Founding Artistic Director Robert Kelley and Managing Director Phil Santora of TheatreWorks, the nationally-acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, unveiled a line-up for its 2011-2012 season. Before a packed audience at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, the two leaders announced a 42nd season that will include three World Premieres (bringing the company’s total to 59), an American Premiere, two West Coast premieres including another absorbing London/Broadway hit by the author of the blockbuster BILLY ELLIOT, a much-loved Tony Award winning musical, and an American classic. The company will once again lead off the season with an extensive New Works Festival.
The line-up for 2011-2012 will take flight in July with the World Premiere of FLY BY NIGHT, a new musical conceived by Kim Rosenstock and written by Will Connolly, Michael Mitnick, and Kim Rosenstock. The runaway hit of last summer’s TheatreWorks New Works Festival, the musical follows a hapless sandwich maker who discovers a well of courage and a wealth of romance during New York’s blackout of 1965. Two other World Premieres on the season will be Dan Dietz’ bluesy new post-Katrina drama, CLEMENTINE IN THE LOWER 9, in which a torchy onstage jazz band accompanies a saxophonist and his wife as they struggle to reconnect the electricity, the plumbing, and the relationships devastated by the flood; and WHEELHOUSE, a rockin’ new musical from GrooveLily, creators of the popular TheatreWorks/Off-Broadway hit STRIKING 12.
TheatreWorks will also present the American premiere of Jane Austen’s delicious romance SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, adapted by Roger Parsley and Andy Graham, as well as the West Coast premieres of the London/Broadway hit THE PITMEN PAINTERS, a new comic drama by Lee Hall, the writer of the film and stage smash BILLY ELLIOT, and NOW CIRCA THEN, Off-Broadway’s new comedy with a twist by Carly Mensch, in which two mismatched historical re-enactors play an immigrant couple at New York’s famed Tenement Museum and find love blossoming both then and now. TheatreWorks’ holiday attraction will be a return of the enchanting Broadway musical THE SECRET GARDEN, winner of three Tony Awards. The season rounds out with John Steinbeck’s beloved drama OF MICE AND MEN, a powerful and touching tribute to the strength of friendship and the depth of the American dream, set in the Salinas Valley during the Great Depression.
Five productions will be mounted at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts and three will be staged at Palo Alto’s Lucie Stern Theatre.
The season will launch with the return of TheatreWorks’ celebrated New Works Festival, at which Festival Pass holders may view works-in-progress by leading playwrights and composers, participate in discussions, and attend workshops, book-in-hand readings, and sing-throughs of new musicals. The highlight of the New Works Festival will be the World Premiere of FLY BY NIGHT on the mainstage.
TheatreWorks 2011-2012 Season
World Premiere
FLY BY NIGHT
Conceived by Kim Rosenstock
By Will Connolly, Michael Mitnick, and Kim Rosenstock
July 13 – August 13, 2011 (press opening July 16)
Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo AltoAmerican Premiere
Sense and Sensibility
By Roger Parsley and Andy Graham
Based on the novel by Jane Austen
August 24 – September 18, 2011 (press opening August 27)
Mountain View Center for the Performing ArtsWorld Premiere
Clementine in the Lower 9
By Dan Dietz
Contains brief nudity and mature language.
October 5 – October 30, 2011 (Press opening October 8)
Mountain View Center for the Performing ArtsWinner of 3 Tony Awards
The Secret Garden
Music by Lucy Simon
Lyrics & Book by Marsha Norman
Based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett
November 30 – December 31, 2011 (press opening Dec. 3)
Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo AltoWest Coast Premiere
The Pitmen Painters
By Lee Hall
January 18 – February 12, 2012 (press opening Jan 21)
Mountain View Center for the Performing ArtsWest Coast Premiere
Now Circa Then
By Carly Mensch
Contains mature language.
March 7 – April 1, 2012 (press opening March 10)
Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo AltoOf Mice and Men
By John Steinbeck
April 4 – April 29, 2012 (press opening April 7)
Mountain View Center for the Performing ArtsWorld Premiere
Wheelhouse
Book, Music, & Lyrics by
Gene Lewin, Brendan Milburn, and Valerie Vigoda
June 6 – July 1, 2012 (press opening June 9)
Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts
Photos courtesy John Spaihts and TheatreWorks.
