Clarksville's Roxy Regional Theatre Announces 33rd Season Offerings

In 1983 an abandoned movie house was saved from the wrecking ball, and on November 3, what has become the cornerstone of arts and entertainment in Clarksville-Montgomery County opened to a grand ovation. Now in 2015, the Roxy Regional Theatre is poised to celebrate 33 years of providing an educational and artistic outlet for the Southeast, beginning with the first production of their 33rd year: Lionel Bart's Oliver!

Featuring world premieres, red-hot musicals, theatre standards and wide-ranging children's programming, the Roxy Regional Theatre's 2015-2016 mainstage season will open September 25 with Charles Dickens' classic tale of the boy who asked for more, Lionel Bart's Oliver!

Although the mainstage will be dark for the first few weeks in September, patrons will be able to gain access to the Roxy's lobby at the end of August for the latest "On The Terrazzo" series offering - the intimate '20s musical revue, Speakeasy - by using the password "Joe sent me."

While orphans and pickpockets will occupy the stage on September evenings, big dogs and little dogs and blue dogs and red dogs will take over by day as school-aged audiences experience P.D. Eastman's classic children's book brought to life in Go, Dog, Go!

October's lineup includes the rock musical about a love triangle gone wrong, Murder Ballad, presented in theotherspace, the 50-seat black-box theatre located upstairs at the Roxy; Robert Louis Stevenson's cautionary tale of man's dual nature, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; and the return for the fourth year of Richard O'Brien's cult favorite The Rocky Horror Show.

Wrapping up 2015 are Jonathan Tolins' comedy Buyer & Cellar in theotherspace; Marsha Norman's and Lucy Simon's musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved children's classic, The Secret Garden; and the Roxy's annual holiday tradition, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

In the new year, the Roxy's 14th annual presentation of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues will play in theotherspace, while Little Red Riding Hood & Friends will bring classic children's stories "The Three Little Pigs," "Rumpelstiltskin," "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" and, of course, "Little Red Riding Hood" to the mainstage.

February draws on inspiration from Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington and other jazz and blues icons in the hot and torchy Tony-nominated musical revue Blues in the Night and pays tribute to civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Katori Hall's The Mountaintop.

The spring lineup highlights everyone's favorite feline in Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat; the crime of the century in theotherspace's Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story; the world premiere of Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons; and the Roxy's 31st annual Shakespeare offering, The Taming of the Shrew.

At the end of April, the Roxy will boldly take the American musical where it has never gone before with the energy-fueled rock opera of youthful disillusion Green Day's American Idiot, followed by Jon Marans' award-winning, landmark play The Temperamentals in theotherspace

The Roxy Regional School of the Arts will make everyone a believer in May with their irreverently fun show for the entire family, featuring everyone's favorite ogre, Shrek the Musical Jr.

The summer season kicks off on the mainstage with Ken Davenport's interactive musical The Awesome '80s Prom, where audiences dance along to '80s hits and choose the Prom King and Queen of the night; while local attorney Beverly Fisher's deeply moving story about an eleven-year-old girl caught in the midst of the Civil War, Grace Among the Leavings, plays in theotherspace.

Capping off the season with rock 'n' roll hits of the '50s, including "Stand by Me," "Jailhouse Rock," "Love Potion #9" and more, is Smokey Joe's Cafe: The Songs of Leiber and Stoller.

Discounted ticketing packages are available now through August 28 for theotherspace, mainstage and youth productions, as well as for the season in its entirety. For further details, including performance dates and ticket information, visit www.roxyregionaltheatre.org or call the box office at (931) 645-7699 during regular box office hours (9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday, and one hour prior to curtain).

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