2020 Season Announced For Provincetown Theater

From Mae West to Eugene O'Neill, the Provincetown Theater is proud to announce five very distinguished and distinctive American voices as the headlining playwrights of our 2020 season in Provincetown, MA -- the birthplace of American Theater. The five major productions on our calendar -- including a World Premiere, a New England premiere, two Cape Cod premieres, and the return of an American classic -- will be staged at our playhouse at 238 Bradford Street in Provincetown, MA 02657. "Early Bird" Season Subscriptions go on sale January 7 at www.provincetowntheater.org.

2020 Spring: The Drag

May 14 - June 7 heralds the re-premiere of Mae's West's notorious play The Drag. Described by the author as "A Homosexual Comedy in 3 Acts," The Drag was shut down by the Vice Squad in 1927 for "corrupting the morals of youths" because it told the taboo tale of a closeted Park Avenue newlywed and his secret double-life with a pack of Greenwich Village drag queens. Banned in Bayonne, The Drag never reached its destination of the Great White Way. Still as funny and relevant as it was nearly 100 years ago, the Provincetown Theater's mounting of West's rare forgotten play will be its first professional production since the cops closed her down in 1927.

2020 Summer: The Lady Hamlet & Jerker

June 29 - July 23 will witness a dazzling new play by the acclaimed novelist and playwright Sarah Schulman with the World Premiere of The Lady Hamlet. A hilariously smart costume comedy with one foot in screwball and the other in a fencing match, The Lady Hamlet watches a duel of divas at the turn-of-the-century in a fierce battle to see who will be the first - and best! - female Hamlet on Broadway. (Post-show talkbacks with the author to be determined at a later date.)

August 3 - September 3 will see the Cape Cod premiere of the late Robert Chesley's sensuous love story Jerker. Following two gay men in 1980s San Francisco, Jerker charts the development of their romantic relationship via the oft-ridiculed use of phone sex. Upon its off-Broadway debut in 1987, the New York Times keenly observed: "Jerker'' accurately bills itself as ''a pornographic elegy with redeeming social value,'' and its gamy language and simulated autoeroticism are definitely not for squeamish tastes. But they serve a poignant purpose by pointing out, more bluntly than any other play dealing with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, how the epidemic has threatened one of the fundamental reasons for an entire group's very existence - its freedom of erotic expression - and challenged its hard-won self-esteem."

2020 Fall: The Cake

October 8 - 25 welcomes the Cape Cod premiere of the seriously funny new comedy The Cake by Bekah Brunstetter, the Emmy nominated creator of NBC's This Is Us. With its "ripped-from-the-headlines" story, The Cake centers on Della - a conservative, middle-aged North Carolina baker who is asked by her deceased best friend's daughter to bake the cake for the young woman's same-sex marriage. As with our production of The Laramie Project, a series of "Community Conversations" will follow select performances of The Cake to engage audience members in a discussion on shared experiences, values, and concerns.

2020 Winter: A Moon for the Misbegotten

Concluding the season from November 19 - December 6 will be a return of Eugene O'Neill's classic of family, love, and forgiveness, A Moon for the Misbegotten. In producing one of O'Neill's greatest works, we are honored to embrace one of Provincetown's legendary figures in Modern American Drama.

2020 January- March: New Play Development Programs

As a year-round not-for-profit performing arts institution, during the "off season" the Provincetown Theater continues to host a roster of new play development programs and presentations from January thru March. 2020 includes five free presentations in our Winter Play Dates new full-length play reading series; sponsoring the Provincetown Theater Playwrights Residency program; monthly dates with the Mosquito Story Slam; hosting the Provincetown Playwrights Lab, and co-producing with them the 24 Hour Plays on President's Day Weekend, Feb 15-16.

Season Subscription packages and individual tickets can be purchased at provincetowntheater.org. Further information can be obtained by calling our box office: 508.487.7487.

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