Kennedy Center Season to Feature Kathleen Turner, Piazza, Longbottom's Carnival!

By Andrew Gans
March 1, 2006

A new production of the classic Bob Merrill-Michael Stewart musical Carnival! is one of the highlights of the Kennedy Center's 2006-2007 theatre season. The 1961 musical will be directed by Robert Longbottom and will run Feb. 17-March 11, 2007.

The upcoming season, which was announced March 1, will kick off with the national tour of Twelve Angry Men. The Roundabout Theatre Company production, directed by Scott Ellis, will feature Richard Thomas as Juror #8. The Reginald Rose work about 12 jurors who emotionally debate the fate of a young man accused of murder, will play the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater Oct. 3-22, 2006.

Ireland's Gate Theatre will present Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot Oct. 3-5 in the Terrace Theater. Walter Asmus will direct the famed Beckett play, which concerns two men who wait endlessly for the arrival of a mysterious man named Godot.

The award-winning Adam Guettel-Craig Lucas musical The Light in the Piazza, which continues to entertain Lincoln Center audiences, will play the Kennedy Center's Opera House Dec. 19, 2006-Jan. 7, 2007. The musical fable, about an American mother and daughter who travel the Tuscan countryside in 1953, will be directed by Bartlett Sher. No casting has been announced for the Piazza tour.

Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin will reprise their roles as, respectively, Martha and George, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee's play about marital dysfunction will run at the Eisenhower Theater Jan. 9-28, 2007. Anthony Page directed the Broadway engagement, which received six Tony nominations.

A high-tech production of Shakespeare's The Tempest/La Tempête will be presented by Montreal's 4D art March 22-24 at the Eisenhower Theater. Multimedia artists Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon will join co-director Denise Guilbault for the production, which will "use virtual technology to cast spells, conjure visions, and wax poetic as virtual characters interact and perform with live actors."

Another Shakespeare work will follow, Coriolanus, which will be mounted April 14-May 6 in the Eisenhower Theater. The production continues the Royal Shakespeare Company's exclusive residency at the Kennedy Center and is part of the District-wide Shakespeare in Washington series. William Houston and Janet Suzman will co-star.

Emily Mann's Mrs. Packard will play the Terrace Theater June 16-24, and Broadway's longest-running musical, The Phantom of the Opera, will return to the Opera House for a June 20-Aug. 12 engagement.

Sweeney Todd: The Reunion Concert will round out the season, playing June 22-23 in the Concert Hall. The concert reunites Tony Award winners Brian Stokes Mitchell and Christine Baranski, who played Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett during the Sweeney Todd production mounted during the Kennedy Center Sondheim Festival.

Highlights of the 2006-2007 season follow:
Twelve Angry Men, Oct. 3-22, 2006 at the Eisenhower
Waiting for Godot, Oct. 3-5, at the Terrace
The Light in the Piazza, Dec. 19, 2006-Jan. 7, 2007, at the Opera House
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Jan. 9-28, at the Eisenhower
Carnival!, Feb. 17-March 11, at the Eisenhower
The Tempest/La Tempête, March 22-24, at the Eisenhower
Coriolanus, April 14-May 6, at the Eisenhower
Mrs. Packard, June 16-24, at the Terrace
The Phantom of the Opera, June 20-Aug. 12, at the Opera House
Sweeney Todd: The Reunion Concert, June 22-23, in the Concert Hall

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