PASADENA, CALIF.: A Noise Within has announced its 2018-19 season, which has a theme of “Let Me In” and includes the return of two audience favorites.
“All of our 2018-19 offerings feature characters who are outliers—people who have blazed their own trail but nevertheless struggle for acknowledgement and acceptance,” said co-producing artistic director Geoff Elliott in a statement. “Let Me In isn’t about a physical space, it’s about the deeply human passion to be understood for who we are. Whether they’re in self-exile, or shunned, or led astray by hedonistic desires, or thrust there by the fickle cruelty of fate or the gods, all of these characters on the margins of society are fascinating and deeply resonant with anyone who has ever felt left out.”
The season will open with Man of La Mancha (Aug. 16-Sept. 9), written by Dale Wasserman with music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion. Wasserman’s meta take on Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote features Cervantes as the main character and a story-within-a-story of Don Quixote’s misadventures. Julia Rodriguez-Elliott will direct this return of an audience favorite.
Next up will be A Picture of Dorian Gray (Sept. 23-Nov. 16), based on the novella by Oscar Wilde and adapted by Michael Michetti. Michetti will also direct this story of a man, entranced by the beauty of his own portrait, who sells his soul to preserve his youth.
The following show will be Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Oct. 7-Nov. 18). This comedy pushes two minor characters from Hamlet to the front of a world where there is only one rule: They are destined to die. Elliott and Rodriguez-Elliott will direct.
The holidays will bring the return of Elliott’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (Dec. 1-23). Elliott and Rodriguez-Elliott will direct.
Next will be William Shakespeare’s Othello (Feb. 10-April 28, 2019). Jessica Kubzansky will direct this classic tragedy.
Onstage next will be Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (Feb. 24-April 26, 2019). This story of an innocuous visit from a potential suitor that unsettle the sheltered Wingfield family will be directed by Geoff Elliott.
Rounding out the season will be Argonautika: The Voyage of Jason and the Argonauts (March 20-May 5, 2019), by Mary Zimmerman with additional translations by David R. Slavitt (Gaius Valerius Flaccus) and Peter Green (Apollonius Rhodius). This fresh retelling of a classic Greek myth sees Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece. Julia Rodriguez-Elliott will direct.
Founded in 1991, A Noise Within produces classic plays, featuring its resident company in a rotating repertory model.
