New Vineyard Season Features Works by Rapp, Kander & Ebb and Domingo

The Vineyard Theatre has announced its 2009-2010 season, which will feature works by Colman Domingo, Adam Rapp and John Kander and Fred Ebb as well as new musical co-produced with Playwrights Horizons.

The season kicks off with A Boy and His Soul, written and performed by Colman Domingo Passing Strange, and directed by Tony Kelly. Described as is a moving and hilarious new play that explores the life-experiences of a young African-American man in 1980s Philadelphia, propelled by the beat of classic soul music, it is set to begin previews in September.

In early 2010, the company will present the world premiere of The Metal Children, written and directed by Adam Rapp. The new play follows the controversy created in a small town when a Young Adult novel about teenage pregnancy is banned, igniting heated emotions over abortion, religious beliefs and censorship. In addition to his plays Red Light Winter, Nocturne, Finer Noble Gases, Stone Cold Serious and more, he is the author of the Young Adult novel The Buffalo Tree, which was censored by the Muhlenberg School Board in Reading, PA due to its themes, graphic language and sexual content. The cast and creative team for The Metal Children are still to be announced.

The Burnt Part Boys , a co-production with Playwrights Horizons at Playwrights Horizons, is a new musical by Mariana Elder book, Nathan Tysen lyrics and Chris Miller music, directed by Erica Schmidt. It will have a developmental Lab Production, at the Vineyard this spring, be presented in the summertime at New York Stage and Film at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, and then receive its New York City premiere in spring of 2010. The Burnt Part Boys is set in West Virginia in 1962.The musical follows a group of teenagers whose fathers were killed 10 years earlier in a tragic coal mining accident. When they learn that the mine will be reopened, they set out secretly in the hopes of seeing the site and keeping it closed. This coming-of-age tale is set to a distinctive bluegrass and pop-inspired score.

The Vineyard will also continue its Developmental Lab Series, a popular presentation of small-scale work-in-progress productions next season. Currently in development for the 2010 Lab Series are: The Scottsboro Boys, a new musical about the famous 1930s Scottsboro Case in which a group of innocent African-American teenagers are unjustly accused of a heinous crime— with music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb, book by David Thompson, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman. Also, The Typographer's Dream, a play by Adam Bock that follows three lonely, intertwined souls navigating the existential boundaries of their jobs, selves and one another, under the direction of Anne Kauffman.

The Vineyard Theatre is embarking on a new collaboration with St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn with another show still to be announced.