La Jolla Playhouse Announces Complete 2008 Season

La Jolla Playhouse has announced its complete 2008 season, the first under the artistic leadership of Christopher Ashley.

The season will begin with West Coast premiere of 33 Variations (April 8-May 4), written and directed by Moisés Kaufman. The work tells the story of Ludwig van Beethoven’s fascination with a trivial waltz written in 1819 and the modern-day musicologist (played by Jayne Atkinson) who sets out to discover the root of his obsession. Kaufman received a Tony nomination and an Obie Award for his direction of I Am My Own Wife, and his playwriting credits include Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and The Laramie Project.

Next up will be Charlayne Woodard’s solo show The Night Watcher (July 1-27). The writer/performer plays an “Auntie” to 30 nieces and nephews who struggle with the many challenges facing teenagers today. Woodard’s first solo play Pretty Fire premiered at La Jolla in 1999.

The new musical Memphis, featuring book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro and music by David Bryan, will be seen August 19-September 28. The tuner, to be directed by Ashley, tells a rousing tale about one of the first white disc jockeys who dared to play rhythm & blues music for his white teenage listeners in the early 1950s. The show will move to Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre in January 2009.

The world premiere of Charles Busch’s The Third Story will follow, September 16-October 19). The play follows a 1940s out-of-work screenwriter and her son, who collaborate on a new screenplay involving a drag queen, a mobster, a mad scientist and a witch from a Russian fairytale. Busch received a Tony nomination for The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, and his other plays include The Lady in Question and Die, Mommie, Die!.

David Schweizer will direct a revival of Tobacco Road (September 30-October 26), Jack Kirkland’s adaptation of Erskine Caldwell’s 1932 novel. The play concerns a group of Georgia sharecroppers teetering on the brink of self-destruction during the Great Depression. Schweizer’s previous credits include Horizon and Beauty on the Vine.

The season will wrap up with the musical Xanadu (November 11-December 21), to be directed by Ashley, who also directed the current Broadway production. Based on the 1980 movie of the same title, the show has a book by Douglas Carter Beane and a score, by John Farrar and Jeff Lynne.