SALT LAKE CITY: Pioneer Theatre Company has announced its 2015–16 season, which is heavy on musicals, though there are also two world-premiere plays on offer.
The season opens with the beloved Fiddler on the Roof (Sept. 18–Oct. 3), followed by the Utah premiere of John Patrick Shanley’s Irish-set romantic comedy Outside Mullingar (Oct. 30–Nov. 14).
For the holidays, Karen Azenberg and Kenneth Jones have conceived a new feel-good anthology of songs, dances and stories called It Happened One Christmas (Dec. 4–19).
The new year kicks off with another world premiere, T.J. Brady’s Two Dollar Bill (Jan. 15–30, 2016), a drama about a history professor caught up in a controversy when his nomination for a prestigious award invites scrutiny of his academic career and personal life.
Next is a revival of J.B. Priestley’s 1945 drama An Inspector Calls (Feb. 19–March 5, 2106), about a prosperous family whose consiences are roiled by the murder of a seemingly anonymous girl.
Mary Murfitt and Betsy Howie’s musical Cowgirls (March 25–April 9, 2016) comes next. This comedy of errors depicts a trio of classical musicians mistakenly booked to play a country-and-western saloon, who must transform themselves into the real thing in time to save the establishment from closure.
The season winds up with the professional U.S. premiere of Frank Wildhorn and Jack Murphy’s musical of The Count of Monte Cristo (May 6–21, 2016), Alexandre Dumas’s classic swashbuckler about a daring prison escape and a chase for vengeance in 19th-century France.
In addition to regular season offerings, PTC will also offer a concert version of Richard O’Brien’s cult hit musical The Rocky Horror Show (Oct. 22-Oct. 24), and will its third season of Play-By-Play, a new-play reading series, in the spring of 2016.
