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New BeBe Winans Musical 'BORN FOR THIS', Kathleen Turner and More Among Arena Stage's 2016-17 Lineup
By: BWW News Desk Feb. 15, 2016
Arena Stage just announced an exciting, starry 2016/17 season, which will showcase the theater's mission of American voices and artists. Spurred by its role as one of the seven originating theaters of D.C.'s Women's Voices Theater Festival, Arena Stage has embraced a commitment to inclusion with a season featuring seven titles by women, six playwrights of color and five female directors.
On assembling the lineup Smith shares, "Arena has such a smart and diverse audience, so it is always a challenge to ensure everyone is energized. This season we leaned into that challenge and are welcoming a host of extremely talented artists both returning and new. This season is a celebration of Arena's broad shoulders, from our Lillian Hellman Festival, a Lorraine Hansberry classic and the gold-standard musical to world-premiere political dramas, a comedy and a new musical. The Mead Center was designed to have these different audiences unite in our flowing lobby, and I'm eager to experience this throughout our dynamic season."
The season kicks off in July with the original world-premiere musical Born for This: The BeBe Winans Story by six-time Grammy Award winner BeBe Winans and veteran Arena Stage playwright/director Charles Randolph-Wright. Featuring new music by BeBe, the musical chronicles the early days of his career with sister CeCe and will star their niece and nephew, siblings Deborah Joy Winans and Juan Winans. The season's other powerhouse musical features the return of the thrilling partnership between Smith, Choreographer Parker Esse and Music Director Paul Sportelli to mount Rodgers and Hammerstein's beloved Carousel starring Arena favorites Nicholas Rodriguez and E. Faye Butler.
The 10-play season features four works from daring contemporary female voices including Joan Didion's adaptation of her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking starring Academy Award and Tony Award nominee Kathleen Turner in the one-woman play; Jacqueline E. Lawton's world-premiere political thriller Intelligence; Lydia Diamond's provocative and funny comedy Smart People; and Lisa Loomer's world-premiere drama Roe about the landmark Supreme Court decision, in a co-production with Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, under the direction of OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch.
Two other quintessential American stories complete the season: Lookingglass Theatre Company's production of Moby Dick adapted and directed by David Catlin in association with The Actors Gymnasium and-for the first time in Arena Stage's history -- Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun under the direction of longtime Arena Stage veteran Tazewell Thompson.
Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater 2016/17 Schedule*:
Born for This: The BeBe Winans Story
Book by Charles Randolph-Wright and BeBe Winans
Featuring original music and lyrics by BeBe Winans
Directed by Charles Randolph-Wright
World-premiere co-production with the Alliance Theatre
In association with Daniel Chilewich and Todd Gershwin
In the Kreeger Theater | July 1-August 28, 2016
Detroit natives BeBe and CeCe Winans, youngest siblings of the Winans family dynasty, experience the ultimate in culture shocks when invited to join Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Praise the Lord network television show. The Winans teenagers have the opportunity to become more than just television celebrities, but to integrate TV evangelism. As BeBe and CeCe encounter fame, fortune and even a young Whitney Houston, BeBe must learn to balance his desire for success with his true calling. Combining classic Winans hits with brand-new songs, this inspirational musical features Juan and Deborah Joy Winans in their Arena Stage debuts as BeBe and CeCe Winans.
The Little Foxes
By Lillian Hellman
Directed by Kyle Donnelly
In the Kreeger Theater | September 23-October 30, 2016
There are people who eat and there are those that get eaten. First in line to be served is Regina Hubbard, clawing her way to wealth with her equally calculating brothers. When their plan to control the local cotton mill is thwarted, they'll turn to ever more devious schemes, even as it further divides their family. Starring Emmy Award winner Marg Helgenberger (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation), Lillian Hellman's classic tale of greed, betrayal and all the sordid ties that bind takes sibling rivalry to unimaginable heights and reveals how far a ruthless family can bend the rules before they break each other. Part of the Lillian Hellman Festival.
The Year of Magical Thinking
By Joan Didion based on her memoir
In the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle | October 7-November 20, 2016
There is no way to avoid tragedy, loss or their aftermath. Yet we still hope that when faced with inescapable grief, something miraculous can emerge to ease our pain and guide us back to the joy of life. Few writers have experienced loss so suddenly and profoundly-or chronicled it as beautifully-as Joan Didion. Based on her award-winning memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking follows the iconic American author, portrayed by Academy Award and Tony Award nominee Kathleen Turner (Arena's Mother Courage and Her Children), as she learns to reconcile the natural instincts that drive us to bargain with the universal forces that giveth and taketh away.
