Shear
Beane
A workshop staging of a new musical version of “The Hudsucker Proxy,” a tuner from Douglas Carter Beane and a new play by Claudia Shear are among the offerings of the 2009-10 season at La Jolla Playhouse.
Based on the 1994 Coen brothers pic, “Hudsucker Proxy” will appear as part of La Jolla’s Page to Stage series, which spawned “I Am My Own Wife” and “The Farnsworth Invention” (and will present Disney’s “Peter and the Starcatchers” next month). New tuner, with book and lyrics by Glenn Slater and music by Stephen A. Weiner, will have a closed-to-the-press run in July and August.
Beane’s musical “The Big Time,” seen in Gotham as part of the New York Musical Theater Fest in 2005, gets its world preem in a full production helmed by La Jolla a.d. Christopher Ashley, who directed Beane’s “Xanadu.” Show, with book by Beane and music and lyrics by Douglas J. Cohen, will play in November and December. (Tuner has Broadway potential with backing from “Xanadu” producer Robert Ahrens already announced.)
The latest from Shear (“Dirty Blonde,” “Blown Sideways Through Life”), “Restoration,” follows an art restorer hired to spruce up Michelangelo’s David for the statue’s 500th birthday. Also helmed by Ashley, the new work will play La Jolla in June and July.
Season kicks off in June with the West Coast preem of Terrence McNally’s “Unusual Acts of Devotion,” and also includes B.D. Wong reprising his role in the one-man revival of “Herringbone” (August/September) and a new version of August Strindberg’s “Creditors” adapted and directed by “I Am My Own Wife” scribe Doug Wright (September/October).
Contact Gordon Cox at
gordon.cox@variety.com