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Theatre Three Announces 2012-2013 Season

Next year's season will be Theatre Three's 51st, and Jac Alder, who shared the story behind the first 50 years with us a year ago, will bring a typically broad-based mix of work, including Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.
By Peter Simek |
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Next year’s season will be Theatre Three’s 51st, and Jac Alder, who shared the story behind the first 50 years with us a year ago, will bring a typically broad-based mix of work, including Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which will complement the Dallas Theater Center’s production of Joseph’s Fly, part of their coming season. Other highlights include a comedy by Noel Coward (pictured at top), Present Laughter; a regional production of the puppet-driven, adult-themed hit Avenue Q, which toured to Dallas in 2010; and a drama about Enron from Lucy Prebble. Info on those shows and more below:

Theatre Three’s 2012 – 2013 Season Announcement

(Dallas, Texas) Theatre Three’s 51st season is all about celebrating big names, grand ideas, and stupendous entertainment. Mixing together classy entertainers who exude timeless charm, like Noel Coward, with exciting new talent who have heart-stopping insight into contemporary issues, like Rajiv Joseph, the season on the Norma Young Arena Stage will feature seven shows, a spectacular array of musicals, dramas, and comedies. The 51st season on the Norma Young Arena Stage begins August 2, 2011 with Present Laughter and the final show of the subscription season, City of Angels, begins June 13, 2013

Two shows will be produced in Theatre Too during the 2012-2013 season and Theatre Three may produce special artists projects in Theatre Too. Avenue Q will open June 29, 2012 and the perennial favorite, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, will open January 17, 2013.

On the Norma Young Arena Stage:

Present Laughter

A comedy by Noel Coward
August 2 – September 1, 2012
The delightfully witty plot spotlights a few days in the life of the successful light comedy actor, Garry Essendine, as he prepares to travel for a touring commitment in Africa. Amid a series of events bordering on farce, Garry has to deal with younger women who want to submit to him, placate both his long-suffering secretary and his estranged wife, and cope with a super-contemptuous young playwright determined to change him into a more “serious and consequential” artist. As Garry has just turned forty, he’s fending off all these attacks just as he senses his oncoming mid-life crisis. Coward himself originated the role and called the wildly amusing story “a series of semi-autobiographical pyrotechniques.” All is played out by actors on a glamorous high style art deco suite in splendidly lavish high fashions. A feast of laughter and high spirits!

 

Freud’s Last Session

A new drama by Mark St. Germain
September 20 – October 20, 2012
It’s September 3, 1939, the cusp of World War II and two weeks before Freud’s death. On that day, 83-year-old Freud, the great psychiatrist (and avowed atheist) suffers from life-threatening cancer. He has, in the playwright’s imagination, somewhat mysteriously summoned Christian writer C. S. Lewis (then 40) to his London study. Bringing these two historical figures together is a clever dramatic construct, but doing it on that particular day is especially ingenious. A part of the prime minister’s radio address provides a bit of a break from a just-begun-but-already-intense discussion about God, the Catholic Church and the hovering question of suicide. Intriguing biographical insights are woven into the strenuous yet witty arguments about belief, Lewis’ friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien, and Freud’s attention to ancient artifacts positioned on his desk. The play was inspired by Dr. Armand S. Nicholi Jr.’s 2003 book The Question of God.

 

Godspell

A musical by Stephen Schwartz
November 15 – December 15, 2012
Theatre Three is a major advocate of composer Stephen Schwartz, whose latest hit is Wicked . Theatre Three

first produced the composer’s Godspell (in 1974), and subsequently his Working, Children of Eden, Pippin and Personals. Based on the Gospel of St. Matthew, Godspell, first produced off-Broadway in 1971, went on to be produced all over the world. The show has just had a major on-Broadway revival at Circle-in-the-Square in 2012. This latest Broadway production has all its youthful energy intact and adds new and freshened musical materials. The parables of the gospel provide story-telling materials as ten contemporary characters (who become part of a community of believers) act them out in dance, song and imaginative narratives with high spirits and youthful fervor. A great and meaningful classic musical!

