The Pasadena Playhouse has announced its lineup for the 2022-23 season, including a six-month Sondheim Celebration that will kick off in January 2023. The celebration is dubbed to be the most ambitious in the theater’s history and will include not only productions of “Sunday in the Park with George,” “A Little Night Music” and “Into the Woods,” but a two-night concert from Sondheim’s muse Bernadette Peters.
Says artistic director Danny Feldman, “In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, we began planning one of the most ambitious artistic ventures in our history: A Celebration of Stephen Sondheim. With the authors’ blessings, we began planning a major event that would delight Sondheim lovers, as well as provide an opportunity for those who had not yet experienced his work. With his recent passing, our hope is that the Celebration will also provide a space for audiences to sit side by side and memorialize the artist whose work they love so much.”
The production of “Into the Woods” will mark a partnership between the Playhouse and the Pasadena Unified School District, in which high school students will participate in creating the production. That will be followed by “Sunday in the Park with George.” Notes Feldman, “Sondheim spoke about this show being the closest to him of all his works. While ‘Sunday’ has had several Broadway revivals, it has rarely been performed in Los Angeles.” The third of the shows will be “A Little Night Music,” which Feldman notes will be celebrating it’s 50th anniversary in 2023.
The Sondheim festivities will close out with the concerts by Peters, which Feldman calls: “A dream come true. The perfect finale to our Celebration.”
The start of the season will kick off with the L.A. premiere of Martyna Majok’s play “Sanctuary City,” which focuses on undocumented teenage immigrants. Majok previously won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play “Cost of Living.”
The season will close with the West Coast premiere of “Stew” by Zora Howard, which details three generations of Black women and was a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize.
The Pasadena Playhouse was founded in 1916 and remains one of the leading performing arts venues in the Los Angeles area and counts among its alumni such names as Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman and Eve Arden. Its artistic director is Danny Feldman.
The 2022-23 season and show dates are listed below. For more information, visit www.pasadenaplayhouse.org
“Sanctuary City”
September 14 – October 9, 2022
By Martyna Majok
“Into the Woods”
January 26 – 27, 2023
Performed by students of the Pasadena Unified School District in partnership with Pasadena Playhouse
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Lapine
Originally Directed on Broadway by James Lapine
“Sunday in the Park with George”
February 14 – March 19, 2023
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Lapine
Originally Directed on Broadway by James Lapine
Orchestrations by Michael Starobin
“A Little Night Music”
April 25 – May 28, 2023
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Hugh Wheeler
Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick
Suggested by a film by Ingmar Bergman
Originally Produced and Directed on Broadway by Harold Prince
“Bernadette Peters in Concert”
June 10-11, 2023
“Stew”
July 11 – August 6, 2023
By Zora Howard
Source: Read Full Article