Carousel
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Directed by Molly Smith
Choreographed by Parker Esse
Music direction by Paul Sportelli
In the Fichandler Stage | October 28-December 24, 2016
Dazzling lights, swinging songs and a bad boy to melt your heart-see why Carousel was named the best musical of the 20th century by Time magazine. When Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan fall in love, little do they realize that his rebellious ways will lead to tragedy. Given a chance to make good, will a lucky star save Billy and those he loves? Director Molly Smith reunites with both Nicholas Rodriguez and E. Faye Butler for the first time since 2011's Oklahoma! in this epic production bursting with classic songs like "June Is Bustin' Out all Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone."
Lookingglass Theatre Company's
Moby Dick
Adapted and directed by David Catlin from the book by Herman Melville
Produced in association with The Actors Gymnasium
Co-production with the Alliance Theatre and South Coast Repertory
In the Kreeger Theater | November 18-December 24, 2016
Set sail on the holiday season's biggest adventure! Melville's classic tale of man's obsessive battle against nature comes to life in "a triumph of grand theatrical imagination, deep thought, superb acting and eye-popping, ingeniously deployed physical daring" (Chicago Sun-Times). Innovative staging fused with bold trapeze and acrobatic work turn this seafaring classic into a death-defying experiment in aerial storytelling. Climb aboard with Captain Ahab and the crew of the good ship Pequod in this harrowing and intoxicating quest for the great white whale.
Roe
By Lisa Loomer
World-premiere co-production with Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Directed by Bill Rauch
In the Kreeger Theater | January 12-February 19, 2017
The lawyer: a young, brilliant, courageous woman who argued Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court. The plaintiff: a complex, single woman seeking to end an unwanted pregnancy. After the landmark 1973 case that legalized abortion, it's their divergent journeys after the victory that best reflect the subsequent polarization in American culture. With shocking turns and surprising humor, Roe illuminates the difficult choices women make and the passion each side has for its cause.
Watch on the Rhine
By Lillian Hellman
Directed by Jackie Maxwell
In the Fichandler Stage | February 3-March 5, 2017
Golden Globe Award winner Marsha Mason (The Goodbye Girl) leads an ensemble cast as Fanny Farrelly in Lillian Hellman's suspenseful masterpiece Watch on the Rhine. With America on the brink of entering World War II, Fanny's daughter escapes to the D.C. suburbs with her German husband, a man deeply involved in anti-fascist movements. But with an Eastern European guest with ulterior motives also living in their midst, tensions rise as it becomes clear that no one's safety can be guaranteed-at home or abroad. Part of the Lillian Hellman Festival.
Intelligence
World premiere by Jacqueline E. Lawton
Directed by Daniella Topol
In the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle | February 24-April 2, 2017
Covert operative Valerie Plame is racing to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when the unthinkable happens. With the country at war, her cover is blown and she must navigate a media frenzy, the CIA's search for answers and her diplomat husband's dogged pursuit of the truth. Inspired by true events, Intelligence is a political thriller that explores the cost of deception and the consequences of speaking truth to power.
A Raisin in the Sun
By Lorraine Hansberry
Directed by Tazewell Thompson
In the Fichandler Stage | March 31-April 30, 2017
The "play that changed American theater forever" (New York Times) finally comes to Arena Stage. Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking masterpiece follows the Younger family yearning for a better life far from the cramped confines of their Chicago tenement. Hope arrives in the form of an unexpected financial windfall, but family ties are strained when they realize they have differing definitions of the American dream-but which dreams get realized and which deferred? A Raisin in the Sun paints the African-American experience in brilliant and powerful strokes, as vibrant and vital today as it was in 1959.
Smart People
By Lydia R. Diamond
Directed by Seema Sueko
In the Kreeger Theater | April 14-May 21, 2017
Do our belief systems stem from our environment, or are some prejudices hard-wired into us? With barbed wit, Lydia R. Diamond (Stick Fly) explores the unavoidable nature of racism and other sticky subjects in the controversial and fiercely funny new play Smart People. Four intellectuals-a doctor, an actress, a psychologist and a neurobiologist studying the human brain's response to race-search for love, acceptance and identity in a complex world where political correctness comes face-to-face with cold hard data.
*Plays, artists and dates are subject to change.
Subscription packages are now on sale and may be purchased by calling the Arena Stage Sales Office at 202-488-3300 or by visiting arenastage.org.
Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, under the leadership of Artistic Director Molly Smith and Executive Producer Edgar Dobie, is a national center dedicated to American voices and artists. Arena Stage produces plays of all that is passionate, profound, deep and dangerous in the American spirit, and presents diverse and ground-breaking work from some of the best artists around the country. Arena Stage is committed to commissioning and developing new plays through the American Voices New Play Institute. Arena Stage impacts the lives of over 10,000 students annually through its work in community engagement. Now in its seventh decade, Arena Stage serves a diverse annual audience of more than 300,000. For more information, visit arenastage.org.
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