The 2005-06 lineup starts Sept. 20-Oct. 9 with Hal Linden starring in a new production of Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom and Jeffrey Hatcher's play based on Albom's best-selling memoir. The production will go out on a national tour following its run at CGP.
Lucie Arnaz, Eve Ensler, Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife and Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers will also punctuate the season curated by producing artistic director Arnold Mittelman.
Len Cariou, star of Broadway's Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music and Proof, will star in the baseball-oriented musical Passin' It On — America's Musical Pastime, Oct. 18-Nov. 6.
"For Sig McCartney baseball has always been as American as apple pie," according to CGP notes. "The owner of a baseball-themed sports bar in a small South Florida town, Sig earns a modest living that is rich in family, friendship and love. A hardworking man, Sig's life is simple but happy. But when the local baseball spring training camp moves north and the tourists follow, Sig learns happiness can come at a steep price. With few patrons, bills mounting and a daughter who has sacrificed her life for her father's passion, Sig must choose between his childhood dream or his family's survival."
The musical has a book by Larry Atlas, and music and lyrics by Terry Cashman. Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) will appear in her work, The Good Body, an exploration of womens' feelings about being good and looking good in the modern world. The work has played regionally and on Broadway. Its Miami dates are Nov. 8-27.
Simon's Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning family dramedy, Lost in Yonkers, plays Dec. 6-24.
Another Pulitzer Prize-winner, Doug Wright's Tony Award-winning I Am My Own Wife, about a German transvestite who survives the Nazis and Communists, runs Jan. 10-29, 2006. In it, one actor assumes some 35 roles, including the central part of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf — an enigma the playwright attempts to solve.
Kathleen Clark's Southern Comforts (Feb. 7-26, 2006) will star married Dixie Carter and Hal Holbrook as Southern widow Amanda Cross, who meets a cranky New Jersey widower, Gus Klingman, when she visits a small northern Jersey town. "Beautiful and deliciously southern, Amanda peels away the rough layers of Gus' unhappy heart to reveal the silenced passions of a man and a lover," according to CGP. "Can love between opposites last?"
Carter is well-known sweet-and-straight-talking Julia Sugarbaker of TV's "Designing Women." Holbrook is a Tony Award winner for Mark Twain Tonight.
Another comedy about a couple, Tom Cole's About Time, will star Theodore Bikel as one half of a married couple seen at mealtime throughout an average day. It plays March 14-April 2, 2006.
According to CGP notes, "Faced with the reality of aging, a long-time married couple spends a humorous and sentimental day from breakfast to lunch to dinner to a late night snack, talking about everything under the sun. As the day goes by, the couple bickers over everything from meal preparations, their absent-adult children, and their ever-diminishing sex life, revealing in the process a love that is both complex and extraordinary."
Theodore Bikel is an Emmy Award-winning and Oscar-nominated actor with more than 100 stage, film and television credits.
Lucie Arnaz will star in Melinda Lopez's Sonia Flew April 18-May 7, 2006. "Set between post-revolutionary Cuba and post-9/11 America, Sonia Flew explores the powerful tale of Sonia, a Cuban-American woman smuggled as a child out of Cuba and into the United States as part of Operation Pedro Pan. A successful public defender, Sonia lives with her Jewish husband and their two children. Secure in a world filled with parental duty and Jewish tradition, Sonia's existence is fragile, yet peaceful. But when terrorism strikes American soil and Sonia’s only son enlists in the military, Sonia must find a way to come to terms with her past or risk losing everything she loves."
Arnaz is an Emmy Award winner and Golden Globe-nominated actress and a Coconut Grove Playhouse favorite. She appeared in CGP's Ann & Debbie in spring 2005.
For more information, visit www.cgplayhouse.org.
