New Line Theatre Announces SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, HEAD OVER HEELS, and URINETOWN for 30th Season 

New Line Theatre has announced it 30th Anniversary Season of adult, alternative musical theatre, including the return of Jason Robert Brown's brilliant, funny, and intense concept musical SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, which New Line first produced in 1998 in its American regional premiere, running Sept. 30-Oct. 23, 2021.

That's followed by the return of the electrifying, joyful new rock musical fresh from Broadway, continuing New Line's 2020 regional premiere run (which was shut down by the pandemic), HEAD OVER HEELS, a high-energy, adult romp about gender and sexuality, based on a 16th century novel and using the songs of the pop group The Go-Go's, running March 3-26, 2022.

And the season closes with the return of one of New Line's biggest hits, which the New Liners first presented in 2007, the pitch dark satire URINETOWN, the hilarious, outrageous fable of greed, corruption, love, revolution, and urination, running June 2-25, 2022.

Tickets will go on sale for all three shows in August. More details coming soon!

New Line will not sell season tickets for the 2021-2022 season, since it's not possible right now to know if the pandemic is fully under control in our region. Seasons tickets for the following season will go on sale as usual in spring 2022.

THE 2021-2022 SEASON

SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD

Sept. 30-Oct. 23, 2021

It's an intimate, four-actor concept musical about the universal human experience of slamming into an unexpected obstacle (like a global pandemic, for instance) as all the rules suddenly change around us.

From Jews fleeing Spain for the New World, to Martin Luther King Jr. sitting in a jail cell, to a woman out on the ledge of her Manhattan high-rise apartment building, to a chronically unsatisfied Mrs. Claus, SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD this brilliant, complex show comes at this same human experience from all angles, from people in different times and places, but all of them facing some new world.

Never before has a show become so powerfully relevant so long after its debut, but today it feels like it was written just for a post-pandemic America. With music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown (Parade, Honeymoon in Vegas, 13, Bridges of Madison County), Songs for a New World had only a limited run off Broadway in 1995, but the show has had an active regional life since then. New Line produced the regional premiere of the show in 1998 to rave reviews.

"Songs for a New World is that very rare beast: an abstract musical. . . Here is a musical that doesn't try to bombard or cajole you - it simply speaks honestly through fine music and proves that less can most certainly be more. . . The mystical union of song and performance was simply profound. . . a true theatrical gem." - Mike Isaacson, The Riverfront Times

"I'm at a loss as to just what to call this production, except fascinating, engrossing and totally absorbing. It's the kind of performance that just cries out to be seen more than once, just to get all the nuances of the lyrics of the songs. Maybe one could call this a musical call to personal reflection, almost a contemporary worship service without dogmatics, but even that might be too limiting a description for such a freewheeling exploration into the human soul." -- Russ Thomas, KDHX-FM

"Personally inspiring for me was watching five local actors pour their hearts and talents into Songs for a New World, another New Line production, featuring the fine songs of Jason Robert Brown. . . making for a truly cherished memory." - Mike Isaacson, "1998: The Year in Theatre," The Riverfront Times

The cast of New Line All-Stars will include Kimi Short (who was also in New Line's 1998 production), Dominic Dowdy-Windsor, Chris Kernan, and Grace Langford. The New Line production will be directed by Mike Dowdy-Windsor and Scott Miller, with scenic design by Rob Lippert, costume design by Sarah Porter, lighting design by Kenneth Zinkl, and sound design by Ryan Day.

Songs for a New World contains adult language and content. Produced by arrangement with Music Theatre International, New York.

HEAD OVER HEELS

March 3-26, 2022

BACK TO FINISH NEW LINE'S 2020 RUN!

HEAD OVER HEELS is the bold, sexy new musical comedy from the visionaries that rocked Broadway with Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Avenue Q and Spring Awakening. Conceived by Jeff Whitty, with an original book by Whitty, adapted by James Magruder, originally directed by Michael Mayer, and set to the music of the iconic 1980s all-girl rock band The Go-Go's, this high-octane, laugh-out-loud love story includes hit songs like, "We Got the Beat," "Our Lips Are Sealed," "Vacation," "Heaven is a Place on Earth" and "Mad About You."

The wild story follows the escapades of a royal family who set out on a journey to save their beloved kingdom from extinction, only to discover the key to their realm's survival lies within each of their own hearts -- though not always in the way they expect -- and in their willingness to let go of rigid tradition and change with the times.

