Starting the season in Laguna Beach, CA, is Mary Chase's comedy, Harvey, starring Charles Durning and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly. The production, which will play in Boston later in the year with Dick Cavett, is headed for Broadway sometime in the fall.
Next up will be Moises Kaufman and The Tectonic Theatre Project's Matthew Shepard drama, The Laramie Project, as directed by Nick DeGruccio. Laguna will then offer audiences the West Coast premiere of The Romance of Magno Rubio by Lonnie Carter. Loy Arcenas directs the romantic comedy based on a short story by Carlos Bulosan set against a Depression-era California.
Jason Robert Brown's marital reversal musical, The Last Five Years, will play for the first time on a California stage at Laguna. The musical chronicles a young couple's romance from beginning to end (for him) and from end to beginning (for her); it plays in the season's fourth slot. W. Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife follows, under the direction of Playhouse artistic director Andrew Barnicle.
Michael Weller's drama, What the Night is For, recently saw the stage in London with Gillian Anderson starring under the direction of John Caird. Playhouse executive director Richard Stein helms the American premiere of the work which finds a married woman meeting up with an ex-lover at a hotel.
A final play for the upcoming season at Laguna will be announced shortly. The complete lineup (subject to change) is as follows: