BOSTON: SpeakEasy Stage Company has announced its 2017-18 season, featuring several regional play premieres and a musical.
“Once again I am excited to offer Boston audiences an ambitious and entertaining slate of the very best contemporary plays and musicals,” SpeakEasy founder and producing artistic director Paul Daigneault said in a statement. “Each of these shows is uniquely theatrical and celebrates the importance of sharing our stories to better appreciate our common humanity.”
The season kicks off with the Boston premiere of Men on Boats (Sept. 8 – Oct. 7), by Jaclyn Backhaus. A gender-bending cast and exaggerated theatrics tell the story of an actual 1869 expedition to chart the Colorado River. Dawn M. Simmons will direct.
After that will be another Boston premiere, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Oct. 20 – Nov. 18), based on the novel by Mark Haddon and adapted by Simon Stephens. Winner of the Tony Award for Best Play, the play follows Christopher Boone, a 15-year-old math savant who sets out to solve the crime of his neighbor’s dog’s murder. Paul Daigneault will direct.
Up next will be Shakespeare in Love (Jan. 12 – Feb. 10), based on the screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, and adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. In this New England premiere, a young Will Shakespeare struggles to complete his new play, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter, until a headstrong noblewoman enters his life. Scott Edmiston will direct.
Following that will be the Boston premiere of Every Brilliant Thing (March 2-31), by Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe, about a child compiling a list of things that make life worth living in an attempt to ease his mother’s depression.
Rounding out the season will be the regional premiere of Allegiance (May 4-June 2). With book by Marc Acito, Jay Kuo, and Lorenzo Thione, and music and lyrics by Jay Kuo, this musical tells the story of the Kimura family, whose lives are upended when they and other Japanese Americans are forcibly interned after Pearl Harbor. Paul Daigneault will direct.
Founded in 1992, SpeakEasy Stage Company brings new plays and musicals to New England.
