Center Rep Announces 43rd Season 10/3/09-6/26/10

Center Repertory Company’s Artistic Director Michael Butler unveiled the company's 43rd subscription season. Running from September 3, 2009 to June 26, 2010, the season will be expanding Center Rep’s programming to include eight productions to be performed in all three theatres of the Lesher Center for the Arts. From the suspense of Agatha Christie to the music of Elvis Presley, Center Rep’s 09-10 season will delight audiences while also featuring the works of Caryl Churchill, Noël Coward, Reduced Shakespeare Company, Michael Frayn and five-time Emmy Award nominee Harold Gould. A variety of subscription packages, ranging from $128 to $522, can be purchased by calling 925-943-SHOW.

"The 09-10 lineup is a big, adventurous season for us,” says Michael Butler. "We’ve got Elvis and Agatha. We’re continuing a great holiday tradition and inaugurating a new idea with our Off Center season. With Off Center we’ve got two extraordinary teams of artists returning to Center Rep – one to present something brand new and the other to revive the hit that made them an international sensation. And we’ve got one of the funniest plays ever, and one very moving piece starring the five-time Emmy nominee and very wonderful Harold Gould.

"I love kicking off the season with a bang, and I’m really jazzed to have Elvis Presley and Agatha Christie as our one-two punch,” adds Butler. Center Rep's 43rd season opens in September with the musical All Shook Up, featuring the songs of Elvis Presley, and is followed by Agatha Christie’s unsurpassed masterpiece of suspense Witness for the Prosecution. Musing on All Shook Up, Butler says, ”Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change) took Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, shook it up, and made a punchy cocktail about falling in love in a small town in America circa 1959. Very funny, and also a nice story about tolerance. And those Elvis tunes! Every one’s a killer. I can’t wait to put a rocking band on stage again.”

On the heels of Center Rep’s wildly popular production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, the company is proud to present Witness for the Prosecution. “I love a courtroom drama. And I think it’s Dame Agatha’s best play. Great characters, beautifully plotted. And with a genuine triple twist ending.”

Directed by Scott Denison, A Christmas Carol is back for its 12th straight year at Center Rep, with Jack Powell Reprising the role of Scrooge. The season kicks off the new year with five-time Emmy Award nominee Harold Gould starring in Trying by Joanna McClelland Glass. “I’m very excited to co-pro with two terrific Southern Californian companies on this production: the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura and the Ensemble Theatre Company in Santa Barbara. I’m also very excited to have director Jenny Sullivan helming this show. I’ve long admired her work. And of course, having Hal Gould playing the part of Francis Biddle is tremendously exciting. I’m one of the lucky ones who saw Hal Gould originate the role of Artie Shaunessey in the New York production of House of Blue Leaves. In addition to multiple Emmy nominations, he is an extraordinary theatre actor.”

The laughs start rolling as the season continues with Michael Frayn’s hilarious Noises Off. The season culminates with A Marvelous Party: The Noël Coward Celebration, featuring the stars of Rep’s runaway hit, 2 Pianos 4 Hands. “Mark Anders and Carl Danielsen are two of the most ridiculously talented people I know. Jedi-level piano players and superb comedic shape-shifting actors, as we know from Rep’s production of 2 Pianos 4 Hands, and oh yeah, they also sing great and can dance! They’ve devised, along with Arizona Theatre Company Artistic Director David Ira Goldstein, a new Noël Coward revue, and I can’t wait to see them throw all that talent at it.

"I’m especially excited about launching our new Off Center season,” says Butler. In the Off Center season the company is presenting two limited engagements: Caryl Churchill’s sci-fi masterpiece A Number in the intimate Knight Stage 3, and the Reduced Shakespeare Company returning with the show that made them an international sensation, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) in the 800-seat Hofmann Theater. “It gives us the chance to include in our season both work that is new and provocative, and work that is wildly popular for a potentially new audience. I also love that we’ll be presenting in all three theatres of the LCA!

"I love the inspired and very smart lunacy of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, and ReEd Martin and Austin Tichenor helped me kick off my first season at Center Rep, so I’m delighted they’re coming back. And the chance to see them perform Complete Works of Shakespeare…wow!

"Caryl Churchill is perhaps the most adventurous and probing living playwright. She doesn’t just break new ground, she digs way down into it, and turns up a lot of very interesting and disturbing stuff. A Number is an astonishing play. There’s nobody writing like her or writing about what she’s writing about. She’s way out in front, and such a good storyteller, too. The 130-seat Knight Stage 3 is the perfect venue for this intimate and charged drama.”

Season subscriptions are now available via the Lesher Center for the Arts Ticket office. For a season brochure, please call Lesher Center for the Arts at 925-943-S-H-O-W or log on to www.CenterRep.org.

Only Center Rep subscribers have free ticket exchange privileges, guaranteed reserved seats for each performance and a host of other subscriber benefits. For more information, to receive a free color brochure or to reserve your place in the 09-10 season, call 925-943-S-H-O-W.

