Orlando Shakespeare Theater has announced its 2017–18 season. Included in the lineup: the Tony-winning Man of La Mancha starring Broadway veteran Davis Gaines, the Sherlock Holmes comedy The Hound of the Baskervilles, the stage adaptation of Shakespeare in Love, and Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens featuring an all-female cast.

The season will kick off September 6 with Dale Wasserman, Mitch Leigh, and Joe Darion’s Man of La Mancha, which follows Don Quixote and his quest for the impossible dream. Gaines will star. A director and further casting will be announced at a later date; performances are scheduled to play through October 8.

“Right now, I feel it’s more important than ever that we give our community hope and something to believe in,” commented artistic director Jim Helsinger in a press statement. “Man of La Mancha is more than just a classic Tony Award-winning musical. It’s a reminder to everyone who watches it that the human spirit has an unyielding capacity for hope and love, and no matter how dark the world may seem, it is the light of our dreams that leads us on.”

The season will continue in 2017 with Steven Canny and John Nicholson’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, based on the story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (October 11–November 19); and It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, written by Joe Landry with original music and musical arrangements by Kevin Connors (November 29–December 30).

In the new year, the theatre will present Karen Zacarías’ drama Native Gardens (January 3–February 4, 2018); Shakespeare in Love, adapted for the stage by Lee Hall, based on the screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard (February 7–March 25, 2018); Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, performed in traditional Elizabethan style (February 21–March 23); and Timon of Athens (April 5–May 5, 2018).

For more information on the season visit orlandoshakes.org.