Some familiar musicals and not-so-familiar plays will mark Signature’s 30th season this coming year, the company has announced.
Signature starts off its season with Assassins, the Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman collaboration about — well, about assassins, and more specifically about assassins and would-be assassins whose targets were various Presidents of the United States. The play features the well known, such as John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, but also the more obscure, such as Charles Guiteau, who shot James Garfield because he would not name him ambassador to France and who read a poem of his own making at his execution, and Samuel Joseph Byck, the professional Santa Claus who tried to kill Richard Nixon. This extremely dark musical will feature the talents of Nova Y. Payton, Tracy Lynn Olivera, Bobby Smith and Evan Casey, among others. Signature Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer directs. From August 11 to September 29 in the Max.
In much the same vein, Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone visits four grandmotherly types having tea in the back yard, chatting casually about cats, cooking shows — and the end of the world. “[T]his British import…has the effect of a restorative tonic, and you may find a new bounce in your step as you leave it,” says Ben Brantley of the New York Times. “That’s what happens when a work is…as playfully and purposefully intelligent as this one.” Holly Twyford directs; from September 24 to November 3 of this year in the Ark.
The iconic musical A Chorus Line will be at the Max from October 29, 2019 to January 5, 2020. James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante’s book, Edward Kleban’s lyrics and Marvin Hamlisch’s music show us what it’s like in the audition room for the dancers in a major Broadway musical. This Pulitzer-winning musical, which also won nine Tonys, will be directed by Matthew Gardiner.
[adsanity_rotating align=”aligncenter” time=”10″ group_id=”1455″ /]
Signature will inaugurate the new year with the world premiere of a musical — Gun & Powder, in which twin light-skinned African-American sisters, in order to help their mother settle a sharecropper debt, pass themselves as White since it will be considerably easier to earn funds that way. Their collaboration falls into crisis, however, when the twins fall in love with two very different men — one Black, one White. Based on a true story, this musical, which features book and lyrics from Angelica Chéri and music from Ross Baum, will be directed by playwright/director Robert O’Hara (Bootycandy). From January 28 to February 23 of next year, in the Max.
Another world premiere will launch the Ark’s new year: local playwright Dani Stoller’s Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes. Marian, who has retired and just remarried, is anticipating an easy life in an empty nest. Surprise! A pregnant niece; the troubled boy next door; and an unhappy daughter with a secret come knocking on her door — and she opens it. From February 18 to March 29, 2020; no director has been announced.
Signature’s next production at the Max is also a world premiere of sorts — Camille Claudel, with book and lyrics by Nan Knighton and music by Frank Wildhorn. This is the story of the titular sculptor and freethinker, who suffered from censorship and gender-based discrimination throughout her professional career and who engaged in a lengthy, passionate and tumultuous affair with the sculptor Auguste Rodin. This musical actually had its debut in 2003, but only as a developmental run; there have been significant changes and staged readings, but never another full production until now. (A version called GOLD — Rodin and Camille opened in Tokyo in 2011). Schaeffer will direct; the production will run from March 24 to April 19 of next year.
Another artist from the past is rendered by another local playwright in Norm Allen’s Nijinsky’s Last Dance, a one-actor play in which the ballet master Vaslav Nijinsky, in a sanitarium at the end of his life, remembers and relives his great accomplishments, and great sorrows. Viewing a 2013 production, DCTS’ Susan Galbraith called it ” an important piece of theatre,” in this review. “Rarely in Washington can one experience something so raw and emotionally truthful. Anger. Terror. Desire. It’s all there, and isn’t that what theatre is supposed to be about?” Joe Calarco directs; from April 14 to May 24 , 2020, in the Ark.
The 2019-2020 Signature season will wrap up with an old favorite — the tribal rock musical Hair, the Galt McDermott-Gerome Ragni-James Rado work which celebrates peace, love, understanding and good dope. Gardiner will direct and choreograph this production, which tells the story of a group of young adults who have dropped out of society to live freely and without restraint, and what happens when one of them receives his draft notice.
Notwithstanding the somber overlay, this musical has comic moments; watch (for example) the encounter between the tribe and Margaret Mead. From May 19 to July 12 of next year, in the Max; from April 22 to May 17, Gardiner and the cast will be offering a look at how they take the show from design to performance. (Not included in the season’s subscription, this program will cost $260, or $220 for Friends of Signature.)
In addition to all this, Signature is offering subscriptions to its cabaret series — The British Invasion (August 20-24, 2019), Soul Divas (November 19-23, 2019), Ol’ Blue Eyes: Frank Sinatra (January 7-11, 2020) and Not a Day Goes By: Signature Turns 30 (June 9 – July 3, 2020). And if this is not enough, Signature is separately offering another cabaret, A Motown Christmas Cabaret (December 3-21, 2019).
Signature has scheduled its annual Open House for August 18, 2019.
If you’re interested in a subscription to Signature’s mainstage shows, click here. If you’d like tickets to the cabaret series (which doesn’t include Motown Christmas) click here. If it’s the Motown Christmas you’re after, click here. Signature anticipates that it will have tickets available for individual shows in its 2019-2020 season by mid-July.
You must be logged in to post a comment.