Arden Theatre Company Announces 25th Anniversary Season: NEXT TO NORMAL, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC and More

Arden Theatre Company today announced these seven productions for its 2012/13 Season, which marks the company's 25^th Anniversary Season:

• ·                     Next to Normal Book and Lyrics by Brian Yorkey, Music by Tom Kitt
• ·                     Freud's Last Session by Mark St. Germain
• ·                     Cinderella by Charles Way
• ·                     Endgame by Samuel Beckett
• ·                     A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
• ·                     Pinnochio by Carlo Collodi, Adapted by Greg Banks
• ·                     A Little Night Music  Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Book by Hugh Wheeler 

"Our 25^th Anniversary Season exemplifies what we do best – daring and ambitious musicals, dramas that grapple with the complicated notion of the American family, provocative pieces by contemporary playwrights, and classic stories reinvented for family audiences," says Arden's Producing Artistic Director Terrence J. Nolen. "We are proud to bring the work of influential writers Sondheim, Hansberry, and Beckett alongside new American voices Mark St. Germain, the team of Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt, as well as two of today's preeminent adaptors of work for children: Charles Way and Greg Banks."

The season begins with the groundbreaking Next to Normal, an electric and emotionally rigorous musical that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010, in a production conceived by Nolen and designer Jorge Cousineau to create a visually rich production using new technology. Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece A Little Night Music, also directed by Nolen, closes the season, featuring Philadelphia actors Grace Gonglewski, Ben Dibble, and Mary Martello. In the Arden's twenty-five years, they have presented eleven Sondheim musicals, making him the most produced playwright in the company's history, so it is only fitting this anniversary season includes his work. 

In the fall, Barrymore Award-winning actor Ian Merrill Peakes makes his directorial debut with Freud's Last Session, an imagined meeting between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis at the start of World War II.  In 2013, the company presents two influential but drastically different playwrights of the 20^th Century: Samuel Beckett and Lorraine Hansberry. Beckett's Endgame will mark the company's first foray into the Nobel Prize winning storyteller's work. Under the direction of Associate Artistic Director Edward Sobel (Clybourne Park, Superior Donuts) local actors Scott Greer (Wittenberg, Cyrano) and James Ijames (The Whipping Man, Superior Donuts) play the co-dependent clowns Hamm and Clov in this darkly comic play. Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun became the first play by an African American produced on Broadway in 1959. This pivotal family drama will be brought to life on the Arden's stage under the direction of Walter Dallas (Blue Door, The Piano Lesson). 

Rounding out the Arden's season are the beloved children's stories Cinderella during the holiday season under the direction of Whit MacLaughlin (Charlotte's Web, A Year with Frog and Toad) and Pinocchio in the spring under the direction of Arden's Associate Producer Matthew Decker (Robin Hood). The Arden's commitment to children extends from these productions to Arden Drama School, with classes and camps for kids ages 3-18 years; Arden for All, a theatre outreach program in Philadelphia and Camden serving over 5,000 students each year with theatre tickets, transportation, and in-class lessons; and the new Hamilton Family Arts Center which begins construction this summer at 60 N. 2^nd Street and will be a home for kids and families, as well as Arden artisans and new play development with  7 classes, teacher and parent lounges, an 80-seat theatre, rehearsal hall, and crafts studio. 

Subscriptions are now available for both the children's theatre and mainstage series in the 2012/13. Prior to the announcement of the Arden's mainstage plays, over 4,300 patrons took a "Leap of Faith" to subscribe, a testament to the commitment of the Arden's audiences. Subscriptions can be ordered by calling the Arden Box Office at 215.922.1122 or online at www.ardentheatre.org.  Single tickets go on sale September 1, 2012.