Public to Present Sondheim's Bounce, Plus Plays by Guare, Durang, Lucas & More
Here are the details of the season thus far:
Bounce, score by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman/Fall
Sondheim and Weidman will make their Public Theater debut with a musical that has been in development for almost a decade. Spanning 40 years from the Alaskan Gold Rush to the Florida real estate boom in the '30s, Bounce is the story of two brothers whose quest for the American Dream turns into a test of morality and judgment that changes their lives in unexpected ways. Tony winner John Doyle Sweeney Todd, Company, A Catered Affair will direct. Originally titled Wise Guys, the show was workshopped in 1999 with Nathan Lane and Victor Garber as Addison and Wilson Mizner. Renamed Bounce, it was produced at the Kennedy Center in 2003 with a cast led by Howard McGillin, Richard Kind and Michele Pawk.
If You See Something Say Something by Mike Daisey/Fall
Monologist Mike Daisey returns to Joe's Pub to investigate the secret history of the Department of Homeland Security through the untold story of the father of the neutron bomb and a personal pilgrimage to the Trinity blast site. Jean-Michele Gregory directs.
A Free Man of Color by John Guare/Winter
The Good Negro by Tracey Scott Wilson/Spring 2009
Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them by Christopher Durang/Spring
The Singing Forest by Craig Lucas/Spring
The Bacchae by Euripides, adapted by Nicholas Ruddall/Late summer 2009
Hip-hop theater pioneer Danny Hoch chronicles the current state of gentrification of New York City, giving voice to everyone from developers evicting locals to make way for lofts to the bar-hopping career hipsters who buy them, and those left in the wake of both. Tony Taccone directs.
Guare and director George C. Wolfe team up for a historical comedy of epic proportions, starring Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def. A Free Man of Color re-creates the sexually progressive, racially charged New Orleans of 1802 and features historical characters including Napoleon, Josephine, Jefferson and Talleyrand, among others. The play is described as a sex farce, a tale of international intrigue and a story of slave rebellion.
Straight from a sold-out run at Public LAB, The Good Negro tells a human story at the heart of the 1960s American civil rights movement. In the increasingly hostile South, tensions build as a trio of emerging black leaders attempt to conquer their individual demons amidst death threats from the Klan and wire taps by the FBI. Liesl Tommy directs this co-production with Dallas Theater Center.
Durang turns political humor upside down with this world premiere satire about America's growing homeland "insecurity." Why Torture Is Wrong tells the story of a young woman suddenly in crisis: Is her new husband, whom she married when drunk, a terrorist? Or just crazy? Or both? Is her father's hobby of butterfly collecting really a cover for his involvement in a shadow government? Does her mother go to the theater to seek mental escape, or is she insane? Durang hones in on private terrors in this black comedy written for an era of yellow, orange, and red alerts. No director has been set.
Lucas and director Bartlett Sher The Light in the Piazza reteam to interrogate how history collides with the human heart in the long shadow of the Holocaust. The Singing Forest examines the secrets of three generations of a family, traveling in time from today's world of Starbucks, celebrity and therapy to Freud's inner circle in 1930s Vienna and to Paris at the end of World War II.
After a still-to-be-announced first production in Central Park, JoAnne Akalaitis will direct a visionary interpretation of Euripides' classic story about what happens when a government attempts to outlaw desire. Featuring a choral score by Philip Glass, this Bacchae will be presented as Greek tragedy was meant to be seen—outside in the open air of the city.