Amy Herzog Festival Joins Season Roster at Baltimore's Center Stage

Baltimore's Center Stage has announced the lineup for its 2014-15 season.

The season will open with a revival of Peter Shaffer's Tony-winning Amadeus, a drama about the life of young musical prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Baltimore performer Bruce Nelson (Animal Crackers) stars as Mozart's musical rival Antonio Salieri, who swears vengeance on the brilliant composer. Performances will run from September 10-October 12.

Next will be Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal, a musical about an average American family faced with mental illness. The show will run from October 8-November 16.

It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play will be the season's holiday offering. Joe Landry's adaptation of the classic yuletide tale will be performed from November 18-December 21.
Center Stage will then present Kemp Powers' new play One Night in Miami, a coproduction with New Jersey Performing Arts Center and The Classical Theatre of Harlem, scheduled to run from January 14-February 15, 2015. The play is set in 1964 on the night that Cassius Clay, soon to be Muhammad Ali, defeated Sonny Liston and won the world heavyweight boxing title. Powers imagines the conversations that took place on that February night between Clay and fellow African-American legends Sam Cooke, Jim Brown, and Malcolm X.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Herzog's After the Revolution and 4000 Miles will then play in repertory for Center Theater's Amy Herzog Festival. After the Revolution will run from March 18-May 17, 2015, and 4000 Miles will run from April 1-May 24, 2015. "I've always wanted to see the plays staged together, and Center Stage will be the first brave theater to do it," said Herzog. "I'm honored to have my work produced by a theater that is sparking national conversation about diversity and civic engagement — two subjects dear to the politically passionate characters in my plays."

"This season it is all about bringing the best, most exciting theater to Baltimore," said Center Stage Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah. "These plays explore the moments — some private, some public — in every life when it becomes clear that nothing can stay the same. We're thrilled to take our audience with us on these journeys through change."

The season's final title has yet to be announced.