LaChanze-Helmed WINE IN THE WILDERNESS & More Set for Classic Stage Company 24-25 Season

Classic Stage Company has unveiled complete programming for their 2024-25 Season.
 
“CSC’s new season is all about shining a spotlight in every corner of the American Theater – highlighting voices, points of view, and stories that deserve to be put center stage,” said Producing Artistic Director Jill Rafson. “We’re redefining what a classic can be by making sure that women-forward plays are louder than ever. We’re reimagining the way mid-century Americana is seen through an exciting collaboration with our friends at the invaluable NAATCO and Transport Group. And our theater will be more active than ever, with concerts, readings, community events, and Arlekin Theater’s fall residency. There’s not a moment wasted in the year ahead on East 13th Street.”
 
In Spring 2025, Classic Stage Company will present the previously postponed production of Wine in the Wilderness, written by Alice Childress and directed by Tony Award winner LaChanze in her New York directorial debut.  The season continues in Summer 2025 with William Inge’s Bus Stop, directed by Jack Cummings III in a co-production with The National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO) and Transport Group.
 
In Fall 2024, CSC welcomes Arlekin in Residence, presented by the MART Foundation. Their productions will include the off-Broadway transfer of Our Class, written by Tadeusz Słobodzianek and directed by Igor Golyak, as well as a new adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, adapted and directed by Golyak.
 
Throughout the fall, CSC will also produce a new reading series, The Rediscovery Readings, which will amplify the voices of women who shaped the American Theater in the early 20th Century.
 

WINE IN THE WILDERNESS

Written by Alice Childress
Directed by LaChanze
March – April 2025
 
Fortune has smiled on artist Bill Jameson – his friends just introduced him to a model for the final piece of his triptych on Black womanhood. But this woman, Tomorrow Marie, is no mere muse, and she’s about to give Bill much more than he bargained for. Set against the backdrop of the 1964 Harlem riot on a hot summer night, Wine in the Wilderness is a rarely-seen play from the brilliant mind of Alice Childress, whose Trouble in Mind recently took Broadway by storm. That production’s star, Tony-winner LaChanze, brings her deep connection to Childress's work to her New York directing debut.
 

BUS STOP

Written by William Inge
Directed by Jack Cummings III
Co-produced with NAATCO and Transport Group
May – June 2025
 
On a snowy night in Kansas, a diner can be an oasis, a prison, a place to hide, or a place to discover yourself. When a bus is forced to take shelter from stormy weather outside, a mismatched group of dreamers and cowboys, waitresses and outcasts find unexpected warmth in one another.  In William Inge’s 1955 classic, this great playwright of the Midwest gives voice to memorable characters who’ll linger like the perfect cup of diner coffee. This production of Bus Stop will be the first to feature an all-Asian American cast taking on this quintessential play of the Midwest.
 

THE REDISCOVERY READINGS

September 2024 – February 2025
 
In our 2024-25 season, CSC will shine a light on American women who were writing the classics of the early 20th Century but whose legacies have been muted by time. Join us for four play readings that will take you from 1900 through the 1950s, all leading up to CSC’s much-anticipated production of Wine in the Wilderness by Alice Childress, in which the women of the 1960s have their say!
 
The Arlekin in Residence productions are:
 

OUR CLASS

Written by Tadeusz Słobodzianek
Directed by Igor Golyak
September 12 – November 12, 2024
 
Our Class follows ten Polish classmates, five Jewish and five Catholic, growing up as playmates, friends, and neighbors, who then turn on one another with life and death consequences. The piece comes at a time when the world is facing an increase in antisemitism across the globe. Our Class was a featured production of the 2024 Under the Radar Festival, and has received multiple award nominations: a Drama League Award Nomination for Outstanding Revival of a Play; an Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination for Outstanding Featured Performer in an Off-Broadway Play (Gus Birney); and a Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Projection and Video Design (Eric Dunlap).  

Critics raved about the New York Premiere production of Our Class at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The Wall Street Journal cheered, “An epic and intimate drama…stark and uncompromising,” and the Boston Globe agreed, saying “this production is a dead-serious indictment of antisemitism and bigotry from a dizzyingly kaleidoscopic array of angles. “The entire cast is excellent!” The New York Times praised director Igor.
 

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Written by William Shakespeare
Adapted and directed by Igor Golyak
November 22 – December 22, 2024
 
This highly entertaining adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, directed by Ukrainian-born, Jewish theater artist Igor Golyak, is a wild ride that takes a startling and tragic turn, leaving the audience stunned and unable to stop the inevitable and unbearable consequences. Starring Richard Topol as Shylock with a stellar ensemble cast, this is Shakespeare for our time — a full force experience, urgent, deeply human, and full of questions.
 
Performance schedules, casting and full creative teams will be announced at a later date. Memberships for CSC’s new season are on sale now and include access to discounted tickets to the Arlekin productions in fall 2024. To learn more about joining CSC’s patron program, please visit https://www.classicstage.org/patron.