Center Repertory Company is supported by Chevron, Contra Costa Times, Diablo Regional Arts Association, and the The City of Walnut Creek.

Center Rep's 2009-2010 Subscription Season
(All dates subject to change)

All Shook Up
September 3 – October 10, 2009

Inspired by and featuring the songs of Elvis Presley
Book by Joe DePietro

The story is all new; the hits are all Elvis! Inspired by and featuring the hit songs of the great Elvis Presley, this hot new musical tells the story of a guitar-playing, motorcycle-driving roustabout who brings a small town’s busted jukebox to life with a touch. What happens next? Everybody starts falling in love of course...with the wrong person. "Love Me Tender," "It’s Now or Never," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Don’t Be Cruel," "Fools Fall in Love" – over 20 of the King’s hits make this an exhilarating new musical comedy with a whole lot of shakin’ going on.

Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution
October 22 – November 21, 2009
By Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie’s courtroom drama is an unsurpassed masterpiece of nail-biting suspense and twisty plotting. On trial for his life, Leonard Vole claims he was with his wife at the time of the murder. But is she his alibi, or a damning witness for the prosecution that will seal his doom? The classic from the undisputed Queen of Crime will keep you guessing right up to its final, hair-raising curtain.

A Christmas Carol
December 10 - 20, 2009
By Charles Dickens
Adapted by Cynthia Caywood & Richard L. James

Back for its 12th smash year, Center Rep’s production of this beloved holiday classic is better than ever. Brimming with music and dance, love and laughter, spectacular special effects and scary ghosts, it’s no wonder the critics have called it “THE Christmas Carol To see in the Bay Area.” Join the thousands who make this theatrical event part of their annual holiday traditions.

Trying
January 28 – February 27, 2010
By Joanna McClelland Glass
Directed by Jenny Sullivan
A co-production with Rubicon Theatre Company and Ensemble Theatre Company

Emmy award-nominee Harold Gould stars as the brilliant but cantankerous Francis Biddle, attorney general under FDR and Chief Judge of the Nuremberg trials. It’s 1967, Biddle is 81 years old and trying to put his life in order with the help of a new, 25 year old secretary. This beautifully written drama with an abundance of heart and humor shows how two strangers, who are worlds apart, can unexpectedly and forever influence each other.

Noises Off
April 1 – May 1, 2010
By Michael Frayn

The funniest play ever written. Period. Grown men weep with laughter. Ladies have to be carried out of the theatre. Diabolically constructed, relentlessly clever, and mercilessly hilarious, Noises Off is the ultimate backstage farce. Depicting the onstage and backstage antics of a fifth-rate acting troupe, it’s a sidesplitting symphony of “Seven slamming doors, one breaking window, 10 trips up and down stairs, 17 false entrances, 46 miscues, 22 double entendres, six regular entendres and a million laughs!”

A Marvelous Party: The Noël Coward Celebration
May 20 – June 26, 2010
Words and music by Noël Coward
Devised by David Ira Goldstein, Carl Danielsen, Mark Anders, Patricia Wilcox and Anna Lauris

“I’m an enormously talented man, and it’s no use pretending I’m not!” Thus spake Noël Coward. This Bay Area premiere is an exhilarating evening of song and sparkling Repartee, filled with Coward’s witty lyrics and contagious melodies. Created by and starring the multi-talented team from the Rep hit 2 Pianos 4 Hands, this is a singing, dancing, piano-playing evening of show-stoppers that provides “endless delights!” raved the LA Times. Filled with classic Coward confections like "Mad Dogs and Englishmen," "Why Do the Wrong People Travel" and "Mad About the Boy," this is one marvelous party you don’t want to miss. “A blissful and flawless revue!” gushed the Seattle Times.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)
November 12 - 14, 2009
By Reduced Shakespeare Company

They’re back! Performing the show that made them an international sensation. The original Bad Boys of Abridgement are returning to Center Rep with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see what critics around the world have called “one of the funniest shows you are likely to see in your entire lifetime!”

A Number
January 21 – February 7, 2010
By Caryl Churchill

Some consider her one of the world’s greatest living playwrights and her latest play, A Number, the first true play of the 21st century. What would you do if you had cloned a child 35 years earlier, and now the past is coming to call with some very tough questions?

Center Repertory Company, the resident professional theatre company of the Lesher Center for the Arts (LCA), celebrates its 42nd Subscription Season of high-quality theatrical productions during 2009-10. Center Repertory Company’s mission is to celebrate the power of the human imagination by producing emotionally engaging, intellectually involving, and visually astonishing live theatre and, through our outreach and education programs, to enrich and advance the cultural life of the communities we serve.

For more information go to CenterRep.org or call 925.943.7469. You can also visit the LCA Ticket Office at 1601 Civic Drive or the Ticket Office Outlet at Barnes & Noble in Walnut Creek.

Center Rep hosts area teachers from elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges for a pre-show gathering with cookies and coffee. This is a great way to honor teachers while providing them with the tools to broaden their students’ understanding of live theatre. Call 925.295.1420 and press 1 for more information or to reserve a ticket.