Geffen Playhouse Announces Upcoming Season Featuring Bryan Cranston and More

Geffen Playhouse has announced that it will return to in-person performances in September 2021 with a reimagined 25th Anniversary season. The 25th Anniversary season will launch September 14, 2021, and run through July 24, 2022.

The season features the West Coast premiere of Power of Sail, starring Bryan Cranston and Amy Brenneman.

In addition to two productions rescheduled from the partially cancelled 2019/2020 season, The Enigmatist and Man of God, the lineup also features new titles Paradise Blue and TRAYF, making their West Coast premieres. Two additional productions to be performed in the Gil Cates Theater will be announced at a later date, completing the season.

To launch its 2022/2023 season next year, Geffen Playhouse will present the Stephen Daldry production of playwright Matthew Lopez's The Inheritance, directed by Mike Donahue. The Inheritance was previously announced as part of the original Geffen Playhouse 25th Anniversary season.

"The Geffen 25th anniversary season we announced in March of 2020 sought to honor the past and look toward a bright future," said Geffen Playhouse Artistic Director Matt Shakman. "That bright future ended up encompassing seven wonderful virtual shows that allowed us to stay connected to audiences. Now, after a year and a half of closed doors, we are overwhelmed with joy that we will be back in our beautiful theater. Beginning in the fall, extraordinary artists like Bryan Cranston, Dominique Morisseau, David Kwong, and Lindsay Joelle, among so many others, will help us light up this theater in a way we never have. We look forward to opening our doors, finally turning off the ghost light and going on with the show."

"We are beyond excited to reopen the Geffen Playhouse doors and welcome audiences back into our theater. We've been preparing for this day since the moment we had to pause in-person performances, and have made significant upgrades and enhancements to our physical spaces and protocols-we are ready," said Geffen Playhouse Executive Director Gil Cates, Jr. "Our heartfelt thanks goes out to the loyal patrons and theater lovers around the world who supported our Geffen Stayhouse virtual series, helping to keep the arts alive during unprecedented times."

The 25th Anniversary season will commence in the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater with the West Coast premiere of The Enigmatist, a highly inventive, immersive theatrical experience from renowned master illusionist and magician David Kwong, who returns to the Geffen after a successful run of his hit interactive show Inside the Box for the Geffen Stayhouse series. Next up is the West Coast premiere of playwright Dominique Morisseau's Paradise Blue, making it the first production on the Gil Cates Theater stage since the theater closed in March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The season will continue in the Gil Cates Theater with Tony Award winner Bryan Cranston (All the Way, Network) leading the cast of playwright Paul Grellong's Power of Sail, also featuring Amy Brenneman (Judging Amy, Private Practice), Hugo Armstrong (Mysterious Circumstances, God of Carnage), Tedra Millan (The Wolves, Present Laughter) and Seth Numrich (Switzerland, Turn: Washington's Spies), to be helmed by Soulpepper Theatre Artistic Director Weyni Mengesha in its West Coast premiere. Cranston previously appeared in the Geffen's production of The God of Hell (2006). Playwright Lindsay Joelle's TRAYF will then join the lineup in the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater for its West Coast premiere.

The final production being presented in the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater will be playwright Anna Ouyang Moench's Man of God, originally scheduled for the 2019/2020 season, but cancelled the day before opening night in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Man of God had its world premiere in January 2019 as an East West Players production at the David Henry Hwang Theatre at the Union Center of the Arts in Los Angeles.

Two additional productions will join the Gil Cates Theater lineup and be announced at a later date.

Learn more at https://www.geffenplayhouse.org/.