TOPANGA, CALIF.: Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum has announced its 2019 summer repertory season, featuring concurrent productions running outdoors through Sept. 29.
The season will open with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (June 1-Sept. 29), a comedy about the gender-bending adventures of two shipwrecked twins. The production will feature original music by Marshall McDaniel, and artistic director Ellen Geer will direct.
Next will be Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (June 2- Sept. 29), about mistaken identities and unrequited love in an enchanted forest. Willow Geer will direct.
Following will be Moby Dick—Rehearsed (June 8- Sept. 29), by Orson Welles, about an acting troupe putting together a stage production of Herman Melville’s epic tale about a sea captain’s obsession to kill a whale.
The season will continue with An Enemy of the People (June 22- Sept. 29), freely adapted by Ellen Geer, which resets Henrik Ibsen’s tale about an environmental disaster in a small South Carolina town in the 1980s. Ellen Geer will direct.
Next up will be Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth (July 13-Sept. 29), an exploration of humankind set in both 20th-century New Jersey and the Ice Age.
The repertory season will end with D.L. Colbrn’s The Gin Game (Aug. 17-Sept. 29), presented in partnership with the Sierra Madre Playhouse, about two elderly residents at a nursing home who share a love of gin rummy. Real life husband and wife Alan Blumenfeld and Kathrine James will star.
The company will also present three special events including Re-PETE Seeger Centennial Celebration 2019: Pete’s Legacy (April 6), a tribute to Pete Seeger; Momentum Place (May 12), modern dance, aerial acts, juggling, and performance art curated by Lexi Pearl; and the Family Barn Dance (July 4).
Programming will also include the music concerts, presentations of new plays, imrpov performances, interactive children’s theatre, and the annual Halloween “BOO-tanicum.”
Founded in 1973, Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum is a summer outdoor theatre which aims to present classics and socially relevant plays.
