WARWICK, R.I.: The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre, also known as the Gamm, has announced its 2019-20 season. The lineup, entirely composed of works by U.S. writers, will include the Gamm’s first musical: Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins.
“Our second year in our new home is going to be a thrilling season of firsts,” said artistic director Tony Estrella in a statement. “Sondheim’s Assassins will anchor a lineup of provocative, startlingly original, contemporary works that look at particularly American dreams and delusions. With a tumultuous election year looming, season 35 asks where we are right now and how we got here.”
The season will open with Admissions (September-October) by Joshua Harmon. This comedy-drama explodes the ideals and contradictions of “liberal” white America when a young man, whose parents are a prep school headmaster and its head of admissions, sets his sights on an Ivy League university.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s An Octoroon (October-November) will follow. The play, an irreverent retelling of the 19th-century melodrama, comments on race in the U.S. today.
Next up will be the Gamm’s holiday show, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (December), adapted for the stage by Joe Landry.
The season will continue with A Doll’s House, Part 2 (January-February 2020). Written by Lucas Hnath, this sequel to Ibsen’s influential 19th-century drama picks up 15 years after the original’s ending and explores the aftermath of Nora’s infamous exit.
Following will be Assassins (February-March), the Sondheim and Weidman musical that follows a group of presidential assassins, and would-be assassins, across a century of U.S. history.
The season will close with Amy Herzog’s Mary Jane (April-May), which centers around the mother of a chronically ill toddler. The main character navigates a world of medicine with an unflinching optimism that is Herzog’s tribute to a mother’s unconditional love.
Founded in 1984, the Gamm strives to create theatre that engages audiences in pressing current issues.
