TheatreWorks Season Includes Donuts, Piazza, 39 Steps, [title] and World Premieres | Playbill

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News TheatreWorks Season Includes Donuts, Piazza, 39 Steps, [title] and World Premieres The 2010-2011 season at TheatreWorks will feature Tracy Letts' Superior Donuts, as well as the Tony-winning musical The Light in the Piazza and the world premiere holiday musical A Christmas Memory.

Operating out of Palo Alto and Mountain View, CA, TheatreWorks' 41st season boasts three regional premieres, including Superior Donuts, [title of show] and Snow Falling on Cedars.

The season will launch in July with the annual New Works Festival of developing plays and musicals, which will culminate in the world premiere of Paula Vogel protégé Laura Schellhardt's Auctioning the Ainsleys. The world premiere of Rajiv Joseph's thriller The North Pool is also on the 2011 bill.

The 2010-2011 season at TheatreWorks follows:

Auctioning the Ainsleys by Laura Schellhardt. "The bids come fast and furious as a family of professional auctioneers puts its heart, its heritage, and even its darkest secrets on the block in this fascinating comic drama... With a brilliant flair for mystery, language, and laughter, one of America’s hottest young playwrights explores what happens when what we own becomes more important than who we are." (July 14-Aug. 8 in Palo Alto).

The Light in the Piazza by Adam Guettel (music & lyrics) and Craig Lucas (book). "Beneath the Tuscan sun in 1953, this illuminating Broadway hit celebrates the many facets of love with a vibrant heart. A protective American mother is vacationing with her radiant but fragile daughter, who falls head over heels for a passionate young Florentine." (Aug. 25-Sept. 19 in Mountain View). Superior Donuts by Tracy Letts. "A tasty, fresh-baked tale of friendship and redemption in a decaying donut dispensary on Chicago’s North Side. Warm, funny, and deeply moving, it introduces an eager new counterman – an African American kid whose bright ideas mask a cloudy past. Setting out to refurbish the sweetshop, its glazed clientele, and its long stale proprietor, he encounters first a wall of resistance, then a well of unexpected heart." (Oct. 6-31 in Mountain View).

A Christmas Memory by Larry Grossman (music), Carol Hall (lyrics) and Duane Poole (book), based on the Truman Capote short story. "A wistful memoir of cherished youth, [the musical] chronicles a young boy’s loving friendship with an eccentric aunt in the small-town South of the 1930’s where misfits Buddy and Sook launch kites, haunt speakeasies, and mail fruitcakes to everyone from Jean Harlow to President Roosevelt." (Dec. 1-26 in Palo Alto).

The 39 Steps adapted by Patrick Barlow, based on the Alfred Hitchcock film and the novel by John Buchan. "A hilarious, high-speed spoof of Hitchcock’s silver screen thriller, this irresistible Broadway smash hurtles a notorious fugitive and a spellbound blond from a London music hall north by northwest to Scotland’s most remote highlands. Will they save Britain from a den of devious spies? An ingenious homage to the master’s greatest films, it creates trains, planes, moors, and more in a wildly funny flight to the heights of theatrical invention." (Jan. 19-Feb. 13, 2011, in Mountain View).

The North Pool by Rajiv Joseph. "Khadim enrolled in High School from Saudi Arabia, while Vice Principal Danielson grew up here in town. But secrets haunt them both at suburban Sheffield High, tucked in hidden lockers, concealed on high-tech phones, awaiting revelation on this semester’s last day. This cat-and-mouse thriller traverses the minefields of ethnic profiling in a community hyper-focused on political correctness." (March 9-April 3, 2011, in Palo Alto).

Snow Falling on Cedars adapted by Kevin McKeon, based on the David Guterson novel. "The beloved novel springs to life in this haunting tale of murder, redemption, and star-crossed romance set on a misty Washington island in 1954. Pride, prejudice, and the legacy of forbidden love permeate the trial of a Japanese-American veteran charged in the death of a rival, rekindling memories of the wartime internment that once divided this remote community, and threatens its humanity still." (March 30-April 24, 2011, in Mountain View).

[title of show] by Hunter Bell (book) and Jeff Bown (music & lyrics). "Based on the real-life adventures of five struggling theatre geeks, this uproarious backstage comedy escapes a run-down rehearsal hall to scale the heights of Broadway. [title of show] was conceived by friends Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell in 2004 when Bell received an announcement for submissions to the first annual New York Musical Theatre Festival, with the deadline just three weeks away. Determined to write an original musical, rather than adapting a play or movie to be a musical, the pair discovered almost immediately that their conversations about what to write were more interesting than the ideas they were coming up with for an original show." (June 1-26, 2011, in Mountain View).

Season subscriptions are now available, with single tickets on sale beginning June 1. For tickets phone (650) 463-1960 or visit TheatreWorks.

 
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