SAN FRANCISCO: New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) has announced its 2015–16 season. Among the highlights at the LGBT-focused theatre are a U.S. premiere by Micheál Kerrigan and a world premiere by MJ Kaufman.
The season opens with U.S. premiere of For the Love of Comrades (Sept. 4–Oct. 11), an import from Ireland by Kerrigan. The show focuses on an unlikely alliance between a group of Welsh miners and the gay community in Margaret Thatcher–era Britain.
Following that is Douglas Carter Beane’s The Nance (Oct. 2–Nov. 1), about a vaudeville star who “plays gay” in a burlesque house in 1930s New York but faces struggles offstage as an actual gay man.
Next is The Kid Thing (Nov. 6–Dec. 13) by Sarah Gubbins, about two lesbian couples and a pregnancy announcement that complicates both relationships.
The holidays will take a naughty turn with the Tony-winning, foul-mouthed-puppet-filled musical Avenue Q (Dec. 4–Jan. 17, 2016), from Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty. This will be the theatre’s third annual production of the musical.
The first play of 2016 will be the world premiere of Sagittarius Ponderosa (Jan. 22-Feb. 29, 2016) by MJ Kaufman, about a transgender man who returns home to care for his dying father and meets a stranger in the forest.
A Tony-nominated play from Terrance McNally, Mothers and Sons (March 4–April 3, 2016), will be next. A woman visits her late son’s partner, now married with a son, which forces her to face the life her own son might have lived.
Jonathan Tolins’s Off-Broadway hit Buyer and Cellar (March 18–April 24, 2016) follows. The one-man show follows an unemployed actor who becomes extremely close with Barbra Streisand when he is hired to work in the basement of her Malibu home.
Closing out the season will be On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (May 13–June 12, 2016). In this reimagined version of Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner’s musical (with a new book by Peter Parnell), gay florist David discovers that he was a 1940s jazz singer named Melinda in a former life.
The New Conservatory Theatre Center opened its doors 30 years ago with a mission to provide the San Francisco area with youth theatre programs, queer and allied theatre, children’s theatre and new play development opportunities.