 

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

A visionary new work by Rajiv Joseph
January 10 – February 9, 2013

The lives of two American Marines and an Iraqi translator are forever changed by an encounter with a quick-witted tiger who haunts the streets of war-torn Baghdad attempting to find meaning, forgiveness and redemption amidst the city’s ruins. Rajiv Joseph’s groundbreaking new American play explores both the power and the perils of human nature. Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and ran on Broadway in a limited engagement in 2011 with Robin Williams starring.

 

Idols of the King

A musical by Ronnie Claire Edwards
February 28 – March 30, 2013

This play with music is a valentine to Elvis Presley’s most devoted fans. The show weaves together the stories of an elderly couple touring the United States to exhibit the toilet Elvis used at their gas station sometime in the 1970s, a biker chick and her boyfriend stranded in the desert on their way to an Elvis concert, a man fighting a “conspiracy of the demon dentists”, and a spinster piano teacher who fantasizes that she and Elvis are a couple. Combined with the music of Elvis Presley, this show is a heartfelt tribute to the fans who crowned Presley “The King”.

 

Enron

A drama by Lucy Prebble
April 25 – May 25, 2013
One of the most infamous scandals in financial history becomes a theatrical epic in Lucy Prebbles new play. Mixing classical tragedy with savage comedy, it follows a group of flawed men and women in a narrative of greed and loss which reviews the tumultuous 1990s and casts a new light on the financial turmoil in which the world finds itself in 2009.

 

City of Angels

A musical by Cy Coleman, David Zippel, and Larry Gelbart
June 13 – July 13, 2013
The musical imaginatively weaves together two plots, the “real” world of a writer trying to turn his book into a screenplay, and the “reel” world of the fictional film. The setting is Hollywood in the late 1940’s, with two stories occurring simultaneously: a Hollywood comedy and a detective drama. The real-life scenes are in color and the movie scenes in black and white with settings and costumes reflecting the reality vs. film. A striking socialite is ushered into detective Stone’s office and hires him to find her step-daughter, a beautiful “bad girl”. The simple missing daughter case turns complicated (partly because the novelist keeps rewriting the plot of the film to suit the charismatic film producer). When the novelist fulfills the producer’s request to tone down a racially-motivated plotline in the screen play, the character of the detective protests. Thus creator and creation wrangle until the pair of them collaborate on writing an ending that concludes all with self respect and artistic triumph.

 

 

 

 

Show times: Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 pm.

Tickets: Single Tickets: $10 — $50; Subscriptions: $85.50 — $245.50

Tickets for all performances may be purchased by calling Theatre Three’s box office at 214-871-3300.

 

In Theatre Too:

Avenue Q

A musical by Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx, and Jeff Whitty
June 29 – July 29, 2012
Avenue Q is a laugh-out-loud musical that tells the timeless story of a recent college grad named Princeton who moves into a shabby New York apartment all the way out on Avenue Q. There, he meets Kate (the girl next door), Rod (the Republican), Trekkie (the internet sexpert), Lucy the slut (need we say more?), and other colorful types who help Princeton finally discover his purpose in life!

 

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

A musical by Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts
January 17 – February 24, 2013
It’s a hugely entertaining show that Theatre Three revives every year around Valentine’s Day — and it sells out! It’s the perfect revue of courtship and marriage that has earned its place as a signature piece by Theatre Three, and featuring gifted sketch comedy players who sing and dance their way through all the phases of romance and marriage.

 

Show times: Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., and Sundays at 2:30 p.m.

Tickets: Single Tickets: $10 — $30. Tickets for all performances may be purchased by calling Theatre Three’s box office at 214-871-3300.

 

About Theatre Three:

Theatre Three was founded in 1961 by Norma Young, Jac Alder, Esther Ragland, and Robert Dracup with a clear mission: Theatre Three seeks to illuminate the human experience with exemplary, intimate theatrical productions while nurturing authors, regional artists and audiences.

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