Theater News

Walnut Street Theatre Announces Its 2019-20 Season

Mel Brooks’s ”Young Frankenstein” will open the historic Philadelphia theater’s 211th season.

Mel Brooks's musical comedy Young Frankenstein will run at Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre from September 3-October 20.
Mel Brooks's musical comedy Young Frankenstein will run at Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre from September 3-October 20.
(© Joseph Marzullo / WENN)

Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre has announced the lineup for its 2019-20 season, the 211th in its historic tenure.

The season will open with Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein (September 3-October 20), followed by Shrek the Musical (November 5-January 5, 2020), Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance (January 14-March 1, 2020), and Gore Vidal's The Best Man (March 10-April 26, 2020). Closing out the season will be The Bodyguard (May 12-July 12, 2020), based on the 1992 film that famously starred Whitney Houston, and featuring a score made up of songs from the film's soundtrack.

"I'm so proud to announce our 211th Season, filled with timeless classics and thrilling musicals," said Walnut Street's producing artistic director, Bernard Havard. "Audiences will be treated to the monstrously funny musical based on the classic Gene Wilder film, Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein; an ogre-sized holiday treat with Shrek the Musical; a tongue-in-cheek Oscar Wilde comedy of manners, A Woman of No Importance; an intense, winner-takes-all peek behind the political curtain in Gore Vidal's The Best Man; and a breathtaking romantic thriller filled with Whitney Houston's greatest hits, The Bodyguard."