PCPA’s upcoming summer season will include six plays in three venues from June 14 through October 21, 2018. Just added to the season are An Iliad by Lisa Peterson and Dennis O’Hare and Muthaland written and performed by Minita Gandhi running in repertory in October.
Launching the summer is the remount of the new musical, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It plays under the stars in the Solvang Festival Theater from June 14 through July 8. With an emotionally sweeping score and powerful story it guarantees to be an unforgettable instant classic. Two of the biggest names in American musical theatre, Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast) and Stephen Schwartz (Wicked), have teamed up to deliver this epic piece of theatre. Based on Victor Hugo’s gothic novel, Quasimodo, the misshaped bell-ringer, is held captive by his devious caretaker, the archdeacon Dom Claude Frollo, who plans to destroy the gypsies, including the enthralling Esmeralda. Cornered in an unlikely love quadrangle between Frollo, the handsome Captain Phoebus, and the kindly Esmerelda, it’s up to Quasimodo to save the day in this epic production.
In Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, playwright Christopher Durang puts dysfunction to hilarious effect when three siblings reunite in the family’s Bucks County, PA home. It plays in the Marian Theatre June 28 – July 7, then in the Solvang Festival Theater July 12 – 22. Vanya and Sonia bicker and pine about the dashed dreams and squandered hopes of their lives when their movie-star sister, Masha, suddenly swoops in with her new boy-toy, Spike. This giddy, Tony-winning farce on Chekhovian themes is the perfect summer tonic. (Adult language)
The sunny and funny Mamma Mia! spins and sparkles into the ultimate feel-good smash hit musical for summer 2018. It will play July 18 – 21 in the Marian Theatre in Santa Maria before transferring to Solvang to play under the stars from July 27 through August 26. The energy and charm of ABBA’s songs propel this enchanting tale with love, laughter and friendship. On the eve of her wedding, Sophie has secretly invited three men from her mother Donna’s past back to the Greek island paradise they last visited 20 years ago in a quest to discover the identity of her father. Donna’s long-time friends from her past girl-group “Donna and the Dynamos” also arrive for the wedding to catch up and reminisce, turning a trip down the aisle into one you’ll never forget!
From the author of Shakespeare in Love, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia is considered one of the greatest plays of its time. It runs August 16 – 25 in the Marian Theatre and August 30 – September 9 in the Solvang Festival Theater. Arcadia is a romantic mystery set in the elegant Coverly estate and taking place in both 1809 and 1993. Two plot lines run parallel across time with intertwining themes. While thirteen-year-old Lady Thomasina and her tutor delve into intellectual and romantic issues, the present day finds the Coverly descendants and two competing scholars researching horticulture and a possible scandal at the estate in 1809. Stoppard’s brilliant Olivier and Tony-winning play traverses the centuries exploring the nature of truth and time, the difference between Classical and Romantic temperaments, and the disruptive influence of sex on our life orbits – the attraction which Newton left out.
Special Fall Engagement!
An Iliad and Muthaland – playing in rotating repertory in the Severson Theatre, October 4 – 21.
An Iliad is a modern rendering of Homer’s classic story, adapted for the stage by Lisa Peterson and Dennis O’Hare. In a virtuoso performance, Tarah Flanagan inhabits over fifty characters. With the addition of live music (Eva Scholz-Carlson on the cello), and language that ranges from contemporary realism to epic poetry, An Iliad grapples with humankind’s perpetual capacity for violence, while exploring the beauty and kinship to be found even in the midst of war. (Adult language)
Muthaland, written and performed by Minita Gandhi, takes us on the epic coming-of-age journey of a first-generation Indian-American woman. The life of a young woman is forever changed on a trip to India during which she unearths family secrets, encounters a prophet, is the victim of an assault, and ultimately discovers her voice within a culture of silence. The familiar and the foreign swap roles in this dark comedy about culture, identity, spirituality, and sexuality. Inspired by true events, Muthaland navigates the tragic and magical on the way to a new sense of home.