Arlington's Signature Theatre Announces New Season

The Tony Award-winning Signature Theatre in Arlington has announced an ambitious set of new plays and revivals for its 2010-2011 season. Here's an excerpt from the season announcement news release:

Signature’s four musicals in the 2010-2011 season are headlined by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony Award-winning musical Sunset Boulevard about the fading silent screen star Nora Desmond, performed December 7, 2010 through February 13, 2011. Eric Schaeffer directs the regional premiere featuring Florence Lacey, star of Broadway’s Evita and Signature’s Follies. Signature will also produce the region’s first major production of Chess (Aug. 10 – Sept. 26, 2010), the cult musical of Cold War competition in love and chess by Tim Rice, the lyricist of Evita and The Lion King, and Mamma Mia! composers Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. Signature continues its innovative American Musical Voices Project with its third world premiere: Wheatley’s Folly (March 15 – April 10, 2011), Joseph Thalken’s manic backstage take on the 1866 creation of the first musical comedy. The season ends with Signature’s “signature,” Sondheim – a brand new production of the great revue Side by Side by Sondheim (April 26 - June 12, 2011). All four musicals will take place in Signature’s 276-seat MAX Theatre.

On the dramatic comedy front, the company will produce two world premieres and a Tony Award-winning comedy in the 2010-2011 season. Internationally acclaimed playwright Ken Ludwig, creator of Crazy for You and Lend Me a Tenor, will premiere his latest romp A Fox on the Fairway (Oct. 12 – Nov. 14, 2010) in The MAX, about the antics of the golf-crazed denizens of two competing country clubs, directed by John Rando, the Tony-winning director of Broadway’s Urinetown. In the 110-seat ARK Theatre, New York-based director, playwright, and Signature Artistic Associate Joe Calarco will introduce his new comedy of the culture wars Walter Cronkite Is Dead. (Oct. 26 – Dec. 19, 2010). The 1998 Tony Award-winning comedy Art (March 29 – May 22, 2011), the international hit play by Yasmina Reza who also wrote the 2009 Tony winner God of Carnage, will also be performed in the intimacy of The ARK.

One of the most popular cabaret venues in the Washington area, Signature also has five outstanding cabaret weeks planned, from Julia Nixon and Katie Thompson (the red-headed Vashti in last year’s Giant) to the Lost Songs of Broadway, Broadway Duets, and the annual Holiday Cabaret.

Signature always challenges its audiences. The 2010-11 season will make no exception.





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