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Three World Premieres Plus Menopause and Hank Williams Musicals Set for Laguna Season
By Ernio Hernandez
06 Feb 2007
New works from Melinda Lopez, Catherine Butterfield and Bob Clyman as well as Menopause: The Musical, Art and Hank Williams: Lost Highway will fill the new season at the Laguna Playhouse.
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:
Menopause: The Musical (July 10-Sept. 2)
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").
Art (Sept. 11-Oct. 14)
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."
Hank Williams: Lost Highway (Nov. 13-Dec. 16)
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."
Red Herring (Jan. 1-Feb. 3, 2008)
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."
Tranced (Feb. 12-March 16)
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.)
Brownstone (March 25-April 27)
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.)
Alexandros (May 27-June 29)
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.)
Sister's Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi's Gold (Dec. 17-23)
"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.
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