SAINT PAUL, MINN.: Park Square Theatre has announced its 2016–17 season, which will feature classic and contemporary plays.
The season will begin with the regional premiere of The Liar (Sept. 9–Oct. 2), adapted by David Ives from Le Menteur by Pierre Corneille, about a man who can’t tell a lie and his master who can’t tell the truth. Doug Scholz-Carlson will direct.
Next will be the regional premiere of Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses (Sept. 23–Oct. 16), about two suburban couples who find that they have more in common than just their shared last names and identical houses. Joel Sass will direct.
Following will be The House on Mango Street (Oct. 21–22), adapted by Amy Luwig from the novel by Sandra Cisneros, about a young Latina growing up in Chicago.
Next up will be A Raisin in the Sun (Oct. 28–Nov. 20), by Lorraine Hansberry, about a family living in Chicago’s South Side in the 1950s. Warren C. Bowles will direct.
Following will be The Soul of Gershwin: The Journey of an American Klezmer (Dec. 2–24), written by Joseph Vass and featuring music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, and additional lyrics by DuBose Heyward. The tuner is a cabaret of different music styles throughout America’s history. Peter Moore will direct.
Next up will be the world premiere of Sandbox Theatre’s production of Big Money (Jan. 12–28, 2017), about the life of Michael Larson, who cracked the code of the 1980s game show “Press Your Luck.”
Following will be a coproduction with Mu Performing Arts of Flower Drum Song (Jan. 20–Feb. 19, 2017), with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and book by David Henry Hwang, about San Francisco’s Chinatown in the late 1950s. Randy Reyes will direct.
Next will be the world premiere of Jef Hall-Flavin’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (March 17—April 9, 2017), which was commissioned by the theatre. Hall-Flavin will direct.
The area premiere of Madeleine George’s The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence (April 3–30, 2017) will take the stage next, about four companions in a cautionary and time-jumping tale about the people and the machines we depend on.
Following will be the regional premiere of David Hare’s Amy’s View (May 12–June 4, 2017), about a woman in 1979 who visits her mother with a big favor to ask and a new boyfriend in tow. The cast will feature Linda Kelsey, and Gary Gisselman will direct.
Next Theatre Pro Rata will present the regional premiere of Up: The Man in the Flying Chair (May 25–June 11, 2017), by Bridget Carpenter, about a California truck driver who attached 45 helium-filled weather balloons to his lawn chair and soared 16,000 feet in the sky.
Following will be the world premiere of Might as Well Be Dead: A Nero Wolfe Mystery (June 16–July 30, 2017), adapted by Joseph Goodrich from the novel by Rex Stout, about a wealthy Nebraska businessman who unjustly throws his son out of the family business, and tries to find his estranged son eleven years later. Park Square commissioned the play.
Next to take the stage will be Girl Friday Productions’ Idiot’s Delight (June 29–July 23, 2017), by Robert E. Sherwood, a dramatic comedy about an assortment of characters stranded together on a European mountaintop resort during the outbreak of war. Craig Johnson will direct.
Park Square Theatre, founded in 1975, produces contemporary plays and engages one of the nation’s largest teen theatre audiences.
