Norm Lewis, Conrad Ricamora, Emily Skinner & More Set for Virginia's Signature Theatre Season

Signature Theatre has announced its 2021 season, which will feature five fully staged plays and musicals, including Simply Sondheim as well as 2020 Tony nominee Daniel J. Watts' The Jam: Only Child. The productions will be made exclusively for the screen and professionally filmed in HD on set. COVID-19 safety protocols have been employed to ensure the safety of participants.

Kicking things off for the Arlington, Virginia-based company's season will be a new production of Simply Sondheim, directed and choreographed by Signature Theatre Associate Artistic Director Matthew Gardiner. The cast includes Norm Lewis, Conrad Ricamora, Solea Pfeiffer, Emily Skinner, Awa Sal Secka, Bobby Smith, Tracy Lynn Olivera, Donna Migliaccio, Nicholas McDonough, Christopher Mueller, Katie Mariko Murray and Paul Scanlan. They will perform over 30 Stephen Sondheim's songs. The show will include a 16-piece orchestra and new orchestrations by longtime Sondheim collaborator Jonathan Tunick.

Following Simply Sondheim, Tina Tony nominee Watts will recount his life as the only child of a single mother in The Jam: Only Child, directed by Obie Award winner Lileana Blain-Cruz.

Gardiner will also helm Jonathan Larson Grant winner Mark Sonnenblick's Midnight at The Never Get, which chronicles New York cabaret crooner Trevor Copeland’s love affair with songwriting partner Arthur during the social turbulence and upheaval of the 1960s.

In the spring, Signature will present After Midnight: Celebrating the Duke Ellington Years, directed and choreographed by Jared Grimes with music direction by Mark G. Meadows. This extravaganza of song and dance is set to the swinging sounds of Duke Ellington, Jimmy McHugh, Dorothy Fields, Harold Arlen and more, framed by the poems of Langston Hughes.

The season will conclude with Dominique Morisseau's Detroit ’67, which won the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama. The play follows two siblings whose lives are overturned by a stranger with a secret during a tumultuous summer amidst the 1967 race riots.

“I am so excited to announce this slate of filmed productions for the 2021 Signature Features season,” said Gardiner in a statement. “We are committed to finding exciting new ways to bring stories and music to our audiences during this moment when live performance isn’t a possibility. This season features everything you have come to expect from a Signature experience, but for now we have found a way to bring these experiences into your home.”

Full casting and details for these productions will be announced at a later date. Shows will be released on an ongoing basis throughout the winter and spring with specific dates to be announced later.