2009 Season Announced

admin on 09 21, 2009

Ernest A. Figueroa, who recently took over as Artistic Director of The Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre, has chosen to open his first season with an ambitious rotating repertory of three distinguished plays.

“It has been years since The Group Rep has had a pre-announced season of plays,” said Figueroa.  “The season will open with a collection of plays featuring phenomenal roles.  This is the best way to show off our talented membership of multi-generational actors.  Each role is a gem and each play, a powerhouse.”

The three plays in the REP complement each other, illuminating different facets of the human condition, written by award-winning playwrights known for their rapier wit and ability to bring a strong, emotional truth to the stage. The REP at the Group Rep opens September 17 and runs every Friday through Sunday, ending November 8, which allows theatre patrons to see all three shows in a single weekend. The plays in repertory are: Heroes, brilliantly adapted by Tom Stoppard from an original work by Gerald Sibleyras, is a poignant, hilarious comedy that chronicles the great escape of three veterans from their retirement home; The comic drama Painting Churches by Tina Howe is a moving family affair, a theatrical portrait of the complex relationship between aging parents and their artist daughter as she struggles to come to terms with them and they with her;  and Boston Marriage by David Mamet provides a wonderful play of language set in a Victorian world.

The remainder of the season includes a holiday classic, works by established playwrights, a World Premiere, and a summer musical.

The holiday season brings the gift of music, stylized puppetry, masks and the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol.   The Los Angeles Premiere of Richard Hellesen and David De Barry’s musical adaptation is a truly unique, mystical take on the Dickens’ tale.
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In the spring of 2010, A.R. Gurney, best known for his plays Love Letters and Sylvia, provides a modern,  ‘adults only’ fairy-tale in the play, Sweet Sue.  Sweet Sue, which originally ran on Broadway starring Mary Tyler Moore and Lynn Redgrave, shows a May to December romance from a different perspective when a middle-aged divorcee becomes infatuated with her son’s college roommate.  Will she or won’t she?

The end of the season offers a World Premiere of a play that was a semi-finalist in the prestigious Eugene O’Neil Festival. The Redemption of Mrs. Satan by Julie Daniels tells the story of the first woman to run for president.  Suffragette and “before-her-time” feminist, Victoria Woodhull, is forced into obscurity by the more controlling personalities of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

A summer musical is also in the works.

In addition, a newly launched theater membership card will offer all members shows at
half-price at the Lonny Chapman Theatre. For more information about the upcoming season or the new membership card please call 818.700-4878 or visit www.thegrouprep.com .
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