Southern Rep Theatre Announces Its 2019-2020 Mainstage Season

Southern Rep Theatre (Producing Artistic Director Aimée Hayes) has announced plans for the 2019-20 Mainstage Season and the future of Southern Rep, now located in its permanent home at 2541 Bayou Road, New Orleans. The 2019-20 Mainstage Season, its 33rd, will feature Regional Premieres of AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY by Tracy Letts, NATIVE GARDENS by Karen Zacarías, and Bertolt Brecht's MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, translated by Ntozake Shange. In addition, back by popular demand and updated for the holiday season will be MANDATORY MERRIMENT (PART DEUX): A NEW ORLEANS HOLIDAY MUSICAL created by Leslie Castay and Ian Hoch. The season will also feature the NNPN (National New Play Network) Rolling World Premiere of REYKJAVIKby Steve Yockey (in partnership with the Saints & Sinners Literary Festival), and the home-grown World Premiere of CHEMIN DU BAYOU by local New Orleans playwright Pamela Davis-Noland.

"We wanted to take a moment to explore what it's like to reconnect to joy in a time like now that can often feel so grim," said Southern Rep Producing Artistic Director Aimée Hayes. "This season is filled with eclectic and remarkably funny plays, and even our dramas disarm with humor while digging into the darker and deeper emotional wells of our humanity. Focusing on the different kinds of joy we experience as humans-whether it be through gardening, food, drink, making love, dancing, romance or family-is exactly the kind of theatre we want to make this season."

All productions will be held at Southern Rep's permanent home at 2541 Bayou Road, New Orleans in the former St. Rose de Lima church building, part of the Rose Collaborative development project led by Alembic Community Development and Rose CDC.

"Furthermore," Hayes said, "one of the best things about making theatre in New Orleans is that although we are geographically removed, our digital world also puts us virtually right next door. It doesn't matter where you start the art anymore. So, if you've got to do it somewhere, New Orleans is the place to do it. We have a very savvy theatre community, a deep well of technicians, artists, and makers that can support any kind of process that might want to originate here. And, now that Southern Rep has a beautiful new permanent home in the historic former St. Rose de Lima church, we're searching both locally and nationwide to find new works that can find a home here, and we're seeking to create a hub for artists and audiences locally and nationwide in New Orleans."

For the first time, Southern Rep is offering a Six-Play Mainstage and is once again offering Pick-Five and Pick-Four subscription options, with early-bird pricing available through May 31, 2019 for the best possible discount over single-ticket prices. In addition to getting the best prices for a full season of theatre, subscribers enjoy reserved seats, fee-free exchange privileges, and refreshments at performances. New for 2019-20 is an All Access Pass: The Whole Shebang. For the price of $500, pass holders enjoy tickets to all six Mainstage shows, a DEBAUCHERY! season pass, a Friends Circle membership, unlimited access to Southern Rep-produced Lagniappe programming, reserved seats-including at Lagniappe performances-and unlimited free exchanges, even between different plays (a Whole Shebang exclusive!).

Returning for the 2019-20 season is an enhanced membership level: the Friends Circle. For an add-on membership fee of $35, members of the Friends Circle enjoy five free drinks, exclusive swag, program listing, and a certificate of honor.

Subscriptions and Friends Circle memberships are on sale now at southernrep.com or 504-522-6545.

Announcing the Southern Rep Theatre 2019-20 Season - all dates, titles, and personnel are subject to change.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

By Tracy Letts

Directed by Jason Kirkpatrick

September 11 - October 6, 2019

Regional Premiere

A vanished father. A pill-popping mother. Three sisters harboring shady little secrets. When the large Weston family unexpectedly reunites after Dad disappears, their Oklahoman family homestead explodes in a maelstrom of repressed truths and unsettling secrets. Mix in Violet, the drugged-up, scathingly acidic matriarch, and you've got a major play that unflinchingly-and uproariously-exposes the dark side of the Midwestern American family.

Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award.

"Fiercely funny and bitingly sad ... [a] turbo-charged tragicomedy" - The New York Times

"Ferociously entertaining" - Variety

NATIVE GARDENS

By Karen Zacarías

Directed by Helen Jaksch

October 30 - November 17, 2019

Regional Premiere

You can't choose your neighbors. In this brilliant new comedy, cultures and gardens clash, turning well-intentioned neighbors into feuding enemies. Pablo, a rising attorney, and doctoral candidate Tania, his very pregnant wife, have just purchased a home next to Frank and Virginia, a well-established D.C. couple with a prize-worthy English garden. But an impending barbeque for Pablo's colleagues and a delicate disagreement over a long-standing fence line soon spirals into an all-out border dispute, exposing both couples' notions of race, taste, class, and privilege.

