The Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, has announced eight productions slated for its 30th anniversary season, including an all-new staging of Stephen Sondheim and James Weidman’s Assassins, which will kick off the 2019-2020 season in August.
Directed by Signature Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer, Assassins marks the theatre's 30th Sondheim production to date. Performances run August 11–September 29. Initial casting for the production includes Tracy Lynn Olivera (Signature’s A Little Night Music), Bobby Smith (Signature’s Grand Hotel), Evan Casey (Signature’s The Flick), Rachel Zampelli (Signature’s Heisenberg), and Nova Y. Payton (Signature’s Ain’t Misbehavin’).
Caryl Churchill’s surreal comedy Escaped Alone, where amiable chatter between old friends belies apocalyptic horror, will make its D.C. premiere September 24–November 3 under the direction of Holly Twyford.
The Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway classic A Chorus Line will follow, October 29–January 5, 2020, in a new staging featuring choreography by Tony nominee Denis Jones (Tootsie, Holiday Inn, Honeymoon in Vegas) and direction by Matthew Gardiner.
The world-premiere musical Gun & Powder, featuring book and lyrics by Angelica Chéri and music by Ross Baum, will kick off the new year January 28–February 23. Robert O’Hara (Bootycandy) will direct the musical based on the true story of Wild West outlaws Mary and Martha Clarke, light-skinned African American twins who pass themselves as white to seize funds by any means necessary.
The Signature will also produce Easy Women Smokin Loose Cigarettes, a world-premiere comedy by D.C.-based playwright Dani Stoller, running February 18–March 29. The play about a pair of empty-nesters whose idyllic retirement is hijacked by friends and family in various stages of crisis, will be directed by Stevie Zimmerman.
Composer Frank Wildhorn and lyricist Nan Knighton, the collaborators behind Broadway’s The Scarlet Pimpernel, have reteamed to continue work on their musical based on the life of turn of the century French sculptor Camille Claudel. Schaeffer will direct the March 24–April 19 world-premiere run.
The Signature will revive its 1998 production of Norman Allen’s Nijinsky’s Last Dance, a tour-de-force portrait of famed ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, which will be directed by Joe Calarco April 14–May 24.
Closing the season will be the landmark 1968 musical Hair, running May 19–July 12. Gardiner will direct and choreograph the counterculture musical by Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni, and James Rando that became the soundtrack of a generation.
Season tickets are available at SigTheatre.org.
