The comedy joins the 23rd season's lineup of seven shows, five of which will perform at the company's long-time Boston University Theatre home and two others to play in the Huntington's new smaller space, the Virginia Wimberly Theatre in the Theatre Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts.
Penned in 1775, The Rivals tells the story of a rich captain who pretends to be a poor naval officer to court a lady who does not care about wealth. Mistaken identities and hilarious circumstances abound in the "satire of romance, materialism, and pretensions."
The newly-announced staging joins the previously slated productions of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean, Melinda Lopez's Sonia Flew, Lanford Wilson's Burn This, Naomi Iizuka's 36 Views, Culture Clash's Culture Clash in AmeriCCa and the William Finn-James Lapine musical Falsettos.
For subscriptions to The Huntington 2004-2005 season in Boston, MA, call (617) 266 0800. For more information, visit www.huntingtontheatre.org.
* August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean kicks off the season, Sept. 10-Oct. 10. Set in 1904, the new play (the first, chronologically, of his decade plays) begins on the eve of Aunt Esther's 287th birthday. When Citizen Barlow comes to her Pittsburgh's Hill District home seeking asylum, she sets him off on a spiritual journey to find a city in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Phylicia Rashad, who performed in the Los Angeles run of the play to award-winning success, reprises her role.
The world premiere of Melinda Lopez's Sonia Flew will inaugurate the new Wimberly Theatre for Huntington, Oct. 8-Nov. 28. The work, seen as part of the company's Breaking Ground Festival readings earlier this year, finds a Cuban mother of two struggling to understand how her parents sent her away, unaccompanied, from the turmoil of her homeland in the early 1960s.
Huntington also brings the other famous Wilson playwright's Burn This to their mainstage, Nov. 12-Dec. 12. Lanford Wilson's searing drama of love and loss finds a woman starting a relationship with her late former roommate's volatile brother.
Naomi Iizuka's 36 Views will see the Boston stage, March 11-April 10, 2005. The new drama finds an art dealer and historian uncovering an ancient Japanese pillow book and searching to discover if the manuscript is real.
Culture Clash in AmeriCCa created, written and performed by Culture Clash (Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza) will run March 18-May 8, 2005, at the new space. The trio use humor, dance and poetry to perform what is described as "a non-traditional evening of theatre that explores this country's diverse peoples and histories."
The 1992 Broadway musical Falsettos — which conjoined the Off-Broadway shows March of the Falsettos (1981) and Falsettoland (1990)—will make its way to Boston, May 20-June 19, 2005. The musical, which explores the results of a father's leaving his wife for another man, features the Tony Award-winning score by William Finn and the Tony Award winning book by Finn and James Lapine.
One more play will be announced shortly. Subscribers will also be offered an optional eighth production, Ireland's Abbey Theatre production of J.M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World set to play at The Wilbur Theatre, produced by Broadway in Boston in association with the Huntington, Nov. 2-28.
The finalized plays in the Huntington 2004-2005 season are as follows: (subject to change)
