SANTA BARBARA, CALIF.: Ensemble Theatre Company has announced its 2015—16 season, featuring a mixture of contemporary and classic plays and musicals.
“‘Pretty Women,’ a gorgeous song from our first production of the season, might also be an appropriate title for our 2015–16 season,” said executive artistic director Jonathan Fox in a statement. “Captivating, conniving, charming, and commanding women are at the center of each play: wives and lovers, women in the throes of first love, and women who’ve been around the block a time or two. Each story is refracted through a different lens.”
The season begins with Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd (Oct. 8—25), about a barber seeking vengeance on a corrupt London judge who exiled him.
Just in time for the holiday season will be the West Coast premiere of Wendy MacLeod’s Women in Jeopardy! (Dec. 3—20), about two divorced women who believe their friend’s new boyfriend is a serial killer. Bart DeLorenzo will direct.
Next will be Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife (Feb. 4—21, 2016), the real-life story of an eccentric 65-year old German transvestite who hid from the Nazis in plain sight as a woman. Jenny Sullivan will direct.
Following will be Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews (April 14—May 1, 2016), a coproduction with The English Theatre Frankfurt, about a devout Jew whose less observant cousin claims a religious symbol and a family heirloom, igniting a battle of Old Testament proportions. Fox will direct.
The season concludes with Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels (June 6—26, 2016), about two women who are paid a visit by a long-ago lover while their husbands are off playing golf. Art Manke will direct.
