Williams Street Repertory Announces Thrilling Lineup for 2018 - 2019 Season

Williams Street Repertory, McHenry County's growing professional theater company, is excited to announce its upcoming season at Raue Center For The Arts. WSRep, which is a member of the Theatre Communications Group, Actors' Equity Association and the League of Chicago Theatres, is bringing spectacular American musicals, world premieres of riveting new plays, dramas, its developmental LAB Series and so much more to the stage in the 2018 - 2019 season!

The release of the season comes on the heels of Raue Center's 8.8 million dollar debt retirement and the announcement of two generous gifts. A generous donation from Loretta Rosenmayer has allowed Raue Center to upgrade and refurbish its rehearsal, classroom, and production spaces, while a multi-year gift from the Willow Springs Foundation is allowing the company to increase its educational programming and outreach through WSRep. The company is comprised of an incredible mix of veteran, journeyman and emerging artists.

"What a thrill it is to watch Williams Street Repertory continue its rise, as it becomes a necessary American theater," says WSRep Advisory Board Member and 2017 Tony Award-winning playwright, JT Rogers ("OSLO").

"It thrills me to start to focus on new works while increasing our educational outreach," says WSRep's Founding Artistic Director Richard Kuranda (Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Signature Theatre, Actors Studio, Circle in the Square). "We are devoted to making the most of these generous opportunities while increasing the number of people being served. Our goal is to attract nearly 30,000 audience members and students this year. To produce great works of are that remind us that we are connected, that we are capable of great love and joy."

WSRep will take this amazing opportunity to refine, refocus and become a leading source of theatre education in the region for the center. Raue Center attributes much of its growth to the in-house professional theatre company and also plans to refine WSRep in order to boost tourism for Crystal Lake and McHenry County.

WSRep's upcoming season kicks off on July 6, 2018 with a show pulled straight from the iconic songbook of Johnny Cash! Starring Kent M. Lewis (The Kimmel Center, Paramount Theatre, Goodman Theatre), "Ring of Fire" is a unique musical about love and faith, struggle and success, rowdiness and redemption, home and family. A multi-talented cast performs more than two-dozen classic hits including - "I Walk The Line," "A Boy Named Sue," "Folsom Prison Blues" and the title tune - to paint a musical portrait of The Man in Black.

"Ring of Fire" is directed by WSRep's Founding Artistic Director, Richard Kuranda (Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Signature Theatre, Actors Studio, Circle in the Square). This show promises to be a foot-stompin', crowd-pleasin' salute to a unique musical legend! Though he is never impersonated, Cash's remarkable life story is told through his music, climaxing in a concert that will both move and exhilarate. "Ring of Fire" runs select dates through August 12, 2018.

The upcoming season also features the world premiere of Deborah Yarchun's (2017 - 2018 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow) the incredible suspenseful romantic drama, "Bomber's Moon," opening on September 28, 2018. After a devastating discovery during the first week of the London Blitz, Katrin, an American socialite, is propelled onto the streets during the blackout and forced to seek shelter in the basement of an abandoned music shop. She is followed by Lloyd, a displaced, working class East Ender. Over four charged, complicated nights sheltering together in the music shop, Lloyd and Katrin become enmeshed in each other's lives. WSRep's "Bomber's Moon" runs select dates through October 21, 2018.

"There is nothing more useful to an emerging playwright than having their work produced," says Yarchun. "WSRep is bestowing that honor to me in the fall with the world premiere of my play, which was read at its LAB Series last summer. I couldn't be more thrilled."

WSRep's 2018 - 2019 season continues with "Emma! A Pop Musical," opening on March 29, 2019. From Director Robin Hughes (Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, Bailiwick, Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre), this pop musical follows Emma, a senior at Highbury Prep, who is certain she knows what's best for her classmates' love lives and is determined to find the perfect boyfriend for shy sophomore Harriet by the end of the school year.

But will Emma's relentless matchmaking get in the way of finding her own happiness? Based on Jane Austen's classic novel, this sparkling new musical features the hit songs on legendary girl groups and iconic female singers from The Supremes to Katy Perry. Girl power has never sounded so good! WSRep's "Emma! A Pop Musical" runs select dates through April 20, 2019.

The season will also include "The Elephant Man," opening on May 3, 2019. Starring WSRep Ensemble Member James Knight*+ (Writers Theatre, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey) and Maggie Kettering (Milwaukee Repertory Theater, CATF, Great Lakes Theater Fest), this drama is based on the life of John Merrick, who lived in London during the latter part of the nineteenth century. A horribly deformed young man - victim of rare skin and bone diseases - Merrick becomes the star freak attraction in traveling side shows.

Found abandoned and helpless, he is admitted to London's prestigious Whitechapel Hospital. Under the care of celebrated young physician Frederick Treves, Merrick is introduced to London society and slowly evolves from an object of pity to an urbane and witty favorite of the aristocracy and literati, only to be denied his ultimate dream - to be a man like any other. WSRep's "The Elephant Man" runs select dates through May 19, 2019.

WSRep rounds out the 2018 - 2019 season with "All Shook Up," opening on June 28, 2019. Directed by WSRep Ensemble Member, Mark R. Mahallak*+ (director of WSRep's award-winning "Sweeney Todd", Cutting Hall, Woodstock Opera House), this musical inspired by and featuring the songs of Elvis Presley is set in 1955. Into a square little town in a square little state rides a guitar-playing young man who changes everything and everyone he meets in this hip-swiveling, lip-curling musical fantasy that'll have audiences jumpin' out of their blue suede shoes with such classics as "Heartbreak Hotel," "Jailhouse Rock" and "Don't Be Cruel." The New York Times describes the musical as "A Hunk, a Hunk of Burnin' Nostalgia." WSRep's "All Shook Up" runs select dates through August 4, 2019.

For more information or to purchase tickets to WSRep's 2018 - 2019 season, please visit wsrep.org. Tickets start at $35.50. Tickets are now available to RaueNOW members and will go on sale to the public at 12 p.m. on May 3, 2018. Tickets may be purchased online at wsrep.org, rauecenter.org, or via the Box Office at 815.356.9212 or 26 N. Williams Street in downtown Crystal Lake.

To post a comment, you must register and login.