Head Over Heels originally premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015, then opened on Broadway in 2018. The show was nominated for Best Musical by the Drama League and the Outer Critics Circle Awards.

St. Louis audiences and critics LOVED New Line's 2020 production!

"Could this be the greatest show New Line Theatre has ever put on stage? It is, in its brash, tight dance numbers, along with a dozen shimmering vocal solos. Highly professional dance and beautifully sung '80s pop music drive Head Over Heels like a fury. It's a stagey whirlwind, with an ultra-thin layer of Elizabethan style, in which a riot of candy-colored doublet and hose is wedded to the equally colorful modern music of The Go-Go's." - Richard Green, TalkinBroadway

Almost the entire 2020 cast will return, including Grace Langford (Princess Pamela), Melissa Felps (Princess Philoclea), Clayton Humburg (Musidorus), Dawn Schmid (Mopsa), Zachary Allen Farmer (King Basilius), Carrie Priesmeyer (Queen Gynecia), Colin Dowd (Dametas), Tielere Cheatem (Pythio), Kevin Corpuz, Evan Fornachon, Chris Kernan, Chris Moore, Maggie Nold, Michelle Sauer, Alyssa Wolf, and Sara Rae Womack.

The New Line production will be directed by Scott Miller and Mike Dowdy-Windsor, with music direction by Cullen Curth, choreography by Michelle Sauer and Sara Rae Womack, scenic design by Rob Lippert, award-winning costume design by Courtney Gibson and Sarah Porter, lighting design by Kenneth Zinkl, and sound design by Ryan Day.

Head Over Heels contains adult language and content. Produced by arrangement with Broadway Licensing, New York.

URINETOWN

June 2-25, 2020

It's 2027, the toilets have all been privatized, and you have to pay to pee. Do you follow the rules or join the rebellion?

Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis' URINETOWN is the outrageous fable of greed, corruption, love, revolution, and urination, in a time when water is worth its weight in gold and there's no such thing as a free pee. Set in a near-future dystopian Gotham, a severe 20-year drought has led to a government-enforced ban on private toilets. The citizens are forced to use public "amenities" now, regulated by a single malevolent company that profits by charging admission for one of humanity's most basic needs. In this nightmare world, the punishment for an unauthorized pee is a trip to the dreaded Urinetown.

But from the ruins of Democracy and courtesy flushes, there rises an unlikely hero who decides he's held it long enough, and he launches a People's Revolution to lead them all to urinary freedom!

Inspired by the outrageous political theatre of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, and (very) loosely based on the writings of late eighteenth-century political and economic theorist Thomas Malthus, Urinetown is a gloriously silly, irreverently truthful satire from which no target is safe. This is a show that catapulted musical comedy into the new millennium with its rule-shattering tear through the traditions and conventions of musical theatre, leaving nothing but uncontrollable laughter and a great big puddle in its wake.

And that's just Act I.

When it opened in New York, the official slogan on the Urinetown T-shirts was "An appalling idea, fully realized." Actor Daniel Marcus, who played Officer Barrel, said in an interview, "I call it a love letter to the American musical in the form of a grenade."

Bruce Weber in The New York Times said, "There simply is no show I've seen that gives such a sense that the creators and performers are always on the same page of an elaborate, high-spirited joke, that they are the proud members of a cabal that knows what it takes to make the world a better place and that they are thrilled to share what they know." He also called the show "a sensational piece of performance art, one that acknowledges theater tradition and pushes it forward as well." The show was nominated for 9 Tony Awards (winning Best Book and Best Score), 9 Drama Desk Awards, 7 Obie Awards (winning Best Musical), 5 Outer Critics Circle Awards (winning Best Musical), and a Drama League Award for Best Musical.

New Line produced Urinetown in 2007. Kotis and Hollmann also wrote the rock musical Yeast Nation, which New Line produced in 2018. New Line is the only professional company that has produced both shows. The critics raved over New Line's 2007 production.

The 2022 New Line production of Urinetown will be directed by Scott Miller and Mike Dowdy-Windsor, with music direction by Cullen Curth, costume design by Sarah Porter, scenic design by Todd Schaefer, and sound design by Ryan Day.

Produced by arrangement with Music Theatre International, New York.

For more about the company, go to www.NewLineTheatre.com

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