For the full release, jump. But I like the sound of these two:
It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman June 18 – July 25: “In this major “revisal,” the comic book-based musical has a hip new script by the ingenious young playwright and comic book writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. There will be nothing mild-mannered about this high-voltage revival, when Superman flies in to help Clark Kent and Lois Lane face off against a team of super villains. With singing, dancing, colorful sets and costumes, and a tuneful Broadway score, Superman will be an uplifting end to DTC’s 51st season.”
Give It Up! Jan. 15 – Feb. 14: “It’s Lysistrata meets High School Musical as Give it Up! gives Aristophanes’ 2,000-year-old groundbreaker a hilarious contemporary spin.”
Dallas Theater Center Announces 2009-10 Inaugural Season of the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre at the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts
DALLAS (April 14, 2009) – Dallas Theater Center Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty has announced the 2009-10 inaugural season to be produced in the new Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre at the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts. The theater’s 51st season will include two musicals, three comedies, two classics, two world premieres, and three contemporary plays.
As revolutionary as the Wyly Theatre’s multi-form design (by REX/OMA’s, Joshua Prince-Ramus and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas), DTC’s premiere season at the Center will provide as much conversation for audiences as the building itself.
“DTC and the city of Dallas have so much to celebrate with the monumental opening of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts in October,” Moriarty says. “Continuing our commitment to fresh and entertaining theater that engages and reflects our diverse community, DTC will deliver a season nothing short of spectacular. With classic texts like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Death of a Salesman; world premiere musicals Give It Up! and It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman; acclaimed contemporary works like The Beauty Plays; and the holiday family favorite A Christmas Carol, DTC will offer an exciting array of productions for the greater North Texas community for our premiere season in the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre.”
The 2009-10 season lineup is as follows: In the Potter Rose Performance Hall: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Oct. 24 – Nov. 22); Give It Up! (Jan. 15 – Feb. 14); Death of a Salesman (April 16 – May 16); It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman (June 18 – July 25). In the Studio Theatre: The Beauty Plays (Feb. 23 – May 23). In the Kalita Humphreys Theater: A Christmas Carol (Dec. 1 – 27).
Five of the productions will be produced in the Wyly Theatre’s 550-seat Potter Rose Performance Hall, a flexible space with a variety of configurations Moriarty expects to use throughout the season. The Beauty Plays will be staged in the Wyly’s intimate Studio Theatre, and the 31st production of the perennial holiday classic A Christmas Carol will return to the Kalita Humphreys stage for the last time before the it is re-imagined in the Wyly Theatre in December 2010.
Traditionally opening on Tuesday nights in the past, DTC’s productions in the Wyly Theatre will now open on Friday evenings, with patrons kicking off the weekend in style by celebrating with the cast in the enlivened arts district.
In the 2009-10 season, DTC will expand its popular Pay What You Can program to include a dedicated preview performance for each production allowing patrons to purchase tickets for the amount of a donation they choose.
“Theater is one of the most accessible and relatable art forms,” says DTC Managing Director Mark Hadley. “We want to give every person who wants to come to the theater the opportunity to do so without price being a barrier.”
2009-2010 Season Lineup
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Oct. 24 – Nov. 22
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Kevin Moriarty
Potter Rose Performance Hall, Dee and Charles Wyly TheatreFeaturing Company Members*: Hassan El-Amin, Chamblee Ferguson, Liz Mikel, Cedric Neal, Lee Trull and Sally Nystuen Vahle
This fresh, fun-filled new staging of Shakespeare’s most beloved romantic comedy will provide enough high-energy to open both Dallas Theater Center’s new season and its new building. Follow Shakespeare’s lovers headlong into a mysterious forest where they fall under the spell of passions and potions and meet the playful Puck, seductive Titania, and the asinine Bottom. A celebration of love, community and the power of theater, A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be an unforgettable event in Dallas theater history.
