TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD to Launch Guthrie Theater's 2015-16 Season

The Guthrie Theater today announced the nine productions that will be included in the theater's 2015-2016 subscription season, including To Kill a Mockingbird, Pericles, Harvey and South Pacific on the Wurtele Thrust Stage and The Events, The Cocoanuts, The Real Inspector Hound/The Critic, Trouble in Mind and Disgraced on the McGuire Proscenium Stage.

New season subscriptions range in price from $60 to $544 and go on sale Friday, June 19, by calling the Guthrie Box Office at 612.225.6238 or 1.877.997.3276 (toll-free) or by visiting www.guthrietheater.org.

Incoming Artistic Director Joseph Haj, who remains at his post as producing artistic director at PlayMakers Repertory Theatre in Chapel Hill, N.C., until he officially takes the reigns at the Guthrie on July 1, remarked, "I could not be more excited about beginning my tenure at the Guthrie. The coming season will offer our patrons an exceptionally rich variety of theater-going experiences and I can't wait to get to know our Guthrie community this fall. I would like to acknowledge and thank Joe Dowling for his generosity in embracing my partnership as we assembled and finalized the subscription season, and for providing me the opportunity to contribute my ideas to this season in a meaningful way. I am eager to embark on this new journey and I thank the members of the community who have already made me feel so welcome."

The 2015-2016 Guthrie subscription season includes nine productions, beginning on the Wurtele Thrust Stage with To Kill a Mockingbird (September 12 - October 18, 2015), an inspiring adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning classic, which will take the stage immediately following the release of the author's Mockingbird sequel this July. Set in the Deep South, this timeless story is told through the eyes of Scout, the feisty young daughter of lawyer Atticus Finch. As a tug of war between justice and racism envelopes the community, Atticus and his family face violence and hatred with courage and compassion. Full of heart and emotional depth, this cherished classic inspires hope in the face of inequality. Adapted by Christopher Sergel, the production will be directed by John Miller-Stephany.

The season continues on the McGuire Proscenium Stage with a Guthrie WorldStage Series presentation of The Events (September 30 - November 1, 2015), a production by the U.K.'s Actors Touring Company. Appalled by the 2011 Norway attacks, award-winning Scottish playwright David Greig has crafted a play which follows a community's search for compassion, peace and understanding in the wake of unthinkable violence. Delving into faith, politics and reason, this internationally acclaimed and theatrically inventive production features a soaring soundscape with music sung by a different choir -- drawn from communities throughout Minnesota and the Upper Midwest -- at each performance. The Events is directed by Actors Touring Company Artistic Director Ramin Gray with music composed and arranged by John Browne. London's Sunday Times said, "The Events pulls off the trick of being both chilling and immensely warm-hearted."

Next on the McGuire Proscenium will be The Cocoanuts (November 14, 2015 - January 3, 2016) with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, book by George S. Kaufman, adapted by Mark Bedard with musical adaptation by Gregg Coffin. The service stinks but the gags are four-star in this Marx Brothers romp, a jazz-age musical. Groucho owns a bum hotel in Florida and peddles dubious real estate to gullible Northerners seeking a place in the sun. He's after a rich society dame, who's after an eligible match for her daughter, who's in love with the hotel's head clerk. Trouble rolls in when the other Marx Brothers arrive and mama's eligible match turns out to be anything but. The perfect alternative holiday entertainment, this production will be directed by David Ivers.

Then, incoming Artistic Director Joseph Haj makes his Guthrie directorial debut with his celebrated production of Shakespeare's Pericles presented by the Guthrie Theater in association with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and The Folger Theatre (January 16 - February 21, 2016) on the Wurtele Thrust Stage. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, sets out to woo a princess and sails headlong into harrowing adventure. Pursued by an evil king, Pericles is blown from port to exotic port. Along the way, he finds the love of his life then loses her and their infant daughter in a storm-tossed sea. In true storybook fashion, miracles reunite the lost with those who love them, bringing joy and safe harbor at last.

Pericles illustrates the beauty of Shakespeare's poetry at the height of his powers, displaying the inventive plots and elements of fantasy that marked the mature playwright's final great plays. Of Haj's Oregon Shakespeare Festival production, The Mail Tribune said "Once in a while, a play grabs you in its first moment and whisks you to another world, one more vivid than ours, where you have powerful experiences until you're released back into everyday life, changed, when the actors take their curtain call. This is one of those deals."

