5th Wall Theatre Announces Its 2018-2019 Season

5th Wall Theatre is excited to announce their 2018-2019 season featuring plays and musicals that continue to engage, challenge, and entertain Richmond theatre-goers with powerful narratives and stories that stick with audiences well after the curtain goes down.

With highintensity performances and groundbreaking events filling its season, 5th Wall's founding artistic director Carol Piersol is understandably enthusiastic about what the next year holds for 5th Wall. "We are excited to bring Richmond the rock and roll story of the infamous Lizzie Borden; also, again this year we will feature the outstanding Scott Wichmann who you saw last year in the amazing I AM MY OWN WIFE," says Piersol, referring to a 5th Wall coproduction with Richmond Triangle Players that wowed audiences and critics in early 2018. "This time, [Wichmann] will be tackling Eric Bogosian's TALK RADIO."

For its third and final main stage offering of the season, 5th Wall will join creative forces with TheatreLAB to coproduce Richmond's inaugural Women's Theatre Festival, an event that aims to elevate women in the theatre by offering four consecutive weekends of one-woman plays performed in repertory and produced by all-women production teams. "This will be our first year for our Women's Festival, a coproduction with TheatreLAB. We plan on inviting other theatres in the Richmond area to participate and have plans to make it a recurring annual event." 5th Wall will enjoy a seasonlong residency at TheatreLAB's The Basement in downtown Richmond, where all its mainstage shows and events will be held.

LIZZIE: THE MUSICAL gets 5th Wall's upcoming season off to a raucous start with the story of infamous accused axe murderess Lizzie Borden, a Victorian-era heiress suspected of murdering her wealthy father and stepmother in cold blood. With music and lyrics by Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, Alan Stevens Hewitt and Tim Maner and book by Tim Maner, LIZZIE tells Borden's gory tale in rock star fashion with an epic rock opera score powered by hard-hitting female vocals.

The play earned multiple Drama Desk nominations and delighted many a sold-out audience in New York City, with the New York Times raving, "Presented with wall-rattling glee...deliciously watchable." Next up, 5th Wall presents TALK RADIO, starring Scott Wichmann as Barry Champlain, a shock jock radio host on the eve of his radio show's national syndication.

The play, written by Eric Bogosian and initially starring Bogosian in the leading role, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 and adapted into a feature film by the same name, directed by Oliver Stone in 1988. The play has enjoyed a more recent revival on Broadway and was nominated for multiple Tony Awards in 2007.

Finally, rounding out 5th Wall's season, 5th Wall and TheatreLAB will co-produce the inaugural Women's Theatre Festival, an exciting new event celebrating women's stories and bringing them to the stage in a four-weekend series of one-woman plays performed in repertory and produced entirely by women theatre professionals. 5th Wall and TheatreLAB hope to invite many other Richmond-area theatre companies to contribute to this pioneering new festival which they plan to offer annually each March during Women's History Month, highlighting the vital importance of bringing female-focused narratives to the stage.

LIZZIE: THE MUSICAL - October 11 to November 3 at The Basement, 300 E Broad Street, Richmond VA

TALK RADIO - January 10 to January 26 at The Basement, 300 E Broad Street, Richmond VA

WOMEN'S THEATRE FESTIVAL - March 28 - April 20 at The Basement, 300 E Broad Street, Richmond VA

Details on how to purchase tickets for the shows in 5th Wall's 2018-2019 season will be released on 5th Wall's website at 5thwalltheatre.org. Details on how to audition for these productions will also be released on 5th Wall's website.

To post a comment, you must register and login.