(Pittsfield, MA– January 15, 2020) – Barrington Stage Company (BSC), the award-winning theatre in Pittsfield, MA., in the heart of the Berkshires, and under the leadership of Founder/Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, has announced its 2020 season. BSC will present two World Premiere musicals and new productions of a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical classic, a Tony Award-winning musical revue, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
“Many of us are thinking about what it means to be an American,” commented Founder/Artistic Director Julianne Boyd. “We’re also considering that question on our stages this season, with works full of joy, passion and substance – from a musical classic decrying racism, to a play about the after-effects of war, to a world premiere musical about migrants on a perilous journey to freedom. We’re also presenting plays by Chinese-American, Cuban-American and Jewish authors, and an exuberant musical revue that conjures up African-American life in 1920’s/30’s Harlem. We’ll also be performing outdoors and for free for the first time with a World Premiere musical featuring our Youth Theatre. We cannot wait to share these productions with BSC audiences.”
The first production on the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage (30 Union Street, Downtown Pittsfield) will be one of the most celebrated musicals of all time, the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic South Pacific, based on James A. Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Tales of the South Pacific, and the 1950 winner of 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The production will be directed by Julianne Boyd and choreographed by Shea Sullivan (BSC: Ragtime; Neurosis – Chita Rivera Award nomination).
Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg, represented on Broadway this season with a revival of Take Me Out, will be featured on the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage with a new production of his 2013 Tony-nominated The Assembled Parties. Director for The Assembled Parties will be announced in coming weeks.
The final Boyd-Quinson Mainstage production of the summer will be the ‘Fats’ Waller musical revue, Ain’t Misbehavin’, winner of the 1978 Tony Award for Best Musical, in a completely reconceived production directed and choreographed by the visionary Camille A. Brown (2019 Tony Nominee for Best Choreography, Choir Boy). Ms. Brown has been hailed by The New York Times as “one of the most expressive, genuine and deeply felt choreographers working today.”
A Fall production for the Mainstage will be announced shortly.
Launching the St. Germain Stage (36 Linden Street, Downtown Pittsfield) season will be The Great Leap by award-winning playwright Lauren Yee (Cambodian Rock Band, The Tiger Among Us) and directed by Jesca Prudencio (Vietgone, Actually).
Next up will be the 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz, directed by Elena Araoz (Original Sound).
The St. Germain season continues with Chester Bailey, by Emmy Award-winner Joseph Dougherty (“thirtysomething”), directed by Ron Lagomarsino (Driving Miss Daisy), and starring real-life father and son, Tony Award-winner Reed Birney (The Humans) and Ephraim Birney (“Gotham”).
The St. Germain season concludes with a BSC commission, the World Premiere of A Crossing, a new dance musical co-conceived by BSC Associate Artist Joshua Bergasse (BSC: The Royal Family of Broadway, On the Town; Broadway: On the Town) and BSC Associate Artist Mark St. Germain (BSC and Off Broadway: Freud’s Last Session), with book by St. Germain, music & lyrics by award-winning songwriter Zoe Sarnak (Secret Soldiers, Empire Records), created in association with Calpulli Mexican Dance Company and directed & choreographed by Bergasse.
The 2020 Youth Theatre Production will be another BSC commission, the World Premiere musical The Supadupa Kid, with book by Melvin Tunstall III (actor in Broadway’s Beautiful: The Carole King Musical; author of Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical), music by Joel Waggoner (BSC: Presto Change-o), lyrics by Sukari Jones (The River Is Me, Ain’t Far from Home), based on the novel by award-winning children’s book author, literacy advocate and motivational speaker Ty Allan Jackson, and directed by Signe Harriday (How Black Mothers Say I Love You). The production will be presented outdoors and for free at The Common (100 1st Street Pittsfield).
THE 2020 BOYD-QUINSON MAINSTAGE PRODUCTIONS INCLUDE:
SOUTH PACIFIC
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan
Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
Choreographed by Shea Sullivan
Directed by Julianne Boyd
Previews begin June 24, 2020
Opens June 28, 2020
Runs through July 18, 2020
Set on an idyllic South Pacific island during World War II, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
South Pacific, winner of 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, intertwines the themes of romance, duty and prejudice to create a story that is at once hilarious, heartbreaking and thought-provoking.
Featuring an extraordinary score – including “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” “Bali Ha’i,” “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame” and “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” – South Pacific is an unparalleled and timely classic.
THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES
By Richard Greenberg
Director TBA
Previews begin July 24, 2020
Opens July 29, 2020
Runs through August 8, 2020
The Assembled Parties, a 2013 Tony Award nominee for Best Play, introduces us to the Bascovs, an Upper West Side Jewish family, in 1980. Former movie star Julie Bascov and her sister-in-law Faye bring their families together for their traditional holiday dinner. Twenty years later, the Bascovs’ seemingly picture-perfect life may be about to crumble. A stunning play infused with humor, The Assembled Parties is an incisive portrait of a family grasping for stability at the dawn of a new millennium.
AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’
The Fats Waller Musical Show
Conceived by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Murray Horwitz
Directed & Choreographed by Camille A. Brown
Previews begin August 13, 2020
Opens August 16, 2020
Runs through September 6, 2020
A co-production with Westport Country Playhouse
The 1978 Tony Award-winning Best Musical features unforgettable music made famous by Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller, including “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Your Feet’s Too Big,” “The Joint is Jumpin’” and “‘Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness If I Do,” to name a few. These rowdy, raunchy and humorous songs capture the love, longing and zest for life of 1920’s/30’s Harlem, in a production reimagined by the incomparable director/choreographer Camille A. Brown (2019 Tony Nominee for Best Choreography, Choir Boy).
