From Evolution to Revolution Asolo Rep Presents its 49th Season Announcement
SARASOTA, FL (March 5, 2007) – Michael Donald Edwards, producing artistic director of the Asolo Repertory Theatre, announced today his exciting and much-anticipated second season of shows for the 49th Asolo Rep season. The 2007-2008 season of 10 shows kicks off with a world premiere musical and continues with a line up of humor, intrigue, infidelity, passion, suspicion, politics, love, adultery, and more music. The Asolo Rep season will run the gamut of emotions, humor and social questioning. It will be presented on three stages: The Mertz and The Cook Theatres, and The Historic Asolo Theater at the RinglingMuseum.
Michael Donald Edwards - “My first season has been an incredible success and filled with positive change and growth for Asolo Rep, for the Sarasota Arts community, and for myself. I look toward the 2007-2008 season with excitement and anticipation. The level and quality of our work have reached new heights, and we are truly achieving our mission to entertain, engage and inspire audiences. The new season will take us to the next level and open our work to new audiences. Looking toward our soon to be celebrated 50th anniversary in 2009, I believe we are on the path to a golden artistic future.”
Asolo Repertory Theatre 2007-2008 Season
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Book, music and lyrics by Jill Santoriello
Based on the novel by Charles Dickens
Directed by Michael Donald Edwards
October 13 – November 18, 2007
A World Premiere of a Pre-Broadway Musical Event
Charles Dickens' seminal work of genius has sold over 200,000,000 copies. And now Jill Santoriello's stirring adaptation has begun its journey to Broadway. This musical event recounts one of the most electrifying love stories ever written, told against a backdrop of one of the most terrifying eras in history. Let the revolution begin.
MISERY
by Stephen King
October 24 – December 16, 2007
Fandom Becomes Obsession in This Spine Tingling Thriller
Popular novelist Paul Sheldon is at the top of his game and on top of the world, when a car accident leaves him injured and stranded on a lonely Colorado road during a blizzard. He is “rescued” by his biggest fan – and now that she has him, she will do anything to keep him.
(Runs in October and is themed to coordinate with the Conservatory’s production of MURDER BY POE.)
THE CONSTANT WIFE
by W. Somerset Maugham
December 7, 2007 – March 12, 2008
A Social Comedy of Marital Maneuvers
Take a fast-paced and stylish comedic romp around the naughty fun of marriage. The Middletons have long been happily married, but John is now having an affair with Constance’s best friend. Constance finds out and decides that what is sauce for the gander is most definitely sauce for the goose.
DOUBT
by John Patrick Shanley
December 21, 2007 – May 1, 2008
The Pulitzer Prize and Four-time Tony Award Winning Drama
In this electrifying and incisive play Sister Aloysius suspects that popular Father Flynn has made an inappropriate connection with a student. Though she has no proof, the nun goes on a quest for the truth, but only casts everyone, herself included, deeper into uncertainty.
The Play’s the Thing
by Ferenc Molnar; adapted by P.G. Wodehouse
December 14, 2007 – March, 13 2008
Lush, Romantic and Wildly Funny!
Two Broadway playwrights and their young musical collaborator decide to surprise their leading lady, who is also the fiancée of the composer. But the prima donna surprises them with an affair of her own. Overnight, one of the playwrights concocts a brilliant scheme to solve everyone’s problems. A hilarious comedy of passion, love and the theater set in the glorious 1930s.
THE BLONDE, THE BRUNETTE, AND THE VENGEFUL REDHEAD
by Robert Hewett
January 2008
A Hit New Australian Play
This one-woman tour de force performance about love, adultery, and acting rashly will make you question whether the truth is absolute, or simply a matter of perception.
SMASH
adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher
February 15 – May 2, 2007
Based on George Bernard Shaw’s Novel An Unsocial Socialist
In this laugh-out-loud, stylish comedy idealistic millionaire Socialist, Sidney Trefusis, leaves his bride on their wedding day to fulfill his dream of overthrowing the government. Instead, he finds himself in cognito on the grounds of a school for well bred young ladies, encountering an assortment of fascinating characters who leave him questioning everything he’s ever understood about life, politics, and most important, women.
EQUUS
by Peter Shaffer
March 28 – May 3, 2008
One of Best Loved and Multi Award-Winning Plays of the Second Half of the 20th Century
To this day Peter Shaffer’s startling and innovative play remains and astonishing act of theatrical imagination. When a young man commits an unthinkable act at the stable where he works, he is sent to psychiatrist Martin Dysart for help. But which of them truly needs to be healed?
LADY
By Craig Wright
May 15 – June 10, 2008
A New Play by an Award Winning Producer of LOST and Writer of SIX FEET UNDER
In the woods outside their small Midwestern hometown, three old friends come together on a hunting trip. But they quickly discover that the men they’ve become are very different from the boys they once were. In the light of their new lives, new responsibilities, and new conflicts - both personal and political - can old ties bear up? Or will the war in Iraq claim their friendship as its newest casualty?
A MUSICAL in May 2008!!!
An additional play is under consideration and will be announced at a later date.
Subscriptions are available now. For information on purchasing a subscription or individual tickets for the Asolo Repertory Theatre 2007-2008 Season, please contact the Box Office at 941-351-8000 or toll-free at 800-361-8388, or go to the website at WWW.ASOLO.ORG.
