Highlighting Virginia Stage's 1998-99 season will be a new play by New York-based playwright Lanie Robertson, whose Nasty Little Secrets recently had a run Off-Broadway at Primary Stages. The new work, Nobody Lonesome for Me, has legendary country-western singer stranded at a gas station in West Virginia, where he regales the station owner with songs and stories of his life. The play's title comes from a Williams standard. The production will run Oct. 25-Nov. 15.
Robertson has been an artistic associate of Virginia Stage for three years. The company has staged three other Robertson works, A Penny for the Guy, Alfred Stieglitz Loves O'Keefe, and Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. No casting or director has been announced for Nobody Lonesome for Me.
Virginia Stage will open its season with Travels with My Aunt (Sept. 20-Oct. 11), Giles Havergal's adaptation of Graham Greene's book about a meek Englishman and his unconventional Aunt Augusta. The play will be done as a co-production with Syracuse Stage.
Following a seasonal run of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the theatre will present one of the first regional productions of Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Jan. 17-Feb. 7). The Irish drama is currently playing on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
The season continues with Falsettos (Feb. 21-Mar. 14), William Finn's musical about modern relationships, both straight and gay. Finn's new work, A New Brain, recently opened at Lincoln Center. The Virginia season concludes with Oscar Wilde's classic comedy The Importance of Being Earnest (Apr. 4-25). For information on any of these offerings, call (757) 627-1234. -- By Robert Simonson