Classical Theatre Company Announces 2024-2025 Season

Classical Theatre Company has announced the lineup for its  2024-2025 17th Mainstage Season. As the only professional theatre company in the State of  Texas that solely produces classical drama on a year-round basis, CTC only produces plays  that are 100 or more years old. 

CTC will be marking its upcoming season with a pair of plays that highlights two of the biggest names in the classical canon. CTC will be returning to the iconic DeLuxe Theater in  the historic Fifth Ward. Both Mainstage productions will be housed in this gem of a facility.

After opening in 1941 as a movie theater, the DeLuxe spent decades as a landmark location  for film. Then in 2015, an agreement with the City of Houston and the Fifth Ward  Community Redevelopment Corporation brought about major renovations to the DeLuxe, bringing it new life as a state-of-the-art performance venue, event hall, and art gallery. Classical Theatre Company is proud to have the DeLuxe Theater as its performance space  for the upcoming season. Tickets will go on sale July 1. 

The upcoming season's slate will kick off in October with a brand-new adaptation of Bram  Stoker's Dracula. Then, in the spring, the season will wrap up with the Russian drama, Three  Sisters by Anton Chekhov. “We're excited to work with Chris Iannacone again on a dramatic  adaptation of classical literature. He last worked on our script for 2022's critical success The  War of the Worlds,” says CTC Executive Artistic Director John Johnston. “Plus, it will have  been nine years since our last foray into Anton Chekhov with 2016's The Bear & The Proposal.  I'm very eager to return to the father of modern drama.”

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Dracula 

By Bram Stoker 

Adapted by Chris Iannacone 

Directed by Blake Weir 

October 2024 

The Classical Theatre Company will start out the season with the master of Gothic horror,  Bram Stoker, in a brand-new adaptation of his masterpiece, Dracula. Adapted by frequent  Classical Theatre Company collaborator, Chris Iannacone, this script will hearken back to  the original 1897 novel.  

“As we mark the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first authorized adaptation of  Bram Stoker's seminal vampire novel, we seek to peel back a century's worth of imagery and  mythology that has built up, layer upon layer, around this iconic character. So much of what  we think of when we hear the name ‘Dracula' comes not from Stoker's novel but from  subsequent plays, films, and television productions,” says Iannacone. “Our goal is to  approach this story without the baggage of those interpretations, as if it was a newly discovered text, and in doing so, bring a freshness and vibrancy to this classic tale of  horror.” 

The story follows Jonathan Harker as he travels to the Carpathian Mountains to visit Count  Dracula in his castle to help him purchase a home near London. While there, Harker  observes strange and terrible goings on in the castle. The Count then abandons his home  and Harker to travel to England. Upon his arrival, Dracula begins to stalk the land as a  bloodsucking vampire, picking off some close to Harker. Included among them is his  fiancée, Mina Murray. Jonathan Harker, after much trial and tribulation, returns to England,  where he and his comrades begin the hunt for the Count. Their travails take them from  London back to Romania and the climactic battle in the shadow of Castle Dracula. Audiences will be on the edge of their seats for this Gothic tale. 

“We're very excited to be working with Chris [Iannacone] again. He's collaborated with us  on three scripts now, and we've been very pleased with the results each time. He knows how  important the original text is to us and our mission, and that's key to the type of play we  produce,” says CTC Executive Artistic Director John Johnston. “I'm so thrilled to bring  horror to the CTC stage. And such an iconic character in Count Dracula too. The traditional  source material take we are going to have with him will make him feel fresh to our  audiences.” 

Directed by Blake Weir, who most recently assistant directed The School for Scandal and The  War of the Worlds for Classical Theatre Company. He last appeared on the CTC stage when  he portrayed Marius/Radius/Primus in R.U.R.

Three Sisters 

By Anton Chekhov Directed by John Johnston 

Spring 2025 

The spring production will be a sharp contrast to Classical Theatre Company's Gothic  horror fall offering in the form of Anton Chekhov's stirring drama, Three Sisters. CTC has  not produced a Chekhov play since The Bear & The Proposal in 2016, and hasn't produced a  full-length Chekhov piece since 2015's critically-acclaimed The Cherry Orchard.  

The play focuses on the three Prozorov sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, whose military  officer father died one year prior. Nearly one thousand miles away from their beloved  Moscow, the sisters live in virtual exile. Olga, a schoolmistress, attempts to support her siblings in the home which their father left to them. Masha finds solace from her loveless  marriage in an affair with the passionate young colonel. Irina, the youngest of the three,  forces herself to return the affections of a suitor, hoping that he will bring her back to the  city of her youth before it is too late. Intoxicated by yesterday's highs and heedless of  tomorrow's woes, the sisters are left to sift through the debris of their shattered dreams on  the eve of the social and political upheaval that will change Russia forever. 

“I absolutely love Chekhov. He's widely misunderstood in the United States, in my opinion,”  says director John Johnston. “We think of his plays as these heavy dramas full of  melancholy, but in reality, Chekhov saw his plays as dark comedies. Think of the character  of Charlie Brown. He's a sad fellow who rarely gets what he wants, but in his failure to  achieve his desires, we laugh. That's Chekhov to me. This will be our third production of his  four big plays. We've hit Uncle Vanya [2012] and The Cherry Orchard [2015]. That leaves only  The Seagull as the last of his major plays.” 

Directed by CTC Executive Artistic Director, John Johnston, who most recently directed  last year's Medea, and appeared on CTC's stage when he portrayed Joseph Surface in The  School for Scandal in 2023. 

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