There aren’t a lot of gatherings where August Wilson, a reality show winning drag queen, President Lyndon B. Johnson, and a gay lizard superhero could be found rubbing elbows, but that’s just what Seattle Repertory Theatre’s 2014–15 season offers. The recently announced lineup includes three world premieres and a wealth of Seattle playwriting talent.
The season starts in October with the brash cabaret flash of The Vaudevillians. Seattle’s own Jerick Hoffer (aka RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon) and Richard Andriessen (Major Scales) star as duo of 1920s performers who do renditions of pop songs by musicians like Gloria Gaynor in a throwback style resembling Irving Berlin. Next on the slate are Seattle playwright Robert Schenkkan’s two plays about President Lyndon B. Johnson. All the Way (currently a hit on Broadway starring Bryan Cranston) begins the series by chronicling Johnson’s first year in office after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and December brings the world premiere of Schenkkan’s second installment The Great Society, which follows Johnson’s struggles to pass civil rights and voting reform legislation while the Vietnam War casts a shadow over his term.
Two more world premieres and Seattle Rep commissions arrive in 2015 in the form of Lizard Boy and The Comparables. Seattleite Justin Huertas’s Lizard Boy mixes comic books and rock musicals (with far less potential for cast injury than Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark) with its story of a young boy with lizard powers and his wild night of coming of age self-discovery (we chatted with Huertas about the play prior to it being a hit at 2013’s New Play Festival[1]). The dark comedy The Comparables looks at the fierce world of high-end real estate as three women scrap for power and business success. The 2014–15 season also includes August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson, Outside Mullingar by Doubt and Moonstruck playwright John Patrick Shanley and Dear Elizabeth, which details the 30-year friendship between American poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.
Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell
Season subsciptions are on sale now at seattlerep.org and single show tickets go on sale August 19.
Seattle Repertory Theatre’s 2014–15 Season:
Oct 3–Nov 2 – The VaudevilliansNov 14–Jan 4 – All the WayDec 5–Jan 4, 2015 – The Great Society (World Premiere)Jan 16–Feb 8, 2015 – The Piano LessonFeb 6–Mar 8, 2015 – Dear ElizabethMar 6–29, 2015 – The Comparables (World Premiere)Mar 27–Apr 26, 2015 – Lizard Boy (World Premiere)Apr 24–May 17, 2015 – Outside Mullingar
