PR2005 Jun U1

Theatre Tuscaloosa Announces 2005-2006 Season

 June 2005

(Tuscaloosa) - Season tickets are currently on sale for Theatre Tuscaloosa’s exciting 2005-2006 season of musicals and plays to be presented at the Bean-Brown Theatre on the campus of Shelton State Community College at 9500 Old Greensboro Road in Tuscaloosa.

            In announcing the six show season, artistic director Michael Carr said, “I think that this will be one of the most uniformly popular seasons we have ever offered.  I hope that everyone will take advantage of the tremendous savings and guaranteed seating that our season ticket packages offer.”

Opening the season will be ALWAYS...PATSY CLINE, being brought back by popular demand to the Bean-Brown Theatre for the third time.  A funny and touching tribute, it employs the true story of Patsy Cline’s friendship with a Houston housewife and avid fan, Louise Seger.

In spite of her tragically brief career, Cline’s voice continues to enthrall millions of fans and influence many of today’s country and pop singers. This intimate show celebrates the music and includes Patsy Cline classics like "I Fall to Pieces", "Your Cheatin’ Heart", "Walkin’ After Midnight" and "Crazy".

Directing is Paul K. Looney, with musical direction by Kenny Smitherman. In the role of Patsy is Sara Catherine Thomason, with Lauren Carr reprising her role as Louise Seger.  Performances are scheduled September 16 through 25, 2005.

The holiday season brings THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER to the stage of the Bean-Brown Theatre for performances December 9 through 18, 2005.

The Herdman kids are the worst, meanest, most behaviorally challenged kids in the world and they are in the church Christmas pageant by default. Only time will tell how the wild hijinks pan out in THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER.

Written by Barbara Robinson and directed by artistic director Michael Carr, THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER focuses on a couple struggling to put on the church Christmas pageant and they are faced with having to cast the Herdman kids in the production. However, the most inventive, awful kids in the history of the world haven’t heard the Christmas story, they don’t attend church regularly and nobody knows anything about their parents. The children fight, bully and appear to have no respect for each other or anyone else. Once they discover what the Christmas story is about, it’s mayhem and fun and a head-on collision with how things really ought to have been, had they had anything to say about it, on that starry night in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK, a play that has captivated audiences in London and Tuscaloosa, will return to Theatre Tuscaloosa January 13 through 22, 2006.

A combination of mystery and ghost story, the play tells the tale of a curse one man believes hangs over his family. Set in a time of horse-drawn carriages and remote houses, a lawyer recounts his visit to a house, which no one can leave or enter after the water rises in the evening. There to settle the accounts of a recently deceased recluse, he encounters the woman in black, and the strange history of the woman who lived in the house.

Not a traditional horror story, Stephen Mallatratt's adaptation of Susan Hill's best selling book has been linked to the ghost story writing of Charles Dickens, M.R. James, Henry James, and Edith Wharton.  Appearing in the production, as they did in 1997, are Jeff Wilson and Gary Wise.  Tina Fitch will be directing.  THE WOMAN IN BLACK is not included in the five-play season ticket package but may be purchased separately for $15 each, a savings over the usual single ticket price.

THE CRUCIBLE is Arthur Miller's Pulitzer Prize winning drama of the Salem witch trials. When Miller wrote THE CRUCIBLE, the Salem witch trials were over 250 years old, but the self-righteous thinking and spirit of persecution was still alive and well in McCarthy's Un-American Activities Committee of the 1950s. THE CRUCIBLE, written in 1953, was actually aimed at the congressional investigation whose fear of Communism in the United States provoked a flurry of scorn upon many artists working at the time. Miller himself had to appear before this committee in 1956 for writing THE CRUCIBLE and was convicted of contempt. The conviction was later appealed and reversed.

"Fear, repression and power create a devastating mania in this frightening study of mass delusion and the strength of suspicion which retains its force today," said director Michael Carr.

THE CRUCIBLE looks at two actual historical events in American history and uses the horrific witch trials of puritanical Salem of 1692 as a metaphor for the McCarthy investigation of the 1950s. "Miller makes us take a look at ourselves to demonstrate the frightening human tendency to want to label groups of people as impure. The pressure for individuals to conform to a society's beliefs of self-righteousness is a very powerful and timeless theme," said Michael Carr.  THE CRUCIBLE will be presented March 10-19, 2006.

Theatre Tuscaloosa presents one of the best loved musicals of all time when HELLO, DOLLY! runs June 16-25, 2006.  Based on the play “The Matchmaker” by Thornton Wilder, it features a book by Michael Stewart, and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. The musical that turned the scheming woman into a lovable heroine, introduced great songs like “Before the Parade Passes By,” “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” and of course the title song, “Hello Dolly.” Slapstick comedy and beautiful melodies intertwine in one of musical theater’s most lovable shows, and everybody gets a happily-ever-after.

HELLO, DOLLY! opened January 16, 1964 on Broadway with Carol Channing in the title role and ran for 2844 performances, making it the longest playing Broadway musical at that time. It won 10 Tony Awards for Musical, Actress, Author, Producer, Director, Composer and Lyricist, Conductor and Musical Director, Scenic Designer, Costume Designer and Choreographer, as well as The New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Musical.

Rounding out the season is SMOKEY JOE'S CAFÉ - The Songs of Leiber and Stoller.  Over 40 hit songs, including "Hound Dog," "Love Potion #9," "Stand By Me," "On Broadway," and "Jailhouse Rock", by the song-writing team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller which provided the soundtrack for an entire generation of Americans are included in the show.  The Coasters, The Drifters, Peggy Lee, and Elvis all had their greatest successes with Leiber and Stoller tunes.

You’ll be dancing in the aisles when the seven-time Tony® Award-nominated, Grammy® Award-winning musical, SMOKEY JOE'S CAFÉ - The Songs of Leiber and Stoller, hits the Bean-Brown stage July 21-30, 2006.

SMOKEY JOE'S CAFÉ is about the music that defines America. With energy and humor, the show gives audiences as much fun as they'll ever experience in a theater," explained Michael Carr. "It is the most high-spirited show ever created and after the success of ‘Cats’ last summer, we look forward to bringing it to the stage in cooperation with Birmingham Summerfest."

Season tickets, including five shows, are $85 for adults and $66 for students/children and senior citizens.  Season ticket buyers may purchase individual tickets for THE WOMAN IN BLACK for $15.  Season tickets may be purchased by phone by calling the Theatre Tuscaloosa box office at 205/391-2277 or a subscription order form may be downloaded on line at www.theatretusc.com.

Theatre Tuscaloosa productions are presented in cooperation with Shelton State Community College, “Alabama’s Community College of the Fine Arts” and with corporate sponsorship provided by Mercedes Benz U.S. International, Jamison, Money, Farmer & Co., Merrill Lynch, and Alabama Outdoors.

All dates and titles are subject to change.  All sales are final.  Theatre Tuscaloosa does not offer refunds on purchased tickets.