The Public Theater announces its promising new season

How can any theater lineup featuring the talents of David Byrne, Fatboy Slim, Colman Domingo, Michael John LaChiusa, Edna Ferber and more go wrong?

New York’s Public Theater has just announced its schedule for the 2012-2013 theater season.

We’re particularly excited to see the world premiere of  David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s musical Here Lies Love on the bill and are looking forward to the New York premiere of the musical Giant, based on Edna (Show Boat) Ferber’s novel with lyrics and music by Michael John LaChiusa.

But then there’s Colman Domingo‘s play Wild With Happy getting its world premiere, too!

See for yourself, after the jump.

“These plays, explosive and lyrical, raw and sophisticated, by young artists and masters, are a rich expression of the huge range of theater that finds a home at The Public.”
– Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director

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To join now, call us at 212-967-7555, or order online at publictheater.org.

NEW MUSICALS
New York Premiere
GIANT
Book by Sybille Pearson
Music and Lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa
Based on the novel by Edna Ferber
Directed by Michael Greif
Choreography by Alex Sanchez
October 26-December 2, 2012

Based on the classic novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber, GIANT spans generations in an epic chronicle of Texas, our “Heartbreak Country.”  Amid a tumultuous culture of big-business greed, racial bigotry, and unyielding family allegiance, a cattleman and ranch heir, his East Coast sophisticate wife, their family and friends – as well as their enemies – embrace and confront the joys and sorrows that loom as large as the landscape of America’s Lone Star State. GIANT is a co-production with Dallas Theater Center.

World Premiere
HERE LIES LOVE
Concept and Lyrics by David Byrne
Music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim
Directed by Alex Timbers
Choreography by Annie-B Parson
April 2-May 5, 2013

Within a throbbing dance club environment, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim deconstruct the astonishing journey of Filipina First Lady Imelda Marcos and her meteoric rise and subsequent descent into infamy. This wholly immersive spectacle combines disco beats, adrenaline-fueled choreography, and a remarkable 360-degree scenic and video environment – to go beyond Imelda’s near-mythic obsession with shoes and explore true questions of power and responsibility.

Directed by two-time Obie Award-winner Alex Timbers (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Peter and the Starcatcher), HERE LIES LOVE is a unique theatrical experience that raises the pulses and quickens the blood.

WORLD PREMIERE PLAYS

World Premiere
WILD WITH HAPPY
By Colman Domingo
Directed by Robert O’Hara

October 9-November 11, 2012

Colman Domingo, star of Passing Strange, explores the surreal, bizarre, and outrageous comedy that lies in dealing with death and healing. WILD WITH HAPPY follows the journey of a young man named Gil who plans to scatter his mother’s ashes in the place where she was the most happy. The Tony Award nominee is also featured in this four person, multi-character, wild magic ride of a play.

World Premiere
SORRY
Play Three of The Apple Family Plays
Written and Directed by Richard Nelson

October 30-November 18, 2012
Opening Night: November 6, 2012
Public Lab

A year after Sweet and Sad, the Apple family again share a meal in Rhinebeck, as they sort through personal and political feelings of loss and confusion on the morning of the day the country will choose the next president. Like the first two plays, Sweet and Sad and That Hopey Changey Thing, SORRY will open on the day that it is set, November 6, 2012 – Election Day.

World Premiere
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH MAN
By Nathan Englander
Directed by Barry Edelstein

November 7-December 9, 2012

Best-selling author Nathan Englander (What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank) adapts this warm and deeply moving new play from his acclaimed short story of the same name. Set in a Soviet prison in 1952, Stalin’s secret police have rounded up twenty-six writers, the giants of Yiddish literature in Russia. As judgment looms, a twenty-seventh suddenly appears: Pinchas Pelovits, unpublished and unknown. Baffled by his arrest, he and his cellmates wrestle with the mysteries of party loyalty and politics, culture and identity, and with what it means to write in troubled times.

World Premiere
DETROIT 67
By Dominique Morisseau
Directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah

February 26-March 17, 2013
Public Lab

It’s 1967 in Detroit and Motown music gets the party started. Chelle and her brother Lank transform their basement into an after-hours joint to make ends meet. But when a mysterious woman winds her way into their lives, the siblings clash over much more than family business. As their pent-up feelings erupt, so does their city, and the flames of the ’67 Detroit riots engulf them all. DETROIT 67 is presented in association with the Classical Theatre of Harlem.

English Language Premiere
NEVA
Written and Directed by Guillermo Calderón
Translation by Andrea Thome

March 1-March 31, 2013

In a politically charged, haunting yet humorous meditation on theater and the revolutionary impulse, Chilean writer-director Guillermo Calderón’s NEVA tells the story of Anton Chekhov’s widow, the actress Olga Knipper, who arrives in a dimly lit rehearsal room in St. Petersburg in the winter of 1905.  Calderón savagely examines the relationship between theater and historical context in this ominous and tightly crafted work that allows a palpable terror to creep through the theater walls.

World Premiere
OLD FASHIONED PROSTITUTES
(A TRUE ROMANCE)
Written, Directed, and Designed by Richard Foreman

April 30-June 2, 2013

Snapshots from an enigmatic fairy-tale in which Suzie, the elusive coquette, brings Samuel to his knees – from where he worships a life he only half understands. OLD FASHIONED PROSTITUTES (A TRUE ROMANCE)  is an expressionistic chamber-play that twists emotional heartache into a landscape of continual mental invention, marking the return to theater of a celebrated artist who the New York Times has dubbed “the Godfather of the American avant-garde.” Presented in association with Ontological-Hysteric Theater.

MOBILE SHAKESPEARE UNIT

RICHARD III
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Amanda Dehnert

Touring the 5 Boroughs: July 17-August 5, 2012
At The Public: August 7-26, 2012

One of Shakespeare’s most charismatic villains cuts a scorched-earth swath through the politicos, power-mongers, and even family members who stand between him and the crown.  But before King Richard III can enjoy the fruits of his ill-gotten gain, something stirs that freezes him in his tracks: conscience.

This reinvention of Joseph Papp’s Mobile Shakespeare program—the original impulse of the New York Shakespeare Festival that would grow over decades into Shakespeare in the Park and The Public Theater—takes professional Shakespeare for free to prisons, homeless shelters, centers for the elderly, and other community venues throughout the five boroughs before playing at The Public for a limited run.

The Mobile Shakespeare Unit is made possible with the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.  Additional support is provided by Bloomberg.

BECOME A PUBLIC THEATER MEMBER!

To join now, call us at 212-967-7555, or order online at publictheater.org.

*All productions, announced cast and directors are subject to change and tickets are subject to availability. Memberships are subject to a $5 handling fee and are non-refundable. The exclusive Member ticket discount is valid for all regular Public Theater Membership shows and excludes rentals and other special events, such as benefits. Memberships are valid for one year from the date of purchase.

Pictured (from top): Natalie Cortez and Matt Doyle by Karen Almond; David Byrne by Simon Luethi; Colman Domingo by Joseph Moran; Laila Robins, J. Smith-Cameron, and Maryann Plunkett by Joan Marcus; Nathan Englander by Juliana Sohn; Dominique Morisseau by Joseph Moran; NEVA original production, courtesy of Guillermo Calderón; Richard Foreman by Joseph Moran.

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