THE 2020 ST. GERMAIN STAGE PRODUCTIONS INCLUDE:
THE GREAT LEAP
By Lauren Yee
Directed by Jesca Prudencio
Previews begin May 27, 2020
Opening night May 30, 2020
Runs through June 13, 2020
When an American college basketball team travels to Beijing for an exhibition game in the 1980s, the tension on the court mirrors the strain between their countries. For two men with a shared past and one teen with a future in jeopardy, it’s a chance to stake their moment in history and claim personal victories off the scoreboard.
New York Magazine says “Yee has crafted a moving fiction around pieces of real
history—her own, and that of China in the years after the Cultural Revolution, leading up to the protests in Tiananmen Square.”
ANNA IN THE TROPICS
By Nilo Cruz
Directed by Elena Araoz
Previews begin June 18, 2020
Opens June 21, 2020
Runs through July 11, 2020
Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Anna in the Tropics is set in Ybor City (Tampa) in 1929 in a Cuban-American factory where cigars are still rolled by hand. The factory owner’s family awaits the arrival of a new “lector,” who is hired to read to the workers for their education and entertainment. His arrival is cause for celebration, but when the lector begins reading Anna Karenina, the passionate, frustrated lives of the characters in the book begin to parallel those of the listeners, leading to jealousy, betrayal and sexual awakening.
CHESTER BAILEY
By Joseph Dougherty
Starring Reed Birney and Ephraim Birney
Directed by Ron Lagomarsino
Previews begin July 16, 2020
Opens July 19, 2020
Runs through August 7, 2020
In a hospital on Long Island at the close of World War II, a young man is recovering from catastrophic injuries…or so the doctors struggle to convince him. Because Chester Bailey denies what’s happened to him has actually happened, he is put under the care of Dr. Philip Cotton, who is charged with guiding Chester from his imaginary world back to reality. The journey is not what either man expected.
The World Premiere of
A CROSSING
Co-conceived by Joshua Bergasse and Mark St. Germain
Book by Mark St. Germain
Music & Lyrics by Zoe Sarnak
Created in association with Calpulli Mexican Dance Company
Directed & Choreographed by Joshua Bergasse
Previews begin August 15, 2020
Opens August 20, 2020
Runs through September 6, 2020
Commissioned by Sydelle and Lee Blatt & Pamela Cooper
Pulsing with energy and emotional intensity, this story about a group of migrants crossing the southern border is raw, visceral and electrifying – demonstrating the personal impact of crossing an invisible line. The group faces many dangers, even from the “coyote” hired to smuggle them across the border. This new dance musical ingeniously combines compelling lyrics, athletic choreography and elements of Mexican folk music to tell a remarkable tale of courage, fear and struggle.
2020 YOUTH THEATRE PRODUCTION
The World Premiere of
THE SUPADUPA KID
Book by Melvin Tunstall III
Music by Joel Waggoner
Lyrics by Sukari Jones
Based on the novel by Ty Allan Jackson
Directed by Signe Harriday
Presented for free July 30, 2020 to August 9, 2020 at The Common (100 1st Street).
Commissioned by Jodi and Paul Tartell
Javon Williams was just a normal kid until a freak accident gave him amazing superpowers. The only problem? The neighborhood bully, Hoody, acquired his own superpowers and is using them to terrorize the city! Javon attempts to save the city by becoming…The Supadupa Kid!
Tickets and subscriptions for the 2020 Season are now on sale at BarringtonStageCo.org.
ABOUT BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY
Barrington Stage Company (BSC) is an award-winning theatre located in Pittsfield, MA, in the heart of the Berkshires. Co-founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, BSC’s mission is to present top-notch, compelling work; to develop new plays and musicals; and to find fresh, bold ways of bringing new audiences into the theatre.
BSC attracts over 60,000 patrons annually and has gained national recognition for its superior-quality productions and comprehensive educational programming, including the award-winning Playwright Mentoring Project, the Musical Theatre Conservatory, KidsAct!, Youth Theatre, and other initiatives. The company has become integral to the economic revitalization of downtown Pittsfield.
BSC’s reputation for excellence began with a smash revival of Cabaret that moved to Boston in 1997 for an extended run. The theatre’s prominence grew with the world premiere of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin (BSC: 2004; Broadway: 2005-2008, winner of two Tony Awards). Other notable productions include the world premiere of Christopher Demos-Brown’s American Son (BSC: 2016; Broadway, 2018); Mark St. Germain’s Freud’s Last Session (BSC: 2009; Off Broadway, 2010-2012); Leonard Bernstein, Comden & Green’s On the Town (BSC 2013; Broadway 2014, four Tony Award nominations); Stephen Sondheim & George Furth’s Company, starring Aaron Tveit (BSC: 2017); and West Side Story in honor of Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins’ centenaries (BSC: 2018).
BSC develops and commissions new work with two programs: PlayWorks, which supports the creation of new plays, and the Musical Theatre Lab, which develops new musicals. Since 1995, Barrington Stage (BSC) has produced 36 new works, 19 of which have moved to New York and major US regional theatres.
In 2016, BSC swept the inaugural Berkshire Theatre Awards, winning 20 out of 25 awards, and the company has won the Best of the Berkshires Readers’ Choice for Best Live Theatre for the past three years. In 2019, BSC celebrated its 25th anniversary season.
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