The haunted and haunting The Woman in Black completes the 2001 season for San Diego's Old Globe Theatre with a run Feb. 15-March 18. Previews begin Feb. 10. British writer-director Patrick Garland will direct.
Now in its 15th year on London's West End, The Woman in Black is the story of Arthur Kipps, a middle-aged lawyer obsessed with the idea that he is haunted by a spectral woman, seeking revenge for the death of her child. He enlists a young actor with whom he hopes to recreate past events and exorcise the ghost from his life. The Woman in Black was adapted by Stephen Mallatrat from the novel by Susan Hill.
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In exchange for their sending The Full Monty to New York in 2000, the Old Globe Theatre will host a mostly New York season in 2001. Art, Dinner With Friends, Da' and The Country Club will share the Old Globe's three spaces, alongside regional hits like Crumbs From the Table of Joy and new musicals, the world premiere of The Boswell Sisters and Regina Taylor's new work, A Night in Tunisia.
The Boswell Sisters and A Night in Tunisia are both scheduled to play on the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre in summer 2001. Sisters is the latest from Forever Plaid creator Stuart Ross and tells the story of a real life, popular, all-women group from the 1940's. Ross will use some of the female musicians' own arrangements for the score. Boswell Sisters runs July 1-Aug. 11. Following that will be Taylor's jazz musical, A Night in Tunisia, named for the well known jazz piece covered by Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and, famously, as one of the final pieces played by Clifford Brown before he died. Tunisia runs Sept. 2-Oct. 13. The 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner Dinner With Friends kicks off the spring season on the Old Globe mainstage with a run March 31-May 6. Currently running Off-Broadway, the Donald Margulies hit follows four married friends, two of whom are watching their marriage fall apart as the other two struggle to maintain what they have. Leonard Foglia directs.
From Pulitzer to Tony, Art follows Dinner May 26-July 1. Joseph Hardy directs this Broadway hit from Yasmina Reza about three friends who nearly come to blows over a completely white canvas, purchased by one as a work of art.
Another Tony Award winner, Da', Hugh Leonard's portrait of an Irish father who loved his family and his young immigrant playwright son, will fill the smaller Cassius Carter Centre Stage in the summer, July 15-Aug. 25. Richard Seer (2000's Old Wicked Songs) will direct.
Then from Broadway to Off-Broadway, The Countess and The Country Club will play the Cassius Carter Centre Stage. Still running Off-Broadway, The Countess recounts the three way love triangle involving art critic John Ruskin, his wife Effie and the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. Brendon Fox will direct the Old Globe mounting, running March 28-May 6. In the fall, the Old Globe will visit The Country Club, Douglas Carter Beane's latest comedy. In this newest effort from the author of As Bees in Honey Drown, the neurotic WASP "Soos" returns to her upper class hometown and the country club of her youth, where she hopes to recover from her disastrous marriage. Fox also directs Country Club, playing Sept. 9-Oct. 20.
Also playing on the Cassius Carter will be Lynn Nottage's tale of growing up black in 1950's Brooklyn, Crumbs From the Table of Joy (Feb. 7 March 18) and Vita and Virginia, actress Eileen Atkins' adaptation of 20 years worth of letters between writers Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf (May 23-July 1).
The traditional How Grinch Stole Christmas, based on the Dr. Seuss classic, returns to the Old Globe mainstage in time for the holidays. New this year, however, is an adult treat — David Sedaris' cynical take on his seasonal job as one of Santa's elves, The Santaland Diaries. Sedaris is the author of "Naked" and "Me Talk Pretty One Day."
Old Globe season tickets are available by calling (619) 239-2255. The Old Globe Theatre is located in San Diego's Balboa Park next to the Museum of Man. The Old Globe is on the web at http://www.oldglobe.org.
— By Christine Ehren