On the McGuire Proscenium Stage, the Guthrie Theater in association with Shakespeare Theatre Company presents The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard and The Critic by RichardBrinsley Sheridan, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher (February 23 - March 27, 2016), together in one evening. Experience a rollicking madcap night of life in the theater with two one-act behind-the-scenes comedies, directed by Tony Award nominee and Shakespeare Theatre Company Artistic Director Michael Kahn. Adapted by Minnesota-based playwright and adaptor Jeffrey Hatcher (The Government Inspector), The Critic is a whirlwind comedy about bad theater, worse playwrights and -- worst of all -- critics. The over-the-top antics continue with The Real Inspector Hound, Stoppard's ingenious play-within-a-play in which two critics, Moon and Birdboot, find themselves caught up as unsuspecting suspects while watching a classic whodunit.

Next on the thrust will be the delightfully eccentric comedy Harvey by Mary Chase (April 9 - May 15, 2016). Elwood P. Dowd is charming, lovable and kind with just one catch: his best friend is a six-foot-tall invisible rabbit named Harvey. When Elwood's sister Veta hosts a social gathering to launch her daughter into society, Elwood's idiosyncrasies threaten to upset the family's reputation. Veta tries to have him committed to the sanatorium, but a whirlwind of confusion and chaos ensues as the town tries to catch a man and his invisible rabbit. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Harvey is perfect for the whole family.

The American classic Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress will be the next production featured on the McGuire Proscenium Stage (May 7 - June 5, 2016). Set in 1957, New York, rehearsals have begun for a racially integrated production, one the company hopes will be the next Broadway hit. But when prejudices and stereotypes emerge, African American actress Wiletta Mayer faces a difficult decision: should she swallow her pride and compromise her values to achieve her lifelong dream of playing a leading role on Broadway?

With Trouble in Mind, Childress became the first black female playwright to have a play optioned for Broadway. In a manner of life imitating art, Childress refused to comply with the Broadway producers' requests for rewrites so the production did not come to fruition. Timeless and biting, her award-winning comedy-drama has been called "one of the best plays about racism ever written" (The Washington Post).

Summer isn't complete without a larger-than-life musical at the Guthrie. Closing out the season on the thrust will be Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific (June 18 - August 28, 2016), under the direction of Joseph Haj. One of the most celebrated and lauded musicals in American theater, this Rodgers and Hammerstein classic contains a treasure trove of memorable songs, from "Bali Hai" to "There is Nothin' Like a Dame" to "Some Enchanted Evening." Set in an island paradise during World War II, this sweeping romance tells the story of two couples -- a U.S. Navy nurse and a French planter, and a Marine Corps lieutenant and a young local girl -- and how their happiness is threatened by both the dangers of war and the prejudices of their times.

Alongside South Pacific the Guthrie will present the 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Disgraced byAyad Akhtar on the McGuire Proscenium Stage (July 16 - August 28, 2016). Amir Kapoor, a successful Pakistani-American lawyer, is happy, in love and about to land the biggest promotion of his life. But ethnicity collides with ambition when Amir and his wife, Emily, host a dinner party at their Upper East Side apartment. Friendly conversation soon turns confrontational and Amir makes a costly decision. A 2015 Tony Award nominee for Best Play, this 90-minute one-act has been described as a "blistering social drama about racial prejudices" (Variety) and "combustible powder keg of identity politics" (Bloomberg).

The Guthrie will announce its 2015-2016 Dowling Studio season, including Guthrie productions and presentations by a number of local arts companies, in the coming weeks.

In addition to the nine plays of the subscription season and studio productions, the Guthrie will present Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (November 12 - December 27, 2015), the perennial favorite that received a new adaptation by Crispin Whittell in 2010 and continues the Guthrie's holiday tradition for the 41st year. Joe Chvala will direct the production for a fourth consecutive year.

Nine plays of the 2015-2016 season are available as part of the subscription series at the Guthrie - To Kill a Mockingbird, Pericles, Harvey and South Pacific on the Wurtele Thrust Stage and The Events, The Cocoanuts, The Real Inspector Hound/The Critic, Trouble in Mind and Disgraced on the McGuire Proscenium Stage. New season subscriptions range in price from $60 to $544 and go on sale June 19. Single tickets for To Kill A Mockingbird, The Events, Cocoanuts and all Dowling Studio shows go on sale August 3, 2015. Single tickets for A Christmas Carol go on sale September 1. Single tickets for Pericles, The Real Inspector Hound/The Critic, Harvey and Trouble in Mind go on sale October 15, 2015. Single tickets for South Pacific and Disgraced go on sale February 8, 2016. Single ticket prices for all mainstage shows excluding A Christmas Carol range from $15 to $84; Dowling Studio shows range from $15 - $39; and A Christmas Carol ranges from $15 - $116. Discounts are available for students, seniors and children.

For more information or to purchase tickets or season subscriptions, call the Guthrie Theater Box Office at 612.377.2224 or toll-free 877.44.STAGE, 612.225.6244 (Group Sales) and online at www.guthrietheater.org.

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