CHAPEL HILL, N.C.: PlayMakers Repertory Company has announced its 2020-21 season, “All Too Human: The Art of Comedy,” featuring nine productions.
“I’m very conscious of the state of the world today,” said PlayMakers’ producing artistic director Vivienne Benesch, “and I believe in the healing quality of good stories well-told, of stories that use laughter as a portal to deeper understanding, that transport us while they make our own corner of the world just a bit brighter.”
The season will open with Steel Magnolias (Sept. 9-27), by Robert Harling, in which a group of Southern women gather in a small-town beauty parlor to laugh, cry, and find a way over life’s hurdles.
Following will be Lauren Yee’s Periods of Collapse (or Mother Russia) (Oct. 14-Nov. 1). Yee’s play follows two young Russian comrades after the fall of the Soviet Union as they try to figure out what it means to be Russian.
You Can’t Take It With You (Nov. 18-Dec. 6) will be next. This Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart follows the eccentric Sycamore family as they march to the beat of their own drum and live their lives to the fullest.
The season will continue with Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (Jan. 20-Feb. 7, 2021), by the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, in which a successful African American publicist falls down the New York City social ladder after her husband steals her fortune.
Shakespeare’s As You Like It (Feb. 24-March 14, 2021) will follow.
Closing out the mainstage season will be Cheryl L. West’s Akeelah and The Bee (March 31-April 18). A community rallies behind a young girl who is determined to make it to the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
PlayMakers will also produce three shows as part of the PRC2 Kenan Stage series. The first production, scheduled for Aug. 19-23, has not yet been announced.
Dignity, Always Dignity (Jan. 6-10, 2021), by Bryce Pinkham and Zack Fine, will be next. In this post-apocalyptic cabaret, Pinkham is stranded alone on an island where he passes the time attempting to perform the entirety of Singin’ in the Rain.
The series will conclude with a celebration of comedy, called Laughing Matters (April 28-May 2, 2021), which will feature three different programs highlighting local standup, improvisation, and storytelling.
PlayMaker’s Repertory Company strives to tell stories and present work for a multiplicity of perspectives that creates an impact in both the immediate and extended communities.
