Columbus will kick of the new season by directing his translation of Anton Chekhov's Cherry Orchard and later return to direct the 30th anniversary all-new production of Trinity Rep's A Christmas Carol. Also featured in the upcoming lineup is Conor McPherson's A Dublin Carol.
"I was drawn to Trinity Rep, and to Rhode Island, because of the rare strength of the connection between our artists and our audience," said Columbus in a release. "Since I arrived two months ago, I've felt so much at home. Planning my first season with this community of audience, actors, directors and designers, I'm naturally thinking about home and family and community. These plays challenge and illuminate our understanding of those precious ideals: these plays are all about the strength found in community - large and small, intimate and grand."
The 2006-2007 Trinity Rep season (subject to change) is as follows:
Columbus translates and directs the resident company in Chekhov's classic "in his fast-paced, funny, and heart-breaking new translation," according to show materials. "This is definitely not your grandmother's Chekhov."
McPherson's play set in the title Irish town on Christmas Eve follows "a bitter man [who] seizes the chance to make things right."
Wilder's portrait of small-town America comes to the stage of the Rhode Island company.
(subject to rights availability)
Set in a subruban American home of an upper-class WASP couple, the Pulitizer Prize winning play finds a sister and a couple of friends who "drop in and won't leave."
Featuring Harvey Schmidt's music with book and lyrics by Tom Jones, the historic longest running musical which played Off-Broadway now plays Trinity Rep.
Sarah Ruhl's 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner (and 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist) about a Brazilian maid to a busy doctor and her husband who would rather crack a joke than clean the house. Columbus assumed the role of artistic director from Amanda Dehnert — who served as acting artistic director when the company's previous decade-long leader Oskar Eustis left for his new post at New York’s Public Theater.
Subscriptions to the season at Trinity Rep, 201 Washington Street in Providence, RI are on sale through (401) 351-4242. For more information, visit Trinity Rep online at www.trinityrep.com.