The Texas company's 59th season also features Tom Stoppard's Hapgood, Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday, Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution and a new production of the holiday classic A Christmas Carol. A special two performance Dec. 11 run of 2005 Grammy Award nominee for "Best Musical Album for Children," Dan Zanes and Friends will also be available to subscribers ("Toddlers to adults welcome").
All performances will play at the Alley’s downtown Houston two-theatre complex which houses the Hubbard Stage and Neuhaus Stage. One show at the latter venue is yet to be announced.
The 2005-06 Alley Theatre Season (subject to change) is as follows:
Alley artistic director Gregory Boyd directs the spy comedy set in London during the Cold War, which follows a female secret service officer who schemes to expose a double agent.
Adapted and directed by Michael Wilson, artistic director of Hartford Stage Company, this new-to-Houston version of the Dickens story is a musical re-telling of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and the three ghosts who visit him on Christmas Eve. Alley Resident Company Actor James Black plays Scrooge with re-imagined scenic design by Tony Straiges, costumes by Alejo Vietti, lighting by Rui Rita and original music by John Gromada.
Created, written and performed by the Los Angeles-based trio Culture Clash (Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Sigüenza), the work features a look at "class, race, sex and politics" from an array of characters and dialogue taken from interviews with people from across the United States.
Garson Kanin's comedy follows the bombshell/ ex-chorus girl who falls for the respected young journalist hired by her junk-dealer millionaire boyfriend to teach her lessons in culture.
David Cromer stages Austin Pendleton's work where Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier, and Vivien Leigh come to life in a comedy "that reimagines the backstage drama that accompanied a 1960 production of Ionesco's Rhinoceros."
Written by Adapted by Minneapolis' Theatre de la Jeune Lune — 2005 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre — offers their take of Molière's classic farce as adapted by David Ball. Audiences will delve "into the world of the tyrannical Harpagon, a ruthless, self absorbed patriarch, perfectly willing to sacrifice his children for greed. When Harpagon’s plans to marry off his children are thwarted by their own love interests, comedic chaos ensues.”
Gregory Boyd stages the Agatha Christie drama about a young and charming man who finds himself the chief suspect when his rich middle-aged woman companion is turns up dead. Season subscriptions can be purchased at the Alley Theatre Box Office, 615 Texas Ave. in Houston, TX, by phone at (713) 228-8421 or on the web at www.alleytheatre.org . Single tickets to productions go on sale Aug. 15.
