfe…submerges his own irreverent sensibility to serve, and serve ingeniously, the spirit of a far different literary voice. When one recalls how much satirical devastation Mr. Wolfe inflicted on Lorraine Hansberry and Ntozake Shange in ‘The Colored Museum,’ his selfless devotion to Hurston is all the more impressive.” The three stories are intertwined with Chic Street Man’s music, and Timothy Douglas will direct. From April 30 to June 23, 2019.
The creators of The Witches of Eastwick will close the Signature season with Blackbeard, a commissioned musical about, well, Blackbeard. And zombies. After learning of the British Army’s intention of capturing him, Blackbeard and his compadres decide to raise a navy of the undead from the ocean floor in his defense. It will be interesting to see how this ends up, since I can think of other leaders under siege who might be considering help from the undead. John Dempsey provides the book and lyrics and Dana P. Rowe the music; Signature Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer will direct. From June 11 to July 7, 2019.
In addition to these full length plays and musicals, Signature will be staging six cabarets: Blues Revolution August 21-25, 2018 (featuring Akua Allrich), Motown: the Reprise December 4-22, 2018, Judy Garland: A Star is Born, January 8-26, 2019, Unforgettable, April 2-6, 2019, (featuring Mark C. Meadows), Blowin’ in the Wind: Folk-Rock in America, June 25-30, 2019 (featuring Robbie Schaeffer) and, this summer, the Sizzling Summer Night Series, from July 19 – August 4, 2018.
Signature season subscriptions are available here.
