The Classics Theatre Project Announces 2022 Season

The Classics Theatre Project, under the artistic direction of Joey Folsom, has curated a 2022 season of four Dynamic Productions fitting the company's mission to bring the classics to audiences in accessible and relevant ways. Spanning countries of origin, regions of America, and various eras, the works highlight the universality of the human condition and the sameness of the issues in human relationships that, regardless of time and place, endear a work as a classic. Each was immediately relevant when written, and now, when viewed by the lens of the passage of time, gains a new complexity of relevance to be discovered. As stand-alones, the productions all start from and embody this concept fully, but have been programmed to be enjoyed as a season to enable audiences to deep dive and explore their own perspectives, over the course of the content presented, while perhaps even changing a few along the way.

The Classics Theatre Project's 2022 Season runs from March-November. It will include three productions that span the styles of realist drama, tragi-comedy, and allegory, all performed at the Margo Jones Theatre in Fair Park and one American masterpiece, mounted in Addison, that will see the return to the stage of a patriarch of Dallas theatre, Terry Martin, taking on the role of one of the most famous patriarchs in drama, Big Daddy, in Tennessee Williams' CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. This benchmark classic will be directed by a mainstay of classic work in the region, Susan Sargeant.

The Season:

LOOK BACK IN ANGER

Written by John Osborne
Directed by Jackie Kemp
Fridays and Saturdays, March 18 - April 9
The Margo Jones Theatre, Fair Park

John Osborne's realist cornerstone profiles the sorrows, despondency, and anger of the working class. Written in 1956, the unexpected hit the stage in the previously undepicted 20-30-year-olds of England, who did not participate in World War II and who found its aftermath lacking in promise. Encapsulating an entire generation who viewed revered and established institutions with disdain, it even coined their popular description as "angry young men'', landing it on many lists of the best plays of the 20th century. This production is a no-holds-barred staging of this intense kitchen sink drama, starring Joey Folsom as its protagonist, Jimmy Porter. By focusing on Jimmy's relationships with his wife and their friends, John Osborne examines the tinderbox of a life that is created by a sense of hopelessness for what the future holds.

SEX, GUNS, AND VODKA

Anton Chekhov's untitled, first play as adapted by Joey Folsom
Directed by Joey Folsom
Fridays and Saturdays, May 20-June 11
The Margo Jones Theatre, Fair Park

In a work that remained untitled and went undiscovered until 1923, two decades after his death, Anton Chekhov turns a farcical eye to a Russian retelling of the story of Don Juan. Although written while he was still a medical student, prior to becoming a master dramatist, the Chekhovian markings of wit, rich characterizations and his thematic staples are aptly present in this tale of a new to town married schoolmaster and the bored provincial women who vie for his affection. It wouldn't be Chekhov without parties, suicide attempts, and affairs, blended together in a tragi-comedy, and this new, high energy adaptation has them all as it comically skewers the hypocrisy and frivolity of provincial life while exposing the passions and frailties of human nature.

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

by Tennessee Williams
Starring Terry Martin as Big Daddy
Directed by Susan Sargeant
Produced by Bren Rapp and Joey Folsom
Sponsored by Mikey Abrams of Texas Pride Realty Group, and The Spiritual Artist Podcast and Book
August 26-September 11
The Karol Omlor Studio Theatre at The Addison Conference and Theatre Centre

A benchmark of the modern American canon, the Pulitzer Prize winner for drama in 1955, and the play the legendary Tennessee Williams considered his favorite of his works, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF is a study in mendacity. This southern telling of a family in crisis brings to the stage some of the most iconic characters in American theatre while the work, rich in symbolism, examines the themes of truth, lies, sexual desire, repression, and decay against a backdrop of familial relationships, social mores, and mortality. With a romanticism rooted in reality, the story unfolds on a night in the Mississippi Delta, as the Pollitt family gathers to celebrate the birthday of its aging and ailing patriarch, Big Daddy. His two sons vie for an inheritance with former football hero, Brick, also contending with his wife's, Maggie-the-Cat's, unbridled sexuality and the nature of his own, in a relationship burdened by repressed love.

DUTCHMAN

Written by Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)
Directed by Dennis Raveneau
Fridays and Saturdays, November 11-November 26
The Margo Jones Theatre, Fair Park

This 1964 Obie Award Winner for Best Off-Broadway Play is an explosive, allegorical, one act drama written by poet Amiri Baraka (who was then writing under his birth name, LeRoi Jones). It uses the device of a single, highly stylized and symbolic encounter to demonstrate the tensions present between Black and white Americans during the tumultuous 1960s and to illustrate the political, societal, and psychological conflicts facing Black men in America. Taking place on a New York City subway car, the play is a two-character confrontation that begins playfully and flirtatiously between Clay, a young, middle-class, Black man and Lula, a white woman, who approaches him. Their conversation builds rapidly in suspense and symbolic resonance until it becomes something else entirely, ultimately ending fatally.

Season Tickets: Season ticket packages are now on sale at theclassicstheatreproject.com offering accessible pricing through exceptional value, with up to 30% off when compared to single show pricing.

Season Auditions: The deadline for video submissions for The Classics Theatre Project's virtual General Season Auditions has been extended until February 18. Information can be found at theclassicstheatreproject.com/auditions.

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