Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre 2023-2024 Season to Feature Trio of Stephen Sondheim Classics & More

Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre has announced its 2023-2024 season which will include a trio of Stephen Sondheim classics including Assassins, Sondheim Tribute Revue, A Little Night Music, along with a new musical in development, Baked! The Musical, celebrating Sondheim's lifelong encouragement of emerging writers and Theo's commitment to new works.

The 2023-2024 season will launch in September with a developmental production of Baked! The Musical, written by Jord Liu and Deepak Kumar. This contemporary all-new, all-Asian musical, centers habitual overachiever Jane Huang as she and her best friends build the greatest drug empire ever run by high schoolers to help pay for her college tuition. Baked! has been developed at the Chicago Musical Theatre Festival, FaultLine Theatre in San Francisco, and was a part of the 34th Annual NAMT Festival. Theo's production will be directed by recent Northwestern University graduate Grace Dolezal-Ng.

"I've been watching Baked! develop since its debut at the Chicago Musical Theatre Festival in 2020," says Pazdernik. "It is a clever, funny, and poignant piece of musical theatre and I'm really proud that Theo can have a hand in its journey. Additionally, Sondheim himself was such a fervent champion of others' work, so we knew that supporting a new piece had to be part of our season celebrating him."

Kicking off the Sondheim spectacular will be the multiple Tony Award-winning, Assassins, running October 27-December 17, 2023, under the direction of Daryl Brooks, 3-time Jeff Award nominee and Producing Director at Black Ensemble Theatre. Artistic Director Fred Anzevino will be at the helm of the Sondheim Tribute Revue playing March 8-April 28, 2024, celebrating the return of Theo's acclaimed revue style creations with this one-of-a-kind production. Closing the season will be the witty and heartbreaking A Little Night Music, under the direction of Brenda Didier who is returning to Theo for the first time in 5 years.

"Stephen Sondheim is one of the greatest creators of musicals of all-time and his marriage of music and lyrics is true theatrical poetry," says Anzevino. "While people often think grandeur with Sondheim, the power of his work is in the nuance of his characters. Digging into this kind of intimacy in the storytelling is really a perfect match for how we like to make theatre here at Theo."

Subscriptions are available beginning at noon today, April 19, with packages ranging from $99-$295 per person. Theo is also announcing a new Flex Pass which offers four general admission tickets good for any performance in the 2023-2024 season. Subscriptions can be purchased online at theo-u.com or via phone at 773-939-4101. Box office hours are Wednesday-Sunday 12 p.m.-5 p.m. Theo will continue its dinner offerings with custom menus for each show in partnership with a local Evanston restaurant. Single tickets will be released August 2, 2023 for the entire season.

2023-2024 Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre Season

BAKED! THE MUSICAL

September 7-October 8, 2023

Performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 6:00pm

Book, Music, Lyrics by Jord Liu and Deepak Kumar

Directed by Grace Dolezal-Ng

Baked! is an all-new, all-Asian musical about failure, family, and weed. When she doesn't receive the scholarship for her dream school, habitual overachiever Jane Huang, with the help of her best friend, builds the greatest drug empire ever run by high schoolers. Kept in the dark are Jane's parents, whose inability to cope with their daughter leaving for college while maintaining a profit at their struggling Chinese bakery, drives them to pry and potentially unravel Jane's web of lies. Baked! The Musical is a reflection on failure, self-worth, and the question of what we owe the people we love.

ASSASSINS

October 27-December 17, 2023

Previews October 27-November 5, 2023 (Fridays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 6:00pm)

Regular Run November 9-December 17, 2023 (Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 6:00pm)

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
Assassins is based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr.
Orchestrations by Michael Starobin
Directed by Daryl Brooks

A multiple Tony Award-winning theatrical tour-de-force, Assassins lays bare the lives of nine individuals who assassinated or tried to assassinate the President of the United States, exploring the dark side of the American experience. From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, writers Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman bend the rules of time and space, taking us on a nightmarish roller coaster ride in which figures from different historical periods meet, interact, and inspire each other to harrowing acts in the name of the American Dream.

Assassins is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI.

Playwrights Horizons, Inc. - New York City produced ASSASSINS Off-Broadway in 1990

SONDHEIM TRIBUTE REVUE

March 8-April 28, 2024
Previews March 8-March 17, 2024 (Fridays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 6:00pm)

Regular Run March 21-April 28, 2024 (Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 6:00pm)

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Directed by Fred Anzevino

Stephen Sondheim is widely acknowledged as the most innovative, most influential, and most important composer and lyricist in modern Broadway history. For more than 50 years, he set an unsurpassed standard of brilliance and artistic integrity in musical theatre. In the tradition of Theo's acclaimed cabaret revues, and with special permission from Music Theatre International, Artistic Director Fred Anzevino will helm a one-of-a-kind tribute evening, created especially for our audiences-this production will never be seen again anywhere else!

Licensed by special arrangement with Music Theatre International with the permission of The Estate of Stephen Sondheim.

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC

May 24-July 14, 2024
Previews May 24-June 1, 2024 (Fridays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 6:00pm)

Regular Run June 6-July 14, 2024 (Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 6:00pm)

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by Hugh Wheeler

Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick

Suggested by a Film by Ingmar Bergman

Originally Produced and Directed on Broadway by Harold Prince

Directed & Choreographed by Brenda Didier

Adapted from the celebrated Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, A Little Night Music follows actress Desirée Armfeldt, the affairs she is entangled in, and the men who love her. When everyone gathers at the country estate of her mother, new romances and second chances bloom in surprising ways. Full of hilariously witty and heartbreakingly moving moments of adoration, regret and desire, this comedy for adults is most noted for introducing the standard "Send in the Clowns."

A Little Night Music is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI.

ABOUT THEO UBIQUE

Theo was founded in 1997 by Artistic Director Fred Anzevino. Productions were first staged at the Heartland Studio Theatre, and from 2004 to May 2018, at No Exit Café, where the company began focusing on musicals and revues, reigniting the cabaret theatre trend in Chicago. The company moved to the Howard Street Theatre, a venue owned and developed for Theo by the City of Evanston, in fall of 2018. Theo has produced more than 60 shows and won 68 Jeff Awards, having received 173 nominations. Learn more at www.theo-u.com

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