Signature Theatre Adds Kander & Ebb Concert to 20th Anniversary Season
The Signature Theatre, in Arlington, Viriginia, has added a new Kander & Ebb concert to its 2009-2010 season, which will celebrate the company’s 20th anniversary.
“First You Dream” The Kander & Ebb Concert (September 10-27) will highlight the breadth of the duo’s songbook — from their early musical Flora, the Red Menace through hits like Cabaret and Chicago to their most recent show, The Visit, recently presented by Signature. The concert will include an 18-piece onstage orchestra. Casting will be announced at a later date.
As previously announced, Tony nominee Emily Skinner will star in Dirty Blonde (August 11-October 4), to be directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Claudia Shear’s play with music is about cinematic legend Mae West and West’s most fixated fan Jo — with both to be portrayed by Skinner. Multiple award-winner Jonathan Tunick will provide new orchestrations for the classic Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II musical, Show Boat (November 10-January 17), to be directed by Eric Schaeffer. Based on the novel of the same name by Edna Ferber, the musical concerns the lives, loves, and heartbreaks of three generations of show folk on the Mississippi.
Helen Hayes Award-Winner Andrew Long will star in Doug Wright’s Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning solo play, I Am My Own Wife (January 12-March 7), to be directed by Alan Paul. The piece tells the fascinating real-life story of German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. Schaeffer will direct a new environmental production of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd (February 9-April 4), featuring a book by Hugh Wheeler, based on the play by Christopher Bond. The musical tells the tale of a barber’s grisly vengeance carried out with the help of a woman whose meat pies become the talk of London.
Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell’s musical [title of show] will receive its Washington premiere, March 30-June 20, under the direction of Matthew Gardiner. This love letter to the musical theater is about two aspiring songwriters, their friends, and the wild journey they take as they write a musical about writing a musical. Tina Landau will direct the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Sycamore Trees (May 18-June 20), which is the second entry in Signature’s American Musical Voices Project. It tells an autobiographical story of the struggles of the author’s family and their reliance on each other through good and bad.
The Signature will also present a series of cabaret evenings celebrating the musical productions the theater has presented in the last 20 years, as well as a Christmas Cabaret.
For more information, call 703-820-9771 or visit www.signature-theatre.org.
