AUSTIN, TEX: ZACH Theatre has announced its 2018-19 season, which will include Tony Award-winning musicals, as well as plays from Terrence McNally and Anna Deavere Smith.
“I am absolutely thrilled we will be engaged in creating brand new work with long-time collaborator, American theatre legend Terrence McNally, continuing our provocative and timely dialogue with national thought-leader Anna Deavere Smith, and producing a new, genre-breaking musical that invites Austin audiences to join us at the inception of something truly special,” said producing artistic director Dave Steakley in a statement. “Big musicals with spectacle, intimate dramas that provoke meaningful conversation, shows which draw upon Austin’s long heritage as a musician-fueled city, and new work created specifically for our city are all hallmarks of our exciting next journey together.”
The season will open with the Tony Award-winning musical Once (Sept. 19-Oct. 28), with music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová and book by Enda Walsh. Based on the 2007 film by the same name, Steakley will direct this story of an unexpected friendship that evolves into a complicated romance between an Irish musician and a Czech immigrant.
This holiday season will include the return of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (Nov. 21-Dec. 30), directed by Abe Reybold. The holidays will also include David Sedaris’s The Santaland Diaries (Dec. 5-30), adapted by Joe Mantello and directed by Nat Miller, an irreverent cult-classic about that time Sedaris worked in Santaland at Macy’s.
Next up will be the Texas premiere of Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes From the Field (Feb. 27-March 31, 2019). Based on interviews with over 250 people, Smith’s play depicts the personal accounts of individuals caught in America’s school-to-prison pipeline as they navigate inequities in their communities. Steakley will direct.
The season will continue with Matilda The Musical, based on the children’s book by Roald Dahl, and featuring music and lyrics by Tim Minchin and book by Dennis Kelly (April 3–May 12, 2019). This musical about the little girl with special powers will be directed by Abe Reybold and Nat Miller.
After that will be the new musical The Ballad of Klook and Vinette (April 24-May 26, 2019) with book by Ché Walker and music and lyrics by Anoushka Lucas and Omar Lyefook. This musical, the run of which is still pending final approval, is about two lost souls trying to find themselves in one another.
Next will be Fire and Air (June 12-July 14, 2019), by Tony Award-winner Terrence McNally. The play explores the rich history of Sergei Diaghilev’s itinerant Russian ballet company and the tempestuous relationship between Diaghilev and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky that revolutionized dance forever.
Closing out the season will be the Austin debut of the Tony Award-winning Hedwig and the Angry Inch (July 31-Sept. 8, 2019), with book by James Cameron Mitchell and music and lyrics by Steven Trask. Steakley will direct this musical about Hedwig Schmidt, an East German rock ‘n’ roll goddess who also happens to be the victim of a botched sex-change operation, trying to find a place to belong in America.
In addition, ZACH has announced its Moody Foundation Theatre for Families series. The first production will be Tortoise and Hare (Sept. 8-Feb. 27, 2019), with book by Allen Robertson and Damon Brown and music and lyrics by Allen Robertson. Nat Miller will direct.
The next production will be the holiday sing-along Holiday Heroes (Nov. 29-Dec. 13, 2018), written by Allen Robertson, Shaun Wainwright Branigan, and Jerome Schoolar.
ZACH serves more than 100,000 people annually with a mix of nationally recognized plays and musicals.
