San Diego Rep Fills Season with Letts, Ruhl, Shaiman-Wittman and Fugard

By Adam Hetrick
12 Mar 2010

Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room, Tracy Letts' Superior Donuts and the Broadway hit Hairspray are on the 2010-2011 season bill for the San Diego Repertory Theatre.

The California regional premiere of Hairspray will launch the season July 17-Aug. 5 (opening July 23). The Tony-winning musical based on the John Waters film has a score by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman with a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan. Sam Woodhouse will direct the co-production with the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Letts' Chicago-set comic drama Superior Donuts will run September-October under the direction of Sam Woodhouse. The short-lived Broadway play offers a "hopeful story of a young African-American man getting his first taste of what is possible in America."

Ed Bullins' musical Storyville will be revised and directed by Broadway veteran Ken Page, running Nov. 13-Dec. 12 (opening Nov. 19). Featuring a score by Mildred Kayden, the musical centers on a former prize fighter and a torch singer whose love story begins in New Orleans.

Tony Award-winning playwright Athol Fugard's The Road to Mecca will follow January-March, 2011. Todd Salovey will direct the work about "Miss Helen, a widow living in the isolated village of New Bethesda in South Africa."

Woodhouse will also stage Sarah Ruhl's acclaimed In the Next Room (Or The Vibrator Play) from March 19-April 17, 2011 (opening March 25). Set at the dawn of the electric age, the touching comedy follows a doctor's household as he attempts to relieve Victorian women of their hysteria.

One additional play will be added to the season. For tickets visit SDRep.