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THE FSU/ASOLO CONSERVATORY FOR ACTOR TRAINING 2007-2008 Season
Greg Leaming, the associate artistic director for the Asolo Repertory Theatre and director of the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training, also took the stage to announce the 2007-2008 FSU/Asolo Conservatory season, which features some of this country’s most talented acting students performing in a series of four plays that run from October 2007 to May 2008 in the Cook Theatre and the Historic Asolo Theater at the Ringling Museum.
MURDER BY POE by Jeffrey Hatcher
In the Historic Asolo Theatre from October 31 through November 18
Seven of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous stories woven into a gloriously gothic nightmare of an evening. A woman in white finds herself lost in the woods and can only find shelter in a house full of murderers. Who are these madmen? And, even more mystifying, who is this mysterious woman in white? Only by listening to each of their stories can the young woman uncover the truth about these killers, her own life and the mysterious man posing as her host.
SPEED-THE-PLOW by David Mamet
January 2 through January 20
One of the greatest plays by America’s premiere playwright. Two film producers in Hollywood finally find the project that will make their careers but are thwarted by the innocent secretary who enters their lives. A story about greed, morality, art and humanity by this Pulitzer prize winning author.
THE DUCHESS OF MALFI by John Webster
February 27 through March 16
A classic tragedy of lust, passion and political intrigue. In the 19th century court of Malfi, the Duchess marries outside of her class, causing scandal and enraging her incestuously obsessed brother who disowns her and, in the process, ignites a fuse that leads to intrigue. madness and murder. A classic tale, given a new contemporary spin as only the FSU/Asolo Conservatory can.
THE UNDERPANTS by Carl Sternheim, adapted by Steve Martin
April 16 through May 4
A rollicking German farce in a brilliantly anarchic new adaptation by comedian/author Steve Martin. The very staid, middle-class household of Theo Maske is thrown into chaos when his wife Louise loses her bloomers at a rally for the Kaiser. Intrigues and misunderstandings, sleeping potions and a cast of outrageous characters parade through the Maske household as Louise begins to discover just how resourceful she is capable of being.
For information on purchasing a subscription or individual tickets to the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training 2007-2008 season, please contact the Box Office at 941-351-8000 or toll-free at 800-361-8388, or go to the website at WWW.ASOLO.ORG.
Biography information
Michael Donald Edwards (Producing Artistic Director of Asolo Repertory Theatre and for the 2006-2007 season, he is the director of Amadeus, Nobody Don’t Like Yogi, and Darwin in Malibu.
Michael Donald Edwards is in his first season as producing artistic director at Asolo Repertory Theatre. Prior to his time at Asolo Rep, he was the associate artistic director for Syracuse Stage. He was a guest stage director at the Metropolitan Opera over eight seasons, and also served as artistic director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz in California for six years. Mr. Edwards has directed at Indiana Repertory Theatre; Geva Theatre in Rochester, N.Y.; Syracuse Stage; Shakespeare Santa Cruz; the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.; San Jose Rep; Opera San Jose; the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; The Old Globe in San Diego; Virginia Stage Company; the Virginia Opera; the State Theatre of South Australia; Opera Australia in Sydney; Victoria State Opera in Australia; the Metropolitan Opera in New York City; the Israeli Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv; the Julliard School; The Magic Theatre in San Francisco; the University of California; Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne; City Stage in Los Angeles; the People’s Music Theatre in London; and many other institutions in England, Australia, and the United States. He has received a Garland Award for Best Direction for his production of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. His productions of Shopping and F***ing in San Francisco and Los
Angeles also received Garland Awards for Best Production and Best Ensemble. He received a Drama Logue Award for Best Direction for his production of Richard III at Shakespeare Santa Cruz, and his production of Transgressor at UCLA also received Drama Logue Awards for Best Play and Best Direction. Mr. Edwards has previously directed Michelle Lowe’s Smell of the Kill for Asolo Rep. He received his BA with honors from MonashUniversity in Australia, and earned his MFA degree from UCLA, where among other projects he directed Spring Awakening and The Shadow Box.
Greg Leaming (Director, FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training; Associate Artistic Director, Asolo Repertory Theatre) Recently directed Men of Tortuga for Asolo Rep and Blue Window and Pericles for the Conservatory, and his translation/adaptation of Anything to Declare? for Asolo Rep and A Flea in Her Ear for the Contemporary Acting Company in Dallas, Texas, earning a Dallas Theatre Critics Association Award for Best Direction and a Leon Rabin Award nomination for Best New Play. Associate professor of Theatre and the Head of Directing for the Theatre Division (1997-2001) at Southern Methodist University; Director of Artistic Programming for Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT and Acting Artistic Director (2001-2002). Directed Arms And The Man, and the world premieres of Going Native by Steven Drukman, Abstract Expression by Theresa Rebeck, The Third Army by Joe Sutton, Syncopation by Alan Knee, and An Infinite Ache by David Schulner. Artistic Director of Portland Stage Company 1992-96. Associate Artistic Director 1984-1992 at Hartford Stage Company. Others credits include Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Shakespeare Sedona, Southwest Shakespeare, Stage West, Philadelphia Drama Guild, New Dramatists, New York Theatre Workshop, New York Stage and Film, Cape Cod Theatre Project, The Gathering at Bigfork, and Theatre of the First Amendment.
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Asolo Repertory Theatre is funded in part by the Division of Cultural Affairs, Florida Department of State, the Florida Arts Council, the City and County of Sarasota and the Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax through the Board of County Commissioners, the Tourist Development Council and the Sarasota County Arts Council. Funding is also received through efforts of support groups including the Asolo Angel Association, the Asolo Rep Guild, the Directors Emeritus and the generosity of individuals, corporations and foundations.