SANTA BARBARA, CALIF.: Ensemble Theatre Company (ETC) has announced its 2017-18 season, its 38th, featuring a five-play lineup.
The season will open with the world premiere of Husbands and Wives (Oct. 5-22) adapted by ETC artistic director Jonathan Fox from the 1992 Woody Allen film, about two couples approaching middle age and navigating marital woes. Fox will direct.
For the holidays, Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (Nov. 30-Dec. 17) will be onstage. The play, an imagined sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, follows the fate of Mary Bennet. Andrew Barnicle will direct.
Next up will be Anthony Giardina’s The City of Conversation (Feb. 8-25, 2018), about Washington, D.C. socialite Hester Ferris and a political and personal controversy.
Ayad Akhtar’s The Invisible Hand (April 12-29) will be next. The play follows a kidnapped American investment banker in Pakistan, who convinces his captors that he can manipulate the stock market to pay his own ransom. Fox will direct.
The season will close with Cookin’ at the Cookery (June 7-24, 2018), a musical written by Marion J. Caffey about the life and career of jazz and blues singer Alberta Hunter. Caffey will direct.
Founded in 1979, Ensemble Theatre Company is Santa Barbara’s leading professional resident theatre company.
