VENUS IN FUR, NEXT TO NORMAL and More Play Southern Rep's 26th Season

The 2012-2013 Season will be one of great transformation as Southern Rep Theatre takes on its role as the Contemporary Arts Center's Theatre in Residence! Southern Rep is thrilled to embark on another season full of new plays, exciting collaborative productions, and thrilling surprises at our new venue.

"Great Theatre is often about the magic of transformation. Our 2012-13 Mainstage Series reflects this in various exciting ways. In VENUS IN FUR a seemingly bumbling actress emerges as a powerful dominating performer; MOLD, the Final Play in the Rising Water Trilogy, defines how our beloved city of New Orleans has become the new New Orleans; and in the powerhouse musical NEXT TO NORMAL, a mother heartbreakingly comes in to her own. Southern Rep Theatre's own major miracle of transformation, this year, sees us happily ensconced as the Contemporary Arts Center's 2012-13 Theatre in Residence. I am so grateful to our audiences for their support and belief in what we do. They are simply the savviest, smartest and boldest audience a theatre could ask for. In that spirit I can't wait to share this season of great plays!" - Producing Artistic Director, Aimée Hayes

This season we are delighted to kick off the Mainstage Season with the Tony Award Nominated VENUS IN FUR. Written by David Ives, VENUS IN FUR will be directed by Southern Rep Producing Artistic Director, Aimée Hayes. MOLD: The Final Play of the Rising Water Trilogy, by John Biguenet, is set in New Orleans the summer after the levee collapse and will be directed by Mark Routhier. Rounding out the Main Stage offerings for 2012-2013 season is the musical NEXT TO NORMAL, winner of 3 Tony Awards and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, with books and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, starring Leslie Castay.

Subscribers get all three plays in the mainstage season - VENUS IN FUR - MOLD - NEXT TO NORMAL - for just $85. Go online to www.SouthernRep.com and buy your subscription now. Or call the Box Office at (504) 522 - 6545.

2012 - 2013 Season

VENUS IN FUR
By David Ives
Directed by Aimée Hayes

This sexy and seductive 2011-12 Tony Nominated comedy introduces Vanda, a seemingly unassuming, talented actress, determined to win the lead role by any means necessary in Thomas' scintillating new play. A frisky game of cat and mouse ensues and suddenly the lines blur between reality and play, seduction and power, and love and sex.

January 9 - January 25 (Opening Night January 12)

MOLD
World Premiere
By John Biguenet
Directed by Mark Routhier

Completing his award-winning trilogy of plays about the flooding of New Orleans and its aftermath, John Biguenet follows RISING WATER and SHOTGUN with MOLD, set the summer after the levee collapses, in which a young husband is forced to choose between his wife and the city he loves.

March 20 - April 14 (Opening Night March 23)

NEXT TO NORMAL
By Tom Kitt
Book and Lyrics by Brian Yorkey
Winner of 3 Tony Awards and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize
Directed by Aimée Hayes
Musical Director Jefferson Turner
Featuring Leslie Castay

A groundbreaking powerhouse musical and smash hit with multiple Big Easy Award-winner Leslie Castay in a tour de force role! This heartbreaking but beautifully told story about a suburban mother's fight with mental illness and her family's attempt to hold it together for her and themselves. With an exciting contemporary score and thrilling lyrics, this family strives to understand what "normal" means in an unknowable, complicated world.

May 15 - June 9 (Opening Night May 18)

INTRODUCING...THE LAGNIAPPE SERIES

Season Subscribers get an EXCLUSIVE pre-ordering period for each of the Lagniappe Series productions. We've got some great offerings already lined up, including:

Charles Dickens'
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
A Play With Music
Adapted by Doris Baizley
Directed by Ann Mahoney Kadar
Featuring John "Spud" McConnell

Don't miss John "Spud" McConnell starring as SCROOGE in this delightful Dickens Holiday tale featuring a traveling troupe of actors who enact this unforgettable classic with music, dance, clowns, and visual effects. This special production rings in the holiday season with plenty of cheer, wit, and family fun.

November 23 - December 16 (Opening Night November 24)
Performed at the CAC

FREEDOM
World Premiere
By Sean Patterson, Joyce Pulitzer, David Seelig, Kitty Greenberg
Directed by Aimeé Hayes

The story of a Holocaust survivor and an Irish immigrant who meet by chance in the hours before their American naturalization ceremony. Bearing deep wounds from the past, and carrying secrets too painful to tell, they forge a connection and learn they have more similarities than differences. Based in part on survivor testimony, this new American play looks at the many ways we yearn for freedom - not just "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,", but also the freedom to face the truth about ourselves with grace, acceptance, and forgiveness.

July 10 - 28 (Opening Night July 13)
Performed at the CAC

THE LILY'S REVENGE
A Flowergory Manifold
Books, Lyrics and Concept by Taylor Mac
Music by Rachelle Garniez

Directed by Andy Vaught, Pamela Davis-Noland, Jeffrey Gunshol, Nick Slie and Aimée Hayes in collaboration with Cripple Creek Theatre Company, the Allways Lounge, Mondo Bizarro, Skin Horse Theatre and Nari Tomassetti. A five-act epic tale told in Music, Dance, Film, and Verse about a Lily's journey to become a man and win his true love's hand. This hedonistic ride is not for the faint of heart and features wild desires and vivid theatricality as told by a 45+ cast of local performers.

October 18 - 21
Performed at the Den of Muses

WOLVES
National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere
By Steve Yockey
Directed by Aimeé Hayes

This National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere features Ben, who freaks out when his roommate Jack brings home a big bad wolf for a one-night stand. When he tries to "rescue" Jack, Ben sets into motion a dangerous chain of events that will unravel everything in their very small apartment in the very big city. Throw in a peculiar narrator who knows more than she's letting on and this sexy, savagely funny fairy tale for grown-ups twists and turns to a breath-taking climax. WOLVES fuses the worlds of fable and horror in a fascinating story of unrequited love, the virtues of lava lamps, the dangers of storytelling, and the hazards of a handy axe.

November 15 - 25
Performed at the New Orleans Fringe Festival

Southern Rep Theatre enters its 26th season as the region's premiere professional theatre and continues to produce bold world and regional premieres under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director, Aimée Hayes. In addition to Southern Rep's ongoing commitment to new play development with exciting programs like the 6X6 Play Slam and its PlayLab, DEBAUCHERY, and our new play award for women of color playwrights, The Ruby Prize, the company's Mainstage work includes the best of Broadway, off-Broadway and classic plays. Southern Rep Theatre offers educational programs such as YO NOLA, free student matinees, $10 student rush tickets and Academy SRT; as well as providing an artistic home to new works in development in the annual NEW PLAY BACCHANAL.

The Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans is a multi-disciplinary arts center that is nationally recognized as a leader in the presentation and support of contemporary arts, artists and emerging art forms. The CAC organizes, presents and tours curated exhibitions, performances and programs by local, regional, national and International Artists. It demonstrates proactive local and regional leadership by educating children and adults; cultivating and growing audiences; and initiating and encouraging collaboration among diverse artists, institutions, communities and supporters.

Southern Rep continues to show that it is staging the most important, challenging, and downright mesmerizing pieces of theater New Orleans audiences are graced to experience. - Theodore P. Mahne, The Times-Picayune Lagniappe