PASADENA, CALIF.: The Pasadena Playhouse has announced its 2019-20 lineup, including a show helmed by BD Wong, another featuring Alfred Molina, and a pair of reimagined musicals.
“These four exciting shows are a great reason to put down your phone, get off the couch, and head to the Playhouse,” said producing artistic director Danny Feldman in a statement. “We’ve got two classic musicals with some of the best songs ever written for the theatre, stunningly reborn and giving our audiences the chance to experience them in thrilling new ways. Add to that two extraordinary new dramas brought to the stage by two world-class artists, BD Wong and Alfred Molina. Our new lineup will take audiences on a bold theatrical adventure they won’t soon forget.”
Opening the season will be Little Shop of Horrors, with book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menken (Sept. 17-Oct. 13). The classic show revolving around a bloodthirsty plant will be directed by Mike Donahue.
Next will be The Great Leap by Lauren Yee (Nov. 6-Dec. 1), co-produced with Los Angeles’s East West Players. Yee’s play, partly based on events in her father’s life, chronicles the tensions that develop when a U.S. basketball team goes to Beijing for an exhibition game. The production will be directed by BD Wong.
The third show will be The Father by Florian Zeller, translated by Christopher Hampton (Feb. 5-March 1, 2020). Directed by Jessica Kubzansky, the Olivier-, Molière-, and Tony-winning will star Alfred Molina as a man entering the stages of dementia.
Spring 2020 will bring a new production of Annie Get Your Gun, with songs by Irving Berlin. Directed by Sarna Lapine, the backstage musical about real-life Western star Annie Oakley will return to the original book by Dorothy and Herbert Fields, made famous in 1946 by Ethel Merman, rather than more recent revisions made for revivals, and the score will be reconceived for a country-and-Western ensemble.
One additional production for 2019/2020 will be announced at a later date.
The century-old Pasadena Playhouse has a legacy of theatrical impact, training, and new-work development. In 1937, the Playhouse was officially recognized as the State Theater of California.
