Theater News

Beautiful, Matilda, and More Broadway Favorites Set to Visit the Kennedy Center

National-tour engagements and world-premiere plays join the D.C. theater’s 2015-16 season.

The national tour of Broadway's hit musical Beautiful will stop at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center.
The national tour of Broadway's hit musical Beautiful will stop at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center.
(© Joan Marcus)

Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center has announced the lineup of productions set for its 2015-16 theater season.

Throughout the season, the theater will host a series of touring productions including Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (October 6-25), Matilda The Musical (December 15-January 10, 2016), A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (January 13-30, 2016), Kinky Boots (June 14-July 10, 2016), The Bridges of Madison County (June 28-July 17, 2016), and The Phantom of the Opera (July 13-August 20, 2016).

Three world-premiere plays will also join the season as part of the Women's Voices Theater Festival. Darius & Twig, adapted by Caleen Sinnette Jennings and directed by Eleanor Holdridge, will run from October 31-November 8. Lisa Loomer’s Roe, directed by Bill Rauch, will offer a free performance on September 28. The play is presented in association with Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s American Revolutions Project. Naomi Iizuka’s new play Good Kids, directed by Alan McVey, will also offer a free performance on October 12. The show is produced in association with the University of Maryland.

Academy Award winner Juliette Binoche will star in the title role of Antigone, a Barbican and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg production, in association with Toneelgroep Amsterdam. The production is directed by internationally renowned Belgian theater director Ivo van Hove, with a new translation by TS Eliot Prize-winning poet Anne Carson. Performances are scheduled to run from October 22-25.

The Washington National Opera will then present a company premiere of Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars. Performances will run from February 12-20, 2016.

Broadway legend Barbara Cook's Spotlight Series will also return for its ninth season, offering a selection of preeminent Broadway talent to perform on the Kennedy Center stage in a cabaret-style performance.

For more information about the upcoming Kennedy Center season, click here.