McNally, Shear, Wong, Wright & Beane Lend Talents to La Jolla's 2009/2010 Season

La Jolla Playhouse's Artistic Director Christopher Ashley has announced the six productions in the 2009/2010 season.

"So much of the joy of running a theatre comes from the ability to invite world-class artists into your home - and allowing them to make it their home as well," says Ashley. "At La Jolla Playhouse, our goal is to serve as an artistic home where the most exciting theatre artists in the country are given the resources to create works that drive them, and our 2009/2010 season welcomes some of the best to San Diego."

Beginning in summer 2009, some of the most prominent artists working in theatre today are bringing their wisdom, creativity and craft to the Playhouse stages, including: a West Coast premiere drama from Terrence McNally (Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class), a world premiere La Jolla Playhouse commission by Claudia Shear (Dirty Blonde, Blown Sideways Through Life), a new musical Page To Stage workshop production based on a Coen Brothers film, a revival starring Tony Award-winner B.D. Wong (M. Butterfly, Law & Order: SVU), a world premiere La Jolla Playhouse commission from Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife, Quills) and a world premiere musical comedy by Douglas Carter Beane (Xanadu, The Little Dog Laughed).

The season begins in early summer with four-time Tony Award-winner Terrence McNally's Unusual Acts of Devotion in the Mandell Weiss Theatre. A valentine to the indomitable human - but not always humane - spirit, this honest and compassionate work focuses on five Greenwich Village neighbors, each at a crucial crossroads in their lives.

Continuing its commitment to developing exciting new work, the Playhouse will present a commission by a true force of nature, Claudia Shear, in the Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre in June 2009. Christopher Ashley will direct the two-time Tony Award nominee in the world premiere of her play, Restoration, which tracks the funny and moving self-discovery of an art restorer hired to prepare Michelangelo's David for its 500th birthday.

The first musical of the season will be a laugh-packed summer event for the whole family, a Page To Stage workshop production of The Hudsucker Proxy in the Mandell Weiss Theatre. Based on the delightfully skewed film by the Coen Brothers, The Hudsucker Proxy returns audiences to the booming 1920s, where a naive new CEO attempts to throw the business world for a loop.

In summer 2009, Tony Award-winning actor B.D. Wong comes to La Jolla in Herringbone, a solo play with music in which a young musical wunderkind finds the road to fame and fortune contains an unplanned detour: possession by a demonic spirit. Wong embodies ten separate characters in this remarkable performance.

This fall, Doug Wright, the creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play I Am My Own Wife, which inaugurated the Playhouse's Page To Stage new play development program, returns to the Playhouse with a world premiere commission. The Playhouse is honored to welcome Wright back with his blistering contemporary adaptation of August Strindberg's Creditors, playing in the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre in September 2009.

November 2009 will see the return of Tony Award-nominated Xanadu writer Douglas Carter Beane with his world premiere musical comedy The Big Time in the Mandell Weiss Theatre. A wickedly funny satire, The Big Time follows two ambitious lounge singers who, in a twist of fate, become the world's only hope for salvation.

In addition to the shows in the subscription series, the 2009/2010 season marks the third year of THE EDGE, the La Jolla Playhouse signature program that brings audiences the most cutting-edge, ambitious, provocative theatre being performed today. Supported by the Irvine Foundation, THE EDGE showcases artists who experiment with genre, structure, language and design. Still to be announced are two productions in THE EDGE series.

Subscription prices range from $131 to $374 and are now available by calling (858) 550-1010 or by visiting lajollaplayhouse.org. Single tickets for the 2009/2010 season go on sale in spring 2009 and range from $30 to $100.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.