MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.: TheatreWorks Silicon Valley has announced its 2020-21 season, featuring 9 productions. The season will be the first under the new artistic director Tim Bond.
The season will open with Madhuri Shekar’s Queen (July 8-Aug. 2), about two female Ph.D. candidates publishing research about the rapid global honeybee demise. Jeffrey Lo will direct.
Next up will be the 2020 New Works Festival (Aug. 7-16), featuring developing work by playwrights and composers from across the country.
Following will be Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin (Aug. 26-Sept. 20), a solo show about Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin that invites the audience to experience a master class with the pianist. Joel Zwick will direct.
The season will continue with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Oct. 7-Nov. 10 adapted by Todd Kreidler from the screenplay by William Rose, about a liberal family in 1960s San Francisco whose dinner is upturned when their daughter announces her engagement to an African American doctor. Bond will direct.
Just in time for the holidays will be Sense and Sensibility (Dec. 2-27), with book, music, and lyrics by Paul Gordon. Based on Jane Austen’s novel, the musical follows the Dashwood sisters as they navigate love and loss after their father’s untimely death. Founding artistic director Robert Kelley will direct.
Following will be The Lifespan of a Fact (Jan. 13-Feb. 7, 2021), by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell. The play is based on the book of the same name by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal, about an eager journalist tasked with fact-checking an established author’s groundbreaking essay. Bond will direct.
Next will be the world premiere of Jessica Dickey’s Nan and the Lower Body (March 10- April 4, 2021), about Pap smear inventor Dr. George Papanicolaou and the secret he uncovers about his new assistant, Nan Day. The play was developed at TheatreWorks’s 2019 New Works Festival. Artistic associate Giovanna Sardelli will direct.
Up next will be Man of La Mancha (April 7-May 2, 2021), with a book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, and lyrics by Joe Darion. The musical is inspired by the classic Miguel de Cervantes novel “Don Quixote” and adapted from Dale Wasserman’s teleplay “I, Don Quixote.”
The season will close out with Having Our Say, the Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years (June 2-27, 2021), adapted by Emily Mann from the memoir by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany, written with Amy Hill Hearth. The play follows two centenarian sisters sharing the lessons they’ve learned over their exceptional century.
Founded in 1970, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley develops and produces new musicals and plays. The company was the 2019 recipient of the Regional Theatre Tony Award.
