WASHINGTON, D.C.: The Kennedy Center Theatre for Young Audiences has announced its 2016–17 season, including 11 productions and concerts.
The season will begin with the National Symphony Orchestra Pops’ Cirque de la Symphonie’s Halloween Extravaganza (Oct. 13–16), a Halloween-themed performance of acrobatics and music, recommended for ages 5 and older.
Next will be the world premiere of All the Way Live! (Oct. 15–16), a co-commission with B-Fly Entertainment, featuring hip-hop performers remixing everything from folk tales to classical art. The show is recommended for ages 7 and older.
Up next will be the world premiere of Finegan Kruckemeyer’s Where Words Once Were (Nov. 5–27), set in a city where language is rationed and where a sentence can get you sentenced. The show is recommended for ages 9 and older.
Following will be the world premiere of Bud, Not Buddy (Jan. 12–15, 2017), adapted by Kirsten Greenidge from the book by Christopher Paul Curtis, about a boy in 1936 who goes looking for his father. The show is recommended for ages 9 and older.
The season will continue with the world premiere concert of the National Symphony Orchestra’s The Man with the Violin (Feb. 12, 2017), featuring violinist Joshua Bell, whose experience of anonymously playing violin in the DC subway system inspired a children’s book. The show is recommended for ages 5 and older.
Next up will be the world premiere of From the Mouths of Monsters (March 10–12, 2017), loosely based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, featuring two actors who riff on the classic tale in unexpected ways. The show is recommended for ages 12 and older.
Following will be Grug and the Rainbow (March 18–19, 2017), based on a picture book by Ted Prior, a production from Australia’s Windmill Theatre featuring puppets. The show is recommended for ages 4 and older.
Next will be the world premiere of To Sail Around the Sun (March 25–26, 2017), a co-commission with the National Symphony Orchestra and Company E, which fuses dance, film, storytelling, and music to tell a story of the changing seasons set to the music of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” The show is recommended for ages 4 and older.
The season will continue with Nearly Lear (May 12–14, 2017), a one-woman show starring Susanna Hamnett, who tells Shakespeare’s tale from the perspective of the play’s other characters. The show is recommended for ages 9 and older.
Next up will be Mouth Open, Story Jump Out (May 20–28, 2017), from spoken-word artist Polarbear, about a boy trying to make sense of his father’s disappearance. The show is recommended for ages 8 and older.
Following will be the National Symphony Orchestra family concert Peter and the Wolf (May 21, 2017), Sergei Prokofiev’s classic symphony in which each character in the fairy tale is represented by a different instrument. The show is recommended for ages 5 and older.
The season will conclude with the world premiere of Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s /peh-LO-tah/ (June 5–11, 2017), an exploration of soccer through poetry, movement, music, and hip-hop. The show is recommended for ages 10 and older.
