Artistic Director Aimée Hayes has announced the seven productions that make up Southern Rep Theatre's provocative new 2009/2010 Season - a mix of bold story-telling and innovative musical works, and the return of Southern Rep's new play festival, reborn as the SOUTHERN REP NEW PLAY BACCHANAL. As the Gulf Coast South's premiere professional theatre, Southern Rep's 23rd season includes two world premieres and five regional premieres. Following the critically acclaimed 2008/2009 season, it will focus on community partnerships with fellow arts organizations to embrace NOLA's own performing arts community.
"Southern Rep promises one of the most entertaining, challenging, and provocative seasons in its history!" says Hayes. "In planning for next year, I recalled the Theatre Communications Group's annual conference which brought together opera companies, symphonies, dance organizations, and the National Theatre gang. What jazzed us most were partnerships and how to re-engage in our own communities. If Southern Rep doesn't reach out to its fellow New Orleans artists, then how we are we truly part of the community? From that thought came a bounty of collaborative ideas for this season." Chief among these partnerships is the season-long alliance with the local African-American artistic powerhouse Junebug Productions and their new educational initiative, the Free Southern Theatre Project (FSTI). Both esteemed long-time members of the New Orleans arts community, the theatres are collaborating to strengthen the diverse communities in which both are based.
This season, Southern Rep is proud to present the World Premiere of The NOLA Project actor and playwright Peter McElligott's WITH A BANG, a co-production with that young, fresh and ferocious theatre company, as well as the regional premiere of OPUS by Michael Hollinger. A co-presentation with JuneBug Productions, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, and Tulane University, Southern Rep is thrilled to bring the dynamic theatre group Universes' new project AMERIVILLE to New Orleans. Other regional debuts include Doug Wright's I AM MY OWN WIFE co-produced with All Kinds of Theatre and THE PIANO TEACHER by Julia Cho. THE PIANO TEACHER will open with the winner of Southern Rep's 10 Minute Play Riot, a part of SOUTHERN REP'S NEW PLAY BACCHANAL, a new amped-up version of the former SRT Fest of New Plays. Finishing out the season will be the regional premiere of the Tony winning musical, GREY GARDENS, in a co-production with Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré on Le Petit's stage.
SRT opens its season in September with the "taut, smart, thoroughly entertaining drama" (Newsday) Off-Broadway triumph OPUS by violinist-turned-playwright Michael Hollinger, helmed by Mark Routhier, director of Southern Rep's 2008 smash hit THE SEAFARER. OPUS paints a witty and telling portrait of the high-caliber yet high-strung world of string quartets. Exploring power and glory, loyalty and madness, Hollinger's deft writing tackles the comedic and chaotic happenings when a woman enters the male-dominated world of string musicians. Routhier's "dynamic, invisible direction" (Times-Picayune) is sure to complement playwright Michael Hollinger's "absorbing new play" (New York Times). Look for SRT to collaborate with some of NOLA's finest musical organizations to bring patrons music, lively discussions and the insider's view to performing and living classical music.
November will bring the regional premiere of Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner I AM MY OWN WIFE by Doug Wright, a co-production with All Kinds of Theatre (AKT). AKT Artistic Director Carl Walker will direct this hauntingly complex, true tale of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a German transvestite, as she successfully outwits the Nazis, Communists, and tight-fisted antiques dealers. New Orleans' director Carl Walker returns after his much-lauded direction of DOUBT, the memorable regional premiere AKT co-produced with Southern Rep. Committed to the production of important contemporary plays and musicals, AKT has also been encouraging the development of new works by New Orleans writers since 1988.
This winter, SRT's long-running New Play Festival will be reborn as the SOUTHERN REP NEW PLAY BACCHANAL, three weeks of exhilarating workshops, readings, and theatrical explorations. The Bacchanal will now include the new 10 Minute Play Riot, featuring the work of Southern writers. One winner of this demanding competition will be produced as the curtain-raiser for the final production of Southern Rep's season, THE PIANO TEACHER. Another will enjoy a special broadcast on new play-partner WWNO/KTLN Radio, New Orleans' local NPR affiliate this year.
