Tonya Pinkins in Mother Courage, John Doyle Helms Ibsen & More Set for Classic Stage Company's New Season

Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham and Tony winner Tonya Pinkins are on board to appear in Classic Stage Company’s 2015-16 off-Broadway season. The lineup kicks off in August with a festival highlighting classical Greek theater and will also include Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, featuring music by Duncan Sheik, and a John Doyle-helmed production of Henrk Ibsen’s Peer Gynt.

Following the Greek Festival, Rachel Chavkin will direct a production of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis, translated by Anne Washburn. The play tells the story of King Agamemnon, who, when stranded on the isle of Aulis, must sacrifice his daughter to gain the wind that will bring his ships to Troy.

In December, Brian Kulick will helm Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children. The production will star Pinkins, who most recently appeared on the New York stage in Rasheeda Speaking, and will also feature a score by Tony winner Sheik (Spring Awakening, the Broadway-bound American Psycho). The production will transport the timeless story of Mother Courage to the Congo in modern day.

Abraham will star in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise beginning in March 2016. Kulkick will direct the production, featuring a translation by John Christopher Jones. Abraham, an Oscar winner for Amadeus and currently appearing in Broadway’s It’s Only a Play, will play Nathan, a Jewish merchant in 1192 Jerusalem who must confront the fragile truce between Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Doyle will direct Peer Gynt in May 2016. The Ibsen play follows the titular boy from childhood in Norway to outcast, adventurer and industrialist.

The season will also include The Fragments, a look at plays by Sophocles and Euripedes from contemporary playwrights Ellen McLaughlin, Charles L. Mee and Mac Wellman, as part of the company’s Staged Reading Series. The lineup also features an open workshop of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, directed by Jonathan Vandenberg, an open rehearsal series focusing on Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and a production of Shakespeare’s Othello by The Young Company.

Casting, dates and creative team for each of the mainstage productions will be announced later.