Park Square's 36th season will open with a perceptible crackle when the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY comes to its stage in September. Leah Cooper, in her Park Square debut, directs this gripping dark comedy that lit Broadway on fire in 2007.
Following August: Osage County, the Midwest premiere of an inventive new adaptation of OLIVER TWIST comes to life. Joel Sass will direct this theatrical adventure that's told by a chameleon cast of 13, who combines Dickens' original text with Victorian music hall tunes.
December brings a revival of Joseph Vass' THE SOUL OF GERSHWIN: THE MUSICAL JOURNEY OF AN AMERICAN KLEZMER back home to Park Square. Since its world premiere in 1999 (originally titled Gershwin the Klezmer), this 23-song theatrical concert has traveled from Toronto to Miami. The Park Square production features the talents of Director Peter Moore and actor Michael Paul Levin as Gershwin with instrumental music performed by Klezmerica. To be announced is a trio of vocalists, featuring a cantor as well as jazz and gospel soloists.
The holiday highlight will be a new musical revue created by Austene Van and Thomasina Petrus. Petrus and Julius Collins III (Always & Forever at Illusion Theater) team up to perform in the song-filled HOT CHOCOLATE.
Another Tony Award-winning play joins the line-up as the acclaimed musical RAGTIME, directed by Gary Gisselman, opens in January 2012. Theater Latté Da's Denise Prosek makes her Park Square musical directing debut with this dazzling production featuring the largest cast to appear on the theatre's stage.
The season continues with Playwright Carlyle Brown premiering a brand new work, AMERICAN FAMILY, commissioned by Park Square and directed by award-winning Marion McClinton in March. In April, John Patrick Shanley's DOUBT, A PARABLE, starring the inestimable Linda Kelsey, will be directed by Park Square stalwart Craig Johnson, taking the reins 20 years after his last directing turn for the theatre.
Zach Curtis makes his Park Square directorial debut with LAUGHTER ON THE 23rd FLOOR. This zany comedy, the first Neil Simon play that Park Square has staged, is based on Simon's early experiences with Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows." It closes the season in June 2012.
The perennially Popular Productions of OF MICE AND MEN and THE DIARY OF Anne Frank complete the season with a full schedule of student matinees that will serve more than 20,000 middle and high school students.
In announcing the 2011-12 line-up, Artistic Director Richard Cook said, "This season builds toward our upcoming two-stage programming. The proscenium stage will be Park Square's Broadway - skillfully-crafted ambitious shows with big bones; brand new work built for and by A-list talent; and revivals that can entertain whole families at a time. The season also includes one Park Square first. We've never staged a Neil Simon play before and we're excited to add this surprise-a lesser-known tour-de-force from Simon's ‘pure comedy' days-to our schedule."
Cook also revealed early casting decisions, which include the actors for Hot Chocolate, The Soul of Gershwin and Doubt, and Zach Curtis and Terry Hempleman (Of Mice and Men); Noel Raymond, John Middleton and James A. Williams (American Family); and Michael Paul Levin, Ari Hoptman, Eric Webster, Bob Malos, Karen Wiese-Thompson, Craig Johnson, Randy Funk, Katherine Tieben and John Catron (Laughter on the 23rd Floor).
All performances are in the company's proscenium theater in Saint Paul's historic Hamm Building, 20 W. Seventh Place. Season tickets are on sale now and are available at 651-291-7005 or online at www.parksquaretheatre.org.
