The California company announced the 2007-2008 mainstage lineup, which will also include the southern California premiere of Michael Hollinger's Red Herring and a return of the popular holiday show Sister's Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi's Gold.
"The new season reinforces this theatre's growing commitment to new work by featuring the greatest number of world premieres ever offered here in a single season," stated Laguna executive director Richard Stein, "including [the Lopez and Butterfield works] the Playhouse itself has commissioned."
The 2007-08 season (subject to change) follows:
Jeanie Linders' show, which centers on four women at a Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, "with little in common besides night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex, too much sex, and more." Features 25 song parodies ("Puff the Magic Dragon" becomes "Puff, My God I'm Draggin',” and "Staying Alive" is "Staying Awake").
Andrew Barnicle directs Yasmina Reza's drama, as translated by Christopher Hampton, which centers on three men's heated discussion over an expensive "large white-painted canvas."
Randal Myler and Mark Harelik's musical, which follows country and western music icon Hank Williams' short, yet poignant career. Featuring songs like "Lovesick Blues" and "Your Cheatin' Heart."
Barnicle stages Michael Hollinger's black comedy whose recipe is "Take three pairs of lovers, add an unsolved murder, several pinches of espionage and pickle everything in a brine of early Cold War paranoia."
Richard Stein directs Bob Clyman's world premiere thriller in which "a foreign student [looking for help] comes to a respected psychiatrist famous for his form of hypnosis, called 'trancing,' and believes he can help uncover suppressed memories that are disturbing her." (Clyman penned The Secret Order seen previously at Laguna.)
Butterfield's play set in the walls of a Manhattan brownstone. "Three contrasting eras. Three sets of occupants. There's the pampered rich young couple of the 1930s, eager for adventure in Paris. There are the starry-eyed aspiring actresses of the 1970s and the chillingly self-absorbed 'power couple' of the new millennium. They all have dreams but as events unfold they must learn to ride the shifting waves of fortune." (Butterfield also wrote The Sleeper.)
Lopez pens this tale of "a birthday party nobody will forget!" The comedy is set at the 75th celebration of a Latin matriarch of a Cuban-exile family. "As the punch flows, the Miami sky turns stormy and the party unravels." (Laguna last produced Lopez's Sonia Flew.)
"Think 'CSI: Bethlehem'" boasts the materials for the Maripat Donovan work. "As Sister tackles the question that has been puzzling historians throughout the ages: What ever happened to the Magi's gold?" Subscriptions to the season at The Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road in Laguna Beach, CA, are available by calling (949) 497-2787. For more information visit lagunaplayhouse.com.
