DRIVING MISS DAISY, ANYONE CAN WHISTLE and More Announced in Third Avenue Playhouse 2020 Season

The Third Avenue Playhouse, located in historic downtown Sturgeon Bay, announces its lineup of six plays for the upcoming 2020 season. The plays include an early career work from playwright David Mamet, a 1964 musical by the legendary composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, a multi-award winning classic about the unlikely friendship between an elderly lady and her driver, the story of an unconventional advice columnist, and a farcical take on the making of Gone With The Wind.

Returning to the TAP stage will be Doug Mancheski (Gray's Anatomy, Shooting Star), Karen Moeller (The Dig), Dan Klarer (Every Brilliant Thing, Isaac's Eye), and Ryan Schabach (The 39 Steps, The Glass Menagerie). Full Casting will be announced at a later date.

C. Michael Wright of the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre will be TAP's 2020 Guest Director, along with TAP's co-artistic directors Robert Boles and James Valcq.

Season tickets for TAP's 2020 season are now on sale at the TAP Box Office or online at ThirdAvenuePlayhouse.com

A LIFE IN THE THEATRE

By David Mamet
Directed by Robert Boles

In A Life in the Theatre, audiences are introduced to Robert (played by Doug Mancheski), an aging actor, intent on teaching John, a young up and comer, the tricks and truths of the trade. As they spar and critique each other's performances, the audience becomes a fly on the dressing room wall, eavesdropping on the actors' conversations, and getting a from-the-wings look at snips of their performances.

A comedy about the artifice of acting. It is also about the artifice of living. An evening of pure theatre. - The New York Times

A comic masterpiece. - New York Daily News

David Mamet has been described as the greatest living American playwright of his generation and the quintessential American writer for his work as author, essayist, playwright and screenwriter. His works are known for their clever and terse dialogue and have earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross and Oscar nominations for House of Games as well as The Spanish Prisoner, Wag the Dog, and The Verdict.

TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS

Adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos
Based on the best-selling book by Cheryl Strayed
Directed by James Valcq

Tiny Beautiful Things explores Cheryl Strayed's time as the anonymous advice columnist 'Dear Sugar'. While navigating her readers' questions and pleas for advice, Strayed weaves together her own personal experiences and finds the courage to create a column full of light, laughter, and humanity. Strayed used empathy and her personal experiences to help those seeking guidance for obstacles both large and small. Adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) Tiny Beautiful Things is a play about reaching when you're stuck, healing when you're broken, and finding the courage to take on the questions which have no answers.

Provocative, poignant and rich. - New York Daily News
Heart-tugging and emotionally rewarding. - The Huffington Post

Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir Wild, the New York Times bestsellers Tiny Beautiful Things and Brave Enough, and the novel Torch. Wild was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as her first selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. Strayed's books have been translated into nearly forty languages around the world and have been adapted for both the screen and the stage.

Nia Vardalos wrote and starred in My Big Fat Greek Wedding which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and an Independent Spirit Award and People's Choice Award. Stage credits include originating the role of Sugar in The Public Theater's Tiny Beautiful Things, directed by Thomas Kail.

DRIVING MISS DAISY

By Alfred Uhry
Directed by C. Michael Wright

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the play is a warm-hearted, humorous and affecting study of the unlikely relationship between an aging, crotchety white Southern lady, and a proud, soft-spoken African-American man. What begins as a troubled and hostile pairing, soon blossoms into a profound, life-altering friendship that transcends all the societal boundaries placed between them. From its landmark Off-Broadway production in 1987 to the remarkable success of the Oscar-winning film version with Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman (four Academy Awards, including Best Picture), Driving Miss Daisy has become one of the most beloved American stories of the late twentieth century.

Alfred Uhry is distinguished as the only American playwright to have won a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award and two Tony Awards. His first play, "Driving Miss Daisy," opened Off Broadway in 1987 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Other works include: "The Light Night of Ballyhoo" (Tony Award), "Parade" (Tony Award), "Without Walls" (starring Laurence Fishburne), "Edgardo Mine" (at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis), and the book for the Broadway musical "LoveMusik" (Drama Desk nomination).

ANYONE CAN WHISTLE

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Arthur Laurents
Directed and Choreographed by James Valcq

A colorful, controversial, and corrupt politician will do anything to get re-elected in this wacky, smart, zany musical satire. Anyone Can Whistle is a carnival-like celebration of nonconformity offering a poignant message about individuality and freedom - but not before aiming hilariously stinging barbs at politics, piety, and anything else that stands in its way! It has taken half a century - and the and the ever growing popularity of programs hosted by Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert - for absurdist social commentary to catch up with this 1964 trailblazer. Sondheim's dazzling, melodic Broadway-style score overflows with youthful energy and showstopping songs. TAP offers a rare opportunity to see this legendary musical mirthquake sing and dance its way into your funny bone and your heart.

Stephen Sondheim is mainly known for his stage works, which include "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum", "Company", "Follies", "Sweeney Todd" and "A Little Night Music". He wrote the lyrics for the classic musicals "West Side Story" and "Gypsy". Sondheim, who will turn 90 years old next March, is working on a new musical based on the life and work of surrealist film maker Luis Buneul. Revivals of "Company" and "West Side Story" will be presented on Broadway during the 2019-2020 season.

Arthur Laurents' remarkable career as playwright, director and screen writer spanned seven decades. His numerous Broadway credits include the books for the musicals West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965) - all four of these collaborations with Stephen Sondheim - and Hallelujah, Baby! (1967), which won a Tony Award for Best Musical. Among his countless plays are Home of the Brave (1945) and The Time of the Cuckoo (1952 As a stage director he won a Tony Award for the original Broadway production of La Cage aux Folles (1983) and enjoyed enormous success with revivals of Gypsy (1974 - a Drama Desk Award -, 1989, 2008) and West Side Story (2009).

MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS

By Ron Hutchinson
Directed by Robert Boles

1939 Hollywood is abuzz. Legendary producer David O. Selznick has shut down production of his new epic, Gone with the Wind. The screenplay just doesn't work. So what's an all-powerful movie mogul to do? While fending off the film's stars, gossip columnists and his own father-in-law, Selznick sends a car for famed screenwriter Ben Hecht (Dan Klarer) and pulls formidable director Victor Fleming (Ryan Schabach) from the set of The Wizard of Oz. Summoning both to his office, he locks the doors, closes the shades, and on a diet of bananas and peanuts. Completing this job may take everything these men have to give! Take a fun, farcical look at the behind-the-scene birth of one of the most beloved films of all time.

Ron Hutchinson's theatre work includes RAT IN THE SKULL (revival, Duke of York's Theatre 1995); an adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's FLIGHT at The National Theatre, 1997; BURNING ISSUES, Hampstead Theatre Club, 1999; BEAU!, Theatre Royal, Bath, national tour and Haymarket, Leicester Square, 2001; LAGS, national tours 2002-03; BELIEVERS, for Playbox Young People's Theatre, 2003; HEAD/CASE, Royal Shakespeare Company 2004; MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS, Goodman Theatre, Chicago, 2004 and Manhattan Theatre Club, 2005. Mr. Hutchinson lives in Los Angeles, where he is a writer/producer for features and television. Winner of an Emmy for Ben Kingsley's "Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story," 1989, his projects also include "Traffic," nominated for three Emmys in 2004, and rewrites on Fox Pictures' remake of "Flight of the Phoenix," also 2005.

Season subscriptions and individual tickets are now available for purchase. Online at www.ThirdAvenuePlayhouse.com, over the phone at 920-743-1760, or in person at 235 North 3rd Avenue, Sturgeon Bay, WI.

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