PROVIDENCE, R.I.: Trinity Repertory Company has announced its 2015–16 season. The productions all have a common theme of renegade characters, from Julius Caesar to Wendy Wasserstein, plus the return of directors/choreographers Richard and Sharon Jenkins for Oklahoma!
“When we plan a season, we ask ourselves the same question about every work: ‘Why is this play relevant today?’ The 2015–2016 season reflects what is going on in our society right now,” said artistic director Curt Columbus in a statement. “Through a series of classic and modern adventures, we dissect, understand and honor the rebels, renegades and pioneers among us. From children to heads of state, Western settlers to first-wave feminists—the brave ones, the unique ones, the different ones help us understand what it’s like to be in someone else’s skin, even just for a minute.”
Trinity Rep associate artistic director Tyler Dobrowsky will oversee the season opener, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Sept. 10–Oct. 11). And in keeping with tradition, Trinity will present its 39th annual holiday production of A Christmas Carol (Nov. 7–Dec. 31), adapted by Adrian Hall and Richard Cumming.
Next will be Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer-winning The Heidi Chronicles (Dec. 3–Jan. 3, 2016). The show tells the life of Heidi from high school to adulthood in the 1980s. Vivienne Benesch, artistic director at Chautauqua Theater Company in Upstate New York, will direct.
Audiences will be transported to Spain during the 1500s in Charice Castro Smith’s The Hunchback of Seville (Feb. 4–March 6, 2016) with direction by Taibi Magar (who helmed last year’s production of A Christmas Carol). The play is a revisionist take on colonialism, featuring Christopher Columbus, Queen Isabella and her (fictional) hunchbacked sister.
Next, Trinity Rep longtime acting company member Brian McEleney will direct Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (March 3–April 3, 2016).
The theatre will also present a yet-to-be-announced world premiere from a contemporary playwright. It will run April 7–May 8, 2016.
Closing out the season will be Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (May 5-June 5, 2016) directed and choreographed by Richard and Sharon Jenkins, whose previous production at Trinity Rep Oliver! played to acclaim last year.
Since its founding in 1964, Trinity Repertory (the state theatre of Rhode Island) has produced 62 world premieres, mounted national and international tours, and—through its MFA program—trained hundreds of new actors and directors.
