CCAE Theatricals Announces Inaugural Main Stage Season

CCAE Theatricals, the new in-house theatrical arm of the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, has announced its 2021/22 season, featuring 4 Main Stage musicals and a developmental reading.

"After a year exploring what the Center can do during a global pandemic, (producing on streaming platforms, multiple drive-in productions, and an outdoor cabaret series) we are thrilled to announce a return to in-door performances and our inaugural main stage season," said CCAE Theatricals' Managing Producer Jordan Beck. "Our first season will feature five award-winning productions including one world premiere, a developmental reading of a movie turned musical, and two fully staged concerts with a live symphony!"

"As a theater, we've been able to do a lot in this past upside-down year. The same commitment which helped us to inspire thousands of San Diegans by producing live entertainment while our stages were dark will enable us to do more innovative, equitable, and uplifting work as we come together in-person for our 2021/22 season," said J. Scott Lapp, Artistic Director of Theatrical Productions. "After the past year of pivoting with speed, agility, and yes, humor, it is thrilling to be announcing our plans for the inaugural season in Escondido."

"When building our first season for audiences at the CCAE, we decided on a theme of Extraordinary Places. Extraordinary Circumstances. After the past 16 months, with various stay-at-home orders, limited travel and the toll this virus has taken on our entire community (and beyond), I knew it was important to present stories that transported and uplifted the human condition," said Lapp. "So we searched for pieces that would allow our audiences to travel to a foreign country, to leave the neighborhood and experience culture and extraordinary moments from the comfort and safety of our beautiful theaters at The Center. We look forward to welcoming you back indoors for our 2021/22 season!"

The season will open with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (November 5-7, 2021) which is one of the world's most beloved family musicals. Released as a concept album in 1969, this multi award winning show has been performed hundreds of thousands of times including multiple runs in the West End and on Broadway, international tours and productions in over 80 countries! The original Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice collaboration, features songs that have gone on to become pop and musical theater standards, including Any Dream Will Do, Close Every Door To Me and Go, Go, Go, Joseph. The concert staging will be directed by Artistic Director, J. Scott Lapp with musical direction by JD Dumas and choreography by Jill Gorrie.

Next up will be the Tony Award-winning musical Once (April 11 - May 1, 2022). Once is the smash-hit, award-winning show about the power of music and following your dreams, wherever they may take you. On the streets of Dublin, an Irish musician and a Czech immigrant are drawn together by their shared love of music. Over the course of one fateful week, an unexpected friendship and collaboration quickly evolves into a powerful but complicated love story, underscored by emotionally charged music including the Oscar-winning song Falling Slowly. Based on the movie sensation of the same name the show features music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, and a Tony award-winning book by Enda Walsh. This exciting new production will be directed by J. Scott Lapp, with musical direction by David Lamoureux.

Following Once, will be the Tony Award-winning musical The Light in the Piazza (June 17-19, 2022). Florence. Summer 1953. American Margaret Johnson and her daughter Clara take in the wonder and awe of Florence. A fateful gust of wind whisks Clara's hat into the hands of a local dreamer Fabrizio Naccarelli... and it's amore at first sight. But Clara isn't quite what she appears, and soon they must all confront a secret kept in the shadows for far too long. With a book by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, the Broadway musical, "The Light in the Piazza" won six Tony Awards, including Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations.

The season will conclude with the world premiere musical Witnesses (July 15 - 24, 2022). Based on the diaries of five teenagers who died in the Holocaust, this powerful new musical features an original score by five different songwriters/songwriting teams including Adam Gwon, Jordan Beck & Gerald Sternbach, Matt Gould, Carmel Dean & Mindi Dickstein and Anna K. Jacobs with a book by Tony Award-winning book writer Robert L. Freedman (A Gentlemen's Guide to Love & Murder). These five stark accounts, set against a haunting, beautifully constructed song cycle, are a testament, and an inspiration to the best of the human soul. Witnesses is part of the CCAE Conservatory and will be directed by Artistic Director J. Scott Lapp.

In addition to their Main Stage season of fully produced musicals and concerts, CCAE Theatricals will also produce a developmental reading of the new musical Bottle Shock (Spring 2022), based on the 1998 film starring Alan Rickman. Inspired by the true story of the famous 1976 Judgment of Paris, Bottle Shock, the musical follows one of the winning Napa wineries, Chateau Montelena, and the relationship between owner Jim Barrett and his son Bo. When English sommelier Steven Spurrier shows up in Napa looking for contenders for his "friendly and impartial competition" between French and American wines to be held in Paris, Barrett is skeptical. But at the urging of his son and the community, his Chardonnay is included, and history is made. Bottle Shock was developed at Ars Nova in New York, presented in concert at the Napa Film Festival and Napa Opera House, and further developed with FOGG Theatre Company at Z Space in San Francisco. The show is written by James D. Sasser and Charles Vincent Burwell. Bottle Shock, the musical is based on the 2008 film of the same name, with an original story by Ross Schwartz & Lanette Pabon and Jody Savin & Randall Miller, screenplay by Jody Savin, Randall Miller and Ross Schwartz.

For more information regarding California Center for the Arts, Escondido and CCAE Theatricals, visit www.artcenter.org

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