MINNEAPOLIS: Ten Thousand Things has announced a three-show lineup for its 2016–17 season, which will include Shakespeare classic, a musical, and a play by Lynn Nottage.
The season will open with Shakespeare’s Pericles (Oct. 13–Nov. 6). Artistic director Michelle Hensley will direct a cast that includes Ansa Akyea, Pearce Bunting, Maggie Chestovich, H. Adam Harris, Audrey Park, James Rodriguez, Karen Wiese-Thompson, and Tatiana Williams.
In the spring, the theatre will mount Fiddler on the Roof (Feb. 16–March 19, 2017), the musical by Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, and Joseph Stein. Steven Epp will play Tevye, a Jewish man trying to marry off his daughters, while struggling to maintain his religious and cultural traditions under the persecution of the Russian Tsar. The cast will feature Thomasina Petrus, Elise Langer, Sheena Janson, Joy Dolo, Nathan Barlow, Eric Sharp, and Tyson Forbes.
The season will close with Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel (May 12–June 4), about an African-American seamstress living in the early 1900s who makes lingerie for wealthy white women. Austene Van will direct and the cast will include Aimee Bryant, Darius Dotch, George Keller, Meghan Kreidler, Kris Nelson, and Karen Wiese-Thompson.
Ten Thousand Things produces a mix of classic and new works in a barebones setting, with minimal sets and costumes. There is no stage, and the actors perform on the floor with the audience seated around them. All of the company’s shows begin as tours to prisons, housing projects, homeless shelters, and other non-traditional locations, before starting general public performances.
