Beane, Felder, Fierstein, Prince, et al. Set for Old Globe Season

The Old Globe Theatre will produce four major world premieres during its 2007-2008 season.

As previously announced, Tony Award winners Faith Prince and Harvey Fierstein will star in the new Broadway-bound musical A Catered Affair (September 20-October 28). Based on the 1956 motion picture The Catered Affair, the show will be directed by Tony winner John Doyle. The musical, which has a book by Fierstein and music and lyrics by John Bucchino, is centered around a family wedding that takes place in 1953 in the Bronx.

Next up on the Main Stage will be the Old Globe’s annual holiday offering Dr Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas!, directed by Jack O’Brien (November 25-December 30). It will be followed by Howard Korder’s Sea of Tranquility (January 12-February 17), about a psychiatrist and his wife who sell their Connecticut home and start a new life in the Midwest, and the world premiere of The Band Wagon (March 7-April 13), an adaptation of the Comden-Green-Schwartz-Dietz musical with a new book by Douglas Carter Beane, to be directed by Gary Griffin.

The Main Stage season will conclude with the world premiere of Hershey Felder’s Beethoven, As I Knew Him (May 3-June 8), directed by Joel Zwick, in which Felder will transform himself into the great composer. Old Globe subscribers will also be able to see Felder’s two previous shows, Monsieur Chopin (June 11-22) and George Gershwin Alone (June 25-29).

The Old Globe will present four shows on the smaller Cassius Carter Center Stage, beginning with Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s Oscar and the Pink Lady (September 29-November 4), directed by Frank Dunlop, which focuses on a young hospital patient and his uplifting relationship with an elderly volunteer. Up next is the world premiere of Steven Drukman’s In This Corner (January 5-February 10), directed by Ethan McSweeny, about the imaginary reunion of boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmeling 32 years after their title fight. That show will be followed by Richard Greenberg’s The American Plan (February 23-March 30), a family drama set in the Catskills in the 1960s, and Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, directed by Joe Calarco (April 12-May 18).

For more information, visit www.theoldglobe.org.