A Christmas Carol Dec. 1 – 27
By Charles Dickens, adapted by Richard Hellesen, music by David de Berry
Directed by Joel Ferrell
Kalita Humphreys TheaterFeaturing Company Members*: Chamblee Ferguson, Matthew Gray, Sean Hennigan and Christina Vela
No holiday story compares with A Christmas Carol, and no production has more humor and humanity than our staging of Richard Hellesen’s heart-warming adaptation. Filled with traditional and original songs of the season, A Christmas Carol has become a wonderful addition to the Dallas holiday calendar.
Give It Up! Jan. 15 – Feb. 14
World Premiere Musical
Book and lyrics by Douglas Carter Bean, music by Lewis FlynnDirected and Choreographed by Dan Knechtges
Potter Rose Performance Hall, Dee and Charles Wyly TheatreIt’s Lysistrata meets High School Musical as Give it Up! gives Aristophanes’ 2000-year-old groundbreaker a hilarious contemporary spin. Playwright Douglas Carter Beane (The Little Dog Laughed, As Bees in Honey Drown), composer/lyricist Lewis Flynn, and director/choreographer Dan Knechtges (Xanadu, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) update the classic Greek comedy to an American college gym where the cheerleaders teach the basketball team their real power to ‘Just say no!’ It’s a raucous twist on the student body that turns tunics to gym shorts, a vanquished army into the Varsity squad, and the Greek chorus into coeds. It’s the major new musical comedy event of this American theater season.
The Beauty Plays Feb. 23 – May 23
By Neil LaButedirected by Matthew Gray, Kevin Moriarty, Joel Ferrell
Studio Theatre, Dee and Charles Wyly TheatreFeaturing Company Members*: Lee Trull and Christina Vela
No one holds a mirror up to human nature like Neil LaBute, the brutally honest, brilliantly hilarious writer behind such films as The Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors and Nurse Betty. While his scripts and screenplays have been redefining the dialogue of contemporary America, our sharpest observer of sexual relations has paid special attention to our obsession with physical beauty in a trilogy that includes The Shape of Things, Fat Pig and a third play to be announced in September. It promises to be a rousing, razor-sharp look at ourselves.
Death of a Salesman April 16 – May 16
By Arthur Miller
Potter Rose Performance Hall, Dee and Charles Wyly TheatreFeaturing Company Members*: Hassan El-Amin, Chamblee Ferguson, Matthew Gray, Sean Hennigan, Liz Mikel, Cedric Neal and Sally Nystuen Vahle
Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Death of a Salesman is a masterpiece; one of the greatest achievements of 20th Century drama. Its central character, Willy Loman, a little man with modest dreams, towers over American dramatic literature. The finest actors on either side of the Atlantic consider the role a monumental achievement – an American Lear. The new production will bring a master actor to Dallas to collaborate with DTC’s own Resident Acting Company to create an unforgettable production worthy of this seminal classic.
It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman June 18 – July 25
World Premiere Musical (new book)
Music By Charles Strouse, Lyrics by Lee Adams, Original Book By David Newman and Robert Benton with additional new material by Roberto Aguirre-SacasaDirected by Kevin Moriarty, choreographed by Joel Ferrell
Potter Rose Performance Hall, Dee and Charles Wyly TheatreFeaturing Company Members*: Hassan El-Amin, Sean Hennigan and Cedric Neal
America’s greatest superhero was also the star of one of Broadway’s lost musical treasures. Now, this mid-‘60s musical, with great songs by the legendary Charles Strouse (Annie) and Lee Adams (Bye Bye Birdie) is part of the Wyly’s historic first season. In this major “revisal,” the comic book-based musical has a hip new script by the ingenious young playwright and comic book writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. There will be nothing mild-mannered about this high-voltage revival, when Superman flies in to help Clark Kent and Lois Lane face off against a team of super villains. With singing, dancing, colorful sets and costumes, and a tuneful Broadway score, Superman will be an uplifting end to DTC’s 51st season.
