The Old Globe 2019 Summer Season Announced!

The Old Globe today announced the 2019 Summer Shakespeare Festival lineup, which will include two of Shakespeare's best-loved plays: the romantic comedy As You Like It, directed by Jessica Stone, will run June 16 - July 21, and love-filled tragedy Romeo and Juliet, directed by the Globe's Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, August 11 - September 15. Both will play outdoors under the stars in the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre.

Indoors, the 2019 Summer Season overflows with music, adventure, and laughter, starting with the award-winning PigPen Theatre Co., which delighted Globe audiences in 2017 with The Old Man and The Old Moon.

This talented ensemble returns July 6 - August 11 with a world premiere musical The Tale of Despereaux. Based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo and the Universal Pictures animated film, with book, music, and lyrics by PigPen Theatre Co., this inspiring family-friendly adventure will be directed by Marc Bruni (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) and PigPen Theatre Co.

Rounding out the summer is a sparkling comedy by the Globe's second most popular playwright-in-residence-a guy named Steve Martin: The Underpants. Adapted from Die Hose by Carl Sternheim, the play was originally commissioned by Edelstein when he ran New York's Classic Stage Company, and it will play July 27 - August 25. 2019 Summer Season subscriber tickets will go on sale Sunday, October 21, 2018 at 12:00 noon.

The 2019 Shakespeare Festival kicks off with As You Like It, the Bard's fabulously charming romantic comedy, whose heroine is one of his most remarkable creations. The magical forest of Arden is the play's famous setting, where a gallery of eccentric characters comes together to find love, fortune, redemption...and themselves. Banished from the court by her deceitful and treacherous uncle, Rosalind disguises herself as a boy, not knowing that the man she loves, also on the run, is behind the next tree. Bucolic Balboa Park is the ideal spot for Shakespeare's enticing tale of mistaken identity, heartfelt romance, and the endearing fumbles and foibles of love. Jessica Stone's recent body of work, including Barefoot in the Park, Ken Ludwig's Robin Hood, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, has had Globe audiences rolling in the aisles. Her Shakespearean directing debut will run June 16 - July 21 and open Saturday, June 22, 2019.

After his smash-hit Othello and record-breaking Hamlet, Barry Edelstein returns to the Shakespeare Festival to take on the greatest love story of all time, Romeo and Juliet. Verona's Montague and Capulet families have been feuding for ages, and whenever they meet, violence breaks out. But when Romeo glimpses Juliet across a crowded dance floor, something different happens. Can star-crossed love survive in a world of rivalry and rage? With a plot featuring a masqued ball, sleeping potions, and all-out brawling in the street, wrapped in a text full of soaring poetry, it's no wonder Romeo and Juliet has inspired countless adaptations, from ballets to movies to musicals like West Side Story. Young love has never been as dangerous or delightful as it is in Shakespeare's romantic masterpiece, brought to vivid life on our outdoor stage under the stars. Edelstein is currently working with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on a unique version of The Tempest combining Shakespeare, opera, and Broadway for November 2018, and he returns to his home territory with Romeo and Juliet, which will run August 11 - September 15, with opening night on Saturday, August 17.

The acclaimed PigPen Theatre Co. charmed and astonished Old Globe audiences with The Old Man and The Old Moon. Now they return to San Diego, bringing their one-of-a-kind theatrical and musical inventiveness to Kate DiCamillo's beloved, Newbery Medal-winning modern fable, The Tale of Despereaux. Despereaux is a courageous mouse who dreams of becoming a knight. He sets off on a noble quest that will take him down into dungeons and up to the heights of a castle tower to rescue a beautiful human princess-but the dark-hearted rat Roscuro has other ideas. The Boston Herald proclaims, "PigPen Theatre Co. is already a phenomenon," while The New Yorker says, "It's like watching child geniuses at play!" Full of gorgeous music, stunning stage effects, witty performances, and a message of optimism and community, The Tale of Despereaux is an inspiring and beguiling story for all ages. Directed by Marc Bruni and PigPen Theatre Co., it will run July 6 - August 11, opening Saturday, July 13, 2019.

Legendary comedian and writer Steve Martin is back with a riotously funny farce, The Underpants. Newly married Louise is bored with her demanding and uptight bureaucrat husband. Then one day at the royal parade, she jumps up on a bench to see the king go by, and oops-wardrobe malfunction!-her bloomers come loose and fall down around her ankles. Her husband is frantic that her faux pas will cost him his job and reputation. But suddenly the room they've been trying to rent out has plenty of takers, and it just might have something to do with...the underpants. Steve Martin, who gave Globe audiences hits like Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Bright Star, and Meteor Shower, brings us a hilarious look at sudden fame and the crazy things people do when they're in the grip of romantic fever. The New York Times calls the play "laugh-out-loud funny!" and "an amalgam of comic book and social commentary made out of sex jokes, slamming doors, and sophisticated repartee." The Underpants will run July 27 - August 25, opening Thursday, August 1, 2019.

"The Globe's 2019 summer lineup is bursting with two things we all need more of: love and laughter. The four productions in the season will be created by cherished artists, including some of our dearest friends, who return to our stages in brilliant form," said Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. "We are delighted to see the gifted comic director Jessica Stone make her Shakespearean directing debut with the beguiling As You Like It. I can't wait to work on a play I've longed to do, the greatest love story there is, Romeo and Juliet. The wizardly and extraordinarily gifted PigPen Theatre Co. will thrill us with their world premiere musical fable for all ages, The Tale of Despereaux, directed with Marc Bruni, fresh off the success of Beautiful on Broadway and national tour. And the Globe's dear friend Steve Martin returns for a fourth time, following the great San Diego, New York, and nationwide successes of Bright Star and Meteor Shower, with The Underpants, a play he and I originally created together and which seems even funnier and more prescient these many years later. These shows are everything the Globe exists to create: great theatre art by great artists telling great stories about things that matter. I am thrilled to share it all with our audiences."

SEASON SUBSCRIPTIONS offer substantial savings with special subscriber benefits. Tickets to the Globe's 2018 Summer Season subscriptions will go on sale on Sunday, October 21, and range from $120 to $369. Single tickets for most shows begin at $30. Subscription packages can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE [234-5623], or by visiting the box office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park. Discounts are available for full-time students, patrons 29 years of age and younger, seniors, military members, and groups of 10 or more.