Off-Broadway NewsStephen King Opera Joins 59E59 Theaters Fall LineupThe Off-Broadway theatre reveals its complete fall season.
By
Olivia Clement
August 21, 2017
Stephen King
59E59 Theaters has announced its complete fall lineup. Joining the previously announced world premiere of Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk’s new musical The Mad Ones, will be Dolores Clairborne (Tobias Picker’s opera adaptation of the bestselling Stephen King thriller) and a new production of David Harrower’s Knives in Hens.
Harrower’s 1995 play about the quest for freedom in a preindustrial rural world, Knives in Hens, will kick off the season October 19 in a production from The Shop. Taul Takacs will direct a cast that includes Robyn Kerr and Alvin Keith for a run scheduled to play through November 12.
Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk
Joseph Marzullo/WENN
From October 20 through November 5, 59E59 will present Nancy Bannon and Mollye Maxner’s Occupied Territories, directed by Maxner and starring Bannon, Kelley Rae O’Donnell, Cody Robinson, Done Bonner, Diego Aguirre, Thony Mena, Nile Harris, and Nathan Jan Yaffe. The play transports the audience from a suburban basement—where a woman digs through her estranged father’s past—to the jungles of Vietnam during the war. Occupied Territories is produced by Theater Alliance of Washington, DC in association with Available Potential Enterprises.
Also slated for October will be New York City Opera’s production of Dolores Claireborne, adapted by Picker with a libretto by J. D. McClatchy. Michael Cpasso will direct, with Pacian Mazzagatti tapped to conduct. A cast will be announced at a later date; performances will run October 22–29.
As previously announced, Prospect Theater Company will kick off its three-year residency developing new musicals at 59E59 Theaters with Kerrigan and Lowdermilk’s The Mad Ones. The new musical follows the life of Samantha Brown, a young woman on the brink of change. As she sits in her parents’ driveway, Samantha faces a choice: Will she follow in her mother's footsteps, or accept a dare from a friend and forge her own path? Performances will run November 7–December 17 with direction by Stephen Brackett. Additional details will be announced at a later date.
Also beginning performances November 7 will be Saviana Stanescu’s Toys: A Dark Fairy Tale, directed by Gabor Tompa. The play sees two women from completely different backgrounds—one war-torn, the other privileged—united by a shared secret from their past. Tunde Skovran and Julia Ubrankovics will star in the J.U.S.T. Toys Productions, scheduled to play through November 26.
On November 16, Adjusted Realists present Stephen Kaliski’s The Briefly Dead, a play billed as “ADoll’s House, Part 2 for the Ancient Greek theatre.” Mia Aguirre, Kristin Fulton, Katie Proulx, Sarah Wadsley, and Ioanna Zafiropoulos star in this new play about a King who resurrects his wife from the dead. Elizabeth Ostler will direct; performances are scheduled through December 10.
Also slated for November is Allan and Pat Harris’ new musical Cross That River, an 1860s-set tale about a run-away slave who escapes from Texas to become of America’s first black cowboys. Reggie Life will direct a cast made up of Maya Azucena, Harris, Alan Grubner, Miki Hayama, Seth Johnson, Caroline Leonhart, Jeffery Smith, Shirazette Tinnin, and Jay White. Performances will run November 28–December 31; Love Productions Records produces.
Closing out the season will be Daniel Llewelyn-Williams’ solo show A Regular Little Houdini, about a dockworker’s son determined to meet the world’s greatest showman. The monologue play, produced by Flying Bridge Theatre Limited, will run December 12–December 31.
To see what’s playing at 59E59 Theaters through the summer, visit 59e59.org.
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