The Witches of Eastwick Added to Signature Line-Up in D.C.

As he did for its London production, Eric Schaeffer will helm the American premiere of the musical The Witches of Eastwick. Due to a postponement of Signature Theatre's move into a new theatre in Shirlington, VA, the musical has been added to the acclaimed theatre's 2006-2007 season line-up.

Schaeffer, who is the artistic director of Signature Theatre, will direct The Witches of Eastwick, which will run from June 5th through July 15th, 2007. It will be performed in Signature's new The MAX, which was originally scheduled to open this September but will now be unveiled on January 12th, 2007. No casting has been announced for the production.

Based on the John Updike novel of the same name, The Witches of Eastwick concerns three women in a fictional Rhode Island town who fall for the devilishly seductive Darryl Van Horne. The musical, which features book and lyrics by John Dempsey and music by Dana Rowe (both of The Fix), premiered at the Donmar Warehouse in 1997 before moving to the West End's Theatre Drury Lane in 2000 (in a production produced by Cameron Mackintosh and starring Lucie Arnaz, Maria Friedman and Joanna Riding). A revised and smaller-scaled version of the show transferred to the Prince of Wales Theatre in July of the next year and closed that October. A Broadway production was planned, but never happened.

The MAX's first production will be Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods, directed by Schaeffer, opening on January 12th. Hamlet (presented by the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv) and the American premiere of the musical Saving Aimee will be staged in the bigger 299-seat theatre, while Sarah Kane's Crave and Bathsheba Doran's Susanna Cox will be staged in its 99-seat theatre. The 2006-2007 line-up has been compressed into a six-month performance period due to the moving postponement. Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins, running from May 30th through July 16th, completes the 2005-2006 season of shows playing the current theatre in Arlington, VA.

For more information, visit www.sig-online.org.