Lincoln Center Announces 08-09 Newhouse Season

Lincoln Center Theater (under the direction of Andre Bishop, Artistic Director, and Bernard Gersten, Executive Producer) has announced its 2008-2009 Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater season.  First up will be SATURN RETURNS, a new play by Noah Haidle, directed by Nicholas Martin, which will begin performances Thursday, October 16 and open on Monday, November 10.    SATURN RETURNS  will be followed in early Spring 2009 by HAPPINESS,  a new musical with book by John Weidman, music by Scott Frankel, lyrics by Michael Korie and direction and choreography by Susan Stroman.  A specific schedule will be announced at a later date.

SATURN RETURNS
The planet Saturn's orbital return to its position at the moment of a person's birth happens every thirty years.  In SATURN RETURNS, playwright Noah Haidle uses this phenomenon to take a look at one man – Gustin (to be played at the three different stages of his life by Robert Eli, John McMartin and James Rebhorn) – during these pivotal moments as he confronts the three women in his life (all to be played by  Rosie Benton).

SATURN RETURNS will have sets by Ralph Funicello, costumes by Robert Morgan and original music and sound design by Mark Bennett.          

Playwright Noah Haidle is the author of the plays Persephone, directed by Nicholas Martin at Boston's Huntington Theater, Vigils, produced at Chicago's Goodman Theater and Washington, D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Mr. Marmalade, seen in New York at the Roundabout Theatre after premiering at the South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa, Ca.,  Princess Marjorie, which also premiered at the South Coast Rep and Rag and Bone, produced by the Long Wharf Theatre.

Nicholas Martin, Artistic Director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival,  returns to Lincoln Center Theater where he directed last season's production of Paul Rudnick's The New Century  as well as Frank McGuinness' Observe The Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, John Guare's Chaucer in Rome  and Arthur Laurent's The Time of the Cuckoo.  His  Broadway credits include Butley, Match, Hedda Gabler and The Rehearsal.

HAPPINESS
HAPPINESS, a new musical about a disparate group of New Yorkers caught on a subway train under unusual circumstances, was commissioned and developed by Lincoln Center Theater.  The production will reunite director-choreographer Susan Stroman and book writer John Weidman, whose last LCT collaboration was the Tony Award winning Best Musical Contact and will mark the LCT debuts of composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie.

The musical will have sets by Thomas Lynch, costumes by William Ivey Long, lighting by Peter Kaczorowski and sound design by Scott Lehrer.

Susan Stroman returns to LCT where she directed and choreographed the musicals Contact (Tony Award – Best Choreography), The Frogs, and Thou Shalt Not. Currently represented on Broadway as director-choreographer of The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstien, her past credits include The Producers (Tony Awards for both direction and choreography) , the revival of The Music Man, and, as choreographer, the most recent revival of Oklahaoma!, Show Boat (Tony Award – Best Choreography), Steel Pier, Big and Crazy for You (Tony Award – Best Choreography).

John Weidman wrote the books for LCT's Tony Award winning productions of Contact and Anything Goes (with Timothy Crouse).  He also wrote the books for the musicals big, Pacific Overtures, Assassins and Bounce, which will be produced by the Public Theater this season.

Composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie were nominated for a Tony Award for their score for the musical Grey Gardens.  Their other collaborations include the musicals Doll and Meet Mister Future.  Korie wrote the librettos to composer Ricky Ian Gordon's score for the opera The Grapes of Wrath and to the operas Harvey Milk, Hopper's Wife, Kabbalah and Where's Dick?, all composed by StewArt Wallace.  He also co-wrote, with Amy Powers, the lyrics to the new musical Zhivago. Frankel, as a music director, conductor and pianist, has been associated with the original Broadway productions of Into the Woods, Les Misérables, Jerome Robbins' Broadway, Rags and Falsettos as well as Off-Broadway's Putting It Together starring Julie Andrews. Motion picture credits include Mike Nichols' Postcards From the Edge, where he can be seen (and heard) playing for Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine.

In addition to SATURN RETURNS and HAPPINESS, Lincoln Center Theater will also be presenting, by arrangement with Primary Stages, Horton Foote's critically acclaimed play Dividing The Estate, directed by Michael Wilson, on Broadway beginning Thursday, October 20 at the Booth Theatre, while its Tony Award winning production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific continues its record-breaking run at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center.  This fall, Lincoln Center Theater will also inaugurate LCT3, a new programming initiative devoted to the work of emerging playwrights, directors and designers.   LCT3's first production, Clay, a one-man, hip-hop musical written and performed by Matt Sax and directed by Eric Rosen, will begin a five week engagement on Monday, October 6 at the Duke on 42nd Street.

Photo by Walter McBride/ Retna Ltd.

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