Berkeley Rep Blog
Previous entry: Reader makes good
Next entry: New Business: The Lieutenant of Inishmore
More new plays?
posted by Terence Keane on Tue, Mar 24, 2009
in News
We've just announced five of the plays we'll be presenting next season, and it's a pretty ambitious slate. In this economy, we could play it safe. But we're doing what we do best: new plays. As the San Francisco Chronicle said this morning, "Never mind the downturn -- this theater looks forward, not back, in its upcoming season."
The Vibrator Play, which closed last week, was our 50th world premiere. And, even as that show moves to Broadway, we're planning more world premieres. The new season includes two directed by Les Waters, who also staged Vibrator: Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West by Naomi Iizuka and Girlfriend, a musical based on Matthew Sweet's amazing album of the same name (with a book by up-and-coming talent Todd Almond). There's also the world premiere of Five Questions, which reunites the team behind Broadway's Well: Obie Award-winners Lisa Kron and Leigh Silverman.
Then we've got the West Coast premiere of Tiny Kushner -- which I like to call a tale of two Tonys because it's another collaboration between Tony Kushner and Tony Taccone -- and a cool circus-like spectacle called Aurelia's Oratorio, which stars the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin. Two more shows will be named later, and I suspect you'll see at least one more premiere on that list.
Tony probably put it best in that feature in today's Chronicle: "It may seem counterintuitive in this economy, when many people think you should make the safest choices you can, but we've become who we are. As Kushner would say, 'The world only spins forward.' I'm not saying we're not interested in classics. We'll do classics again. But the contribution we're most excited about now includes a lot of new writers."
Read more about next season here. Meanwhile, we've got to get busy selling subscriptions.
Photo of Aurelia Thierree by Richard Haughton
Photo of Taccone and Kushner by Cheshire Isaacs
Comments:
The comments to this entry are closed.