“The Laramie Project” by Moisés Kaufman and the Members of Tectonic Theatre Project will open the 2015-16 season of the Connecticut Repertory Theatre on the UConn campus in Storrs. The season will feature works that have been adapted from another medium, ranging from contemporary classics, musical comedy and original premieres.
CRT’s artistic director, Vincent J. Cardinal, will stage the play based on interviews surrounding the murder of gay student Matthew Shepard in 1998 in Laramie, Wyo. The show will run Oct. 8 to 18.
William Shakespeare’s comedy “Twelfth Night” follows, also at the Nafe Katter Theatre, running Dec. 3 to 13.
Following “Twelfth Night,” CRT will take a break from the Katter Theatre for 18 months as construction begins on a new, state of the art production facility, adjacent to the Katter. The new building will house a scene shop, paint shop, light shop, and costume shop as well as a new public space for gatherings.
A new adaptation of Jane Austen’s first published novel, “Sense and Sensibility,” will play in February. The new adaptation is co-written by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan, the same writing team behind CRT’s “Pride & Prejudice” in 2012. The show will run Feb. 25 to March 6.
The season will end in the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre with the musical comedy “Spamalot,” based on the classic comic movie “Monty Python and The Holy Grail.” The musical will run April 21 to May 1.
The Studio Show season, which is available as a part of the six-play subscription, begins in the fall with a play about the immigration issue, “Anon(ymous).” Playwright Naomi Iizuka adapts a story whose roots are in the epic tradition of Ancient Greece and Homer’s “Odyssey.” The show will run Oct. 29 to Nov. 8.
Next up will be the MFA Puppet Arts Festival running March 24 to April 3. Three new works from UConn’s MFA Puppet Arts graduate students and personal stories through the plots and images of well-known tales, such as “Medea,” “Macbeth” and the “Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.” This production will highlight the work of UConn puppeteers, as the program begins its 50th year.
Subscriptions and single tickets are on sale. Information: 860-486-2113
Lupita Nyong’o In ‘Eclipsed’
Lupita Nyong’o, Yale School of Drama grad and Oscar-winner for “12 Years a Slave,” will make her New York stage debut this fall at off-Broadway’s Public Theater in Danai Gurira’s “Eclipsed.”
“Eclipsed” will be directed by Liesl Tommy, who staged the premiere production at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington and at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2009 and featured Pascale Armand, Stacey Sargeant, Adepero Oduye, Zainab Jah and Shona Tucker.
Previews of the play, set in 2003 near the end of the civil war in Liberia and centering on a group of women captured by the rebels, begin Sept. 29. The play opens Oct. 14 and continues through Nov. 8. In December, Nyong’o will also star in the highly anticipated “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
The Obie Award-winning Gurira, who also co-wrote the Pulitzer Prize finalist play “In the Continuum,” also wrote “Familiar,” which had its world premiere earlier this year at Yale Rep. That play will be presented at off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons in February. Gurira is also an actor who also plays Michonne in the AMC series “The Walking Dead,” which begins its sixth season on Oct. 11
Ayckbourn Again
The gang’s all here, at least most of them. Many of the same actors who have populated many of Alan Ayckbourn comedies at Westport Country Playhouse have gathered again for its latest play: “Bedroom Farce,” which runs Aug 25 to Sept. 13.
John Tillinger directed the ensemble cast. In recent seasons, Tillinger staged the playwright’s “Things We Do for Love,” “How the Other Half Loves,” “Time of My Life” and “Relatively Speaking” at the theater.
The cast includes Scott Drummond (Broadway’s “Machinal”); Carson Elrod (WCP’s “How the Other Half Loves,” “Time of My Life,” “The Drawer Boy’); Matthew Greer, (WCP in “And a Nightingale Sang” and “Things We Do for Love”); Cecilia Hart (WCP’s “How the Other Half Loves,” “Time of My Life,” and “Relatively Speaking”); Claire Karpen (Off-Broadway’s “Into the Woods,” “The Heir Apparent”); Nicole Lowrance (WCP’s “Beyond Therapy,” “David Copperfield” and Broadway’s “Dividing the Estate”); Sarah Manton (WCP stage in “Things We Do for Love,” Broadway’s “One Man, Two Guvnors”); and Paxton Whitehead ( WCP’s “The Circle,” “How the Other Half Loves,” “Time of My Life,” and “Relatively Speaking”).
“Bedroom Farce” takes place over the course of one intense Saturday evening. “In three separate bedrooms, the roles and relationships of four couples are laid bare, complete with squabbles, bothers, a few bruises, and a touching epiphany,” is how the theater describes ther play.
Short Takes
>>The U.S. House and Senate appropriations committees approved funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year — at $146 million, the same figure it has had for the past four years. The status of all appropriations bills is uncertain as Congress approaches its August recess.
>>Brett A.Bernardini, former founding artistic director and CEO of The Spirit of Broadway Theater in Norwich, is the new executive and artistic director at Theatre Harrisburg, which is entering its 90th year. Bernardini also worked as a teacher for two decades, creating the Connecticut High School Music Theater Awards in 2008. Bernardini replaces Sam Kuba, who is retiring after working with the theater for 14 years The two will work together during August. Theatre Harrisburg will open it’s 90th season with a musical that pays tribute to Frank Sinatra. “My Way,” at the Krevsky Production Center on Sept. 11.
>>Danny Gardner, who was terrific in A Broken Umbrella Theatre production of the musical “Seen Change!” at New Haven’s Shubert Theatre earlier this year, is cast in the Broadway revival of “Dames at Sea.” Previews begin Sept. 24 and it opens Oct. 22 at the Helen Hayes Theatre. Randy Skinner directs and choreographs
>>Norwich’s Chestnut Street Playhouse (formerly Spirit of Broadway Theatre) presents the musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin, Aug. 13 to 15 and Aug. 20 to 22 at 7:30 p.m. and Aug.16 and 23 at 2 p.m.at 24 Chestnut St. in Norwich. Tickets are $25 general seating.
>>The National Theatre of the Deaf will perform an adaptation of Mark Twain’s humorous short story “The Experience of the McWilliamses” on Sunday, Aug. 16, at 6 p.m. at the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford. The National Theatre of the Deaf will also perform with the actors from the Theatre Immersion Program, in the original show “The W-5: Stories Behind Who, What, Where, When, & Why.” The Theatre Immersion Program is a new initiative from the National Theatre of the Deaf to provide equivalent theater training to deaf and hearing high school students. Tickets are $10. Information: 860-280-3130 and www.marktwainhouse.org.
