NEW YORK CITY: Classic Stage Company has announced its 2020-21 season, which exemplifies the company’s broad, global view of what constitutes a classic.

The season kicks off in fall 2020 with artistic director John Doyle’s new production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This play comes on the heels of Doyle’s recent staging of Hamlet at CSC, which was named a critic’s pick by the New York Times.

Winter 2021 will bring the third edition of CSC’s repertory series. The Island, devised by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, is set in the jail where Nelson Mandela spent the majority of his 27-year political imprisonment, and follows two cellmates as they rehearse Sophocles’ Antigone for a prison concert. Playing in rep will be Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman. Set in 1970s Buenos Aires, this play portrays the relationship between two prisoners—in this case, one imprisoned for his political beliefs, and the other for his sexuality—offering a provocative and tender look at the intersection of humanity and politics. Emerging directors will stage these two plays.

Ending the season will be John Doyle’s reimagining of the classic Rodgers and Hart musical Ten Cents a Dance. In this revised production, which premiered in 2011 at Williamstown Theatre Festival, the love affair between a piano player and a taxi dancer is told through the artistry of six actor-musicians as a haunting elegy on the power of memory and music.

Classic Stage Company, founded in 1967, is committed to reimagining classic stories for contemporary audiences.