Westport Country Playhouse Finalizes 2007 Season

The Westport Country Playhouse has finalized the slate of shows for its 77th season, which will run from April through October. The season will kick off with the musical All About Us (April 10-28), featuring a score by John Kander and Fred Ebb and a book by Joseph Stein, based on Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Skin of Our Teeth. The show concerns the Antrobus family, who survive a thousand calamities and keep soldiering on. Previous versions of the musical were presented under the titles Over and Over and The Skin of Our Teeth; the revised version that will be presented at Westport was completed before Ebb’s death in 2004.

Next up will be Stephen Temperley’s Souvenir (May 31-June 16), the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy Manhattan socialite of the 1930s and ’40s who gave frequent vocal recitals despite the fact that she couldn’t sing a note; the show replaces Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles, which had been previously announced for this slot in the Westport season.

Mary’s Wedding (June 21-July 7), by Stephen Masicotte, is about a young Canadian man and woman who are ripped apart when he goes to fight on the front lines of World War I. It will be followed by Relatively Speaking (July 12-28), by Tony Award-winner Alan Ayckbourn, in which an unidentified pair of slippers found under a bed leads to a series of misunderstandings, mistaken identities, and alibis between two young lovers and a middle-aged married couple.

Next up is the world premiere production of David Wiltse’s Sedition (August 2-18), Westport Country Playhouse’s playwright in residence. The play concerns an American who stands up in defense of freedom of speech and pays a price for his courage. Later that month comes the debut of the musical revue Being Alive! Sondheim Meets Shakespeare (August 23-September 8); conceived and directed by Billy Porter. This unusual musical blends the songs of Stephen Sondheim with the poetry of William Shakespeare to tell the story of man’s seven ages in African American musical idioms including soul, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, and gospel.

The season will conclude with The Turn of the Screw (October 11-27), adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from Henry James’ classic story about a young governess who journeys to a lonely English manor house to care for the two recently orphaned children of a mysterious man.

For more information, phone the box office at 888-927-7529 or visit www.westportplayhouse.org.