"A lighthearted comedy with some heavier threads woven through for just the right amount of heft." - Broadway World

MANDATORY MERRIMENT (PART DEUX): A NEW ORLEANS HOLIDAY MUSICAL

Created by Leslie Castay and Ian Hoch

Book by Ian Hoch

Directed by Leslie Castay

December 4 - 29, 2019

World Premiere 2.0

Back by popular demand with a revamp for a new year! This festive and raucous musical puts traditional holiday plays on notice! When circumstances beyond their control strand six strangers together at Benny's Tavern in the French Quarter just two days before Christmas, they're forced to find new ways to celebrate the season. Don't miss Leslie Castay and Ian Hoch's irreverent evening of song, comedy, and holiday cocktails, featuring an all-star cast of your favorite New Orleans entertainers.

"Castay and Hoch have created the funniest holiday show we are likely to see on local stages this Christmas Season. Don't miss it!" - The Times-Picayune, 2018

MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN

By Bertolt Brecht

Translated by Ntozake Shange

Directed by Chivas Michael

Presented by the Southern Rep Theatre Acting Company

January 22 - February 2, 2020

Regional Premiere

Poet-Playwright Ntozake Shange (FOR COLORED GIRLS) adapted Bertolt Brecht's classic drama in 1980, transposing the action from Europe during the Thirty Years War to the American Southwest after the Civil War. Mother Courage struggles to survive the war by profiting from it but ends up paying the ultimate cost.

The play, which earned Shange an Obie Award, has never been published and has rarely been performed since its premiere in 1980. Now pulled from the archives at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library for this production, Shange's adaptation puts a uniquely American spin on Brecht's classic drama that forces us to ask how, in the darkest of times, do we survive with our humanity intact?

REYKJAVIK

By Steve Yockey

Directed by Aimée Hayes

March 18 - April 5, 2020

In Partnership with the Saints & Sinners Literary Festival, a project of the Tennessee Williams / New Orleans Literary Festival

NNPN (National New Play Network) Rolling World Premiere

REYKJAVIK is a series of interconnected vignettes featuring tourists mixing with the (sometimes supernatural) Icelandic locals. We eavesdrop on the private lives of lovers, hospitality workers, party goers, and even a really handsome bird or two. This play is a glimpse into a magical, dark, and sometimes violent world where everyone hopes to find love and joy beneath the glow of the Northern Lights.

CHEMIN DU BAYOU

By Pamela Davis-Noland

Directed by Helen Jaksch

May 13 - 31, 2020

World Premiere

In New Orleans playwright Pamela Davis-Noland's bold new imagining, the story of Bayou Road stretches over 1000 years, illuminating the stories of the extraordinary peoples-famous or forgotten, real or imagined-who made their way along the old high ground from the Mississippi River toward Lake Pontchartrain, bringing news, plying wares, and settling into remarkably diverse communities along the ridge. This Southern Rep Theatre commission tells the story of New Orleans in miniature, where many cultures meet, song and dance are integral to any tale told, and geography is inextricable from history. CHEMIN DU BAYOU seeks to capture that story through an exciting mix of storytelling, song, and dance, developed out of historical research and present-day oral histories from current and former residents, retailers, and parishioners of St. Rose de Lima. A theatrical celebration about New Orleans not to be missed!

About 2019-20 Memberships

Season tickets are now available by purchasing a 2019-20 subscription online or by calling the box office at 504-522-6545. Prices increase June 1. All purchases are subject to box office fees, and all dates, venues, and details are subject to change. Visitwww.southernrep.com for the most current pricing and schedule information, as well as a full list of member benefits.

Through May 31, 2019, Six-Play subscriptions are available for $200 / $180 (seniors). The new Pick-Five memberships, which provide entry to five 2019-20 Mainstage performances of the subscriber's choice are available for $170 / $150 (seniors). Pick-Four memberships are available for $140 / $120 (seniors). Prices increase on June 1, 2019.

Regular single tickets (not yet on sale) start at $40, subject to increase. Southern Rep Theatre offers comprehensive single-ticket discounts for seniors, students, military families, young professionals, teachers, and arts professionals. Visit www.southernrep.com for more information.

Southern Rep Theatre also presents an array of events and programming on The Lagniappe Stage. A Lagniappe Stage Season pass is available for $120 with admission to one Lagniappe Stage event per month. New Orleans' only live, ongoing soap opera, DEBAUCHERY! will be back for a new season, with an all new season pass available for $100 (for all performances from July 2019 - June 2020). More information on Lagniappe Stage events can be found atwww.southernrep.com.

For more information on Southern Rep Theatre, visit www.southernrep.com.

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