PETER AND THE STARCATCHER, MY FAIR LADY, OTHER DESERT CITIES & More Set for PCPA's 51st Season

A magical new musical opens the Pacific Conservatory Theatre's 51st Season - the world premiere production of Renegade Animation's Christmas Is Here Again. This frolicsome adventure for the entire family is a new stage musical by Brad Carroll and Jeremy Mann. It's based on the film of the same name written and directed by Robert Zappia. Christmas is Here Again plays in the Marian Theatre November 13 - December 24, 2014.

Up next is Peter and the Starcatcher, the grownup's prequel to Peter Pan. This multi-Tony winner by Rick Elice turns the century-old legend of Peter Pan on its head with a madly theatrical and ingenious reboot of how a wretched orphan became The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. A dozen actors play more than one hundred characters, employing inspired stagecraft and the limitless possibilities of imagination. Peter and the Starcatcher plays February 12 - March 8, 2015 in Santa Maria and August 28 - September 13, 2015 in the Solvang Festival Theater.

The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood's new stage adaptation of her own wry, witty and wise novel, plays the intimate Severson Theatre March 5 - 22, 2015. In what almost amounts to a theatrical Olympiad, Penelope and her wronged maids tell their side of the story as she waited 20 years, devoted and dutiful, for the return of her husband Odysseus from the Trojan War. Full of music, poetry and movement, this new telling of an ancient story echoes from the hearts of the maids with the fluidity of the original mythic material and resonance for today.

Professor Henry Higgins makes a wager that he can raise a lowly Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to the status of a high-society debutante in Lerner and Loewe's hit musical, My Fair Lady. Based on Bernard Shaw's 1912 play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady features such classic musical numbers as Wouldn't It Be Loverly?, The Rain In Spain, and I Could Have Danced All Night. My Fair Lady will play in the Marian Theatre April 23 - May 10, 2015, then in the Solvang Festival Theater June 11 - July 5.

In Other Desert Cities, following a long absence, a break-down and a break-up, writer Brooke Wyeth returns to her "Reaganite" parents' Palm Springs enclave for the holidays. But the warm desert air turns chilly this Christmas Eve when news of Brooke's upcoming memoir threatens to revive the most painful chapter of the family's history. Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities was a Pulitzer finalist, and received 5 Tony nominations. It plays in the Marian Theatre June 18 - 28, 2015 and in the Solvang Festival Theater July 9 - 26.

Out of a dungeon of despair, the story of knight errant Don Quixote rises in triumphant transformation in the classic musical Man of La Mancha, with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. Dare to dream the impossible dream with this timeless, tough, and tuneful celebration of the human spirit. Man of La Mancha plays in the Marian Theatre July 9 - 25, 2015, then under the unreachable stars in the Solvang Festival Theater July 31 - August 22.

The heart-wringing rock musical Next to Normal centers on a family struggling with the anguish of loss and a mother with bipolar disorder who tries to sort healing out of a maze of pharmaceutical treatments and denial. Full of the authentic complexity and ambiguity of modern life and mental health, Next to Normal's thoughtfully provocative lyrics and thrilling score - music by Tom Kitt; book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey - was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and received eleven Tony nominations, winning three, including Best Original Score and Best Orchestration. It plays in the Severson Theatre August 28 - September 20, 2015.

Subscriptions and Single Tickets go on sale in the fall of 2014. Visit www.pcpa.org for more information.