TRIAD STAGE ANNOUNCES 2019-2020 SEASON
(Greensboro, NC) — Triad Stage, the region’s largest not-for-profit professional theater, has unveiled its 2019-2020 Season. For its 19th Season, Triad Stage will feature five locally-produced professional MainStage productions in Greensboro from September through May, and in December the theater will produce two holiday shows: It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play in Greensboro, and the 7th annual production of A Christmas Carol inWinston-Salem.
The MainStage season will open at The Pyrle Theater in downtown Greensboro with Edward Albee’s towering classic Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee.Next up the company will present Bram Stoker’s chilling thriller Dracula. Triad Stage returns to Hawboro for an experiment in democracy with the World Premiere 2 Wolves and a Lambby Preston Lane. A timeless love story is reexamined in Kate Hamill’s irreverent adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The season will conclude with the intimate and soulful musical Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill by Lanie Robinson.
“From classic American dramas to a new play that casts the audience as main characters, our 19th season has an abundance of the bold, daring work Triad Stage does best,” said Triad Stage Producing Artistic Director Preston Lane. “This is a season of seven distinct and incomparable stories, all connected by their unique ability to grab and hold the attention of the audience. Above all, this is a season of remarkable characters.”
Triad Stage will celebrate the holiday season in Greensboro with It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, an adaptation of the seasonal holiday classic. The company will also return to Winston-Salem with the 7th anniversary production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, adapted by Preston Lane,at Hanesbrands Theatre.
For the 2019-2020 Season, Triad Stage will offer a 5-Play Greensboro Pass for The Pyrle Theater starting at $80. All Season Passes come with the option of adding discounted holiday tickets to It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol. Season Passes renewals are underway, and new passes will go on sale in the spring. Single tickets will go on sale July 15, 2019.
To purchase Season Passes or for information about the upcoming season, call the Triad Stage Box Office at 336.272.0160, or visit www.triadstage.org/preview.
SEASON NINETEEN AT TRIAD STAGE
WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
by Edward Albee
September 8 – 29, 2019 at The Pyrle Theater in Greensboro
Come to the party, but don’t play the drinking games. The lights are on late at George and Martha’s, as two couples in a quiet college town turn a nightcap into an all-out, all-night fight. Peek through their windows and uncover the devastating truth behind the illusions.
From the Artistic Director
There are lots of good plays and probably even more bad plays, but there are only a handful of legendary plays—those plays that shook the theater, jolting us out of old ways of thinking and forever changing what comes after. These are my favorite plays because we are altered by our encounter with them. Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf still grabs us as intensely it did half a century ago with its exposéof dreams and self-destructive fantasies.
DRACULA
by Bram Stoker
October 20 – November 10, 2019 at The Pyrle Theater in Greensboro
Bring the garlic and a silver stake, but leave your disbelief at home. A bloodsucking stranger appears in London and has citizens locking their doors and praying for dawn. Join the fight against the darkness that strikes even the purest of hearts.
From the Artistic Director
I love a good scare. There’s nothing as thrilling to me as when I’m part of an audience so completely drawn in by a play we believe the danger on stage is 100% real. Dracula scares us. It is filled with chills and thrills. But it also gets under your skin. The vampire’s evil infects everyone who comes into contact with it—even those determined to destroy it. The story haunts you long after it’s over—and that’s what makes it really terrifying.
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIGHT: A LIVE RADIO PLAY
adapted by Joe Landry
December at The Pyrle Theater in Greensboro
Help an angel earn his wings. A 1940’s live radio broadcast re-imagines the classic story of George Bailey, a man ready to throw it all away before a stranger comes to show him how important he is. Be reminded that we all have a place and celebrate how wonderful life is for the holidays.
From the Artistic Director
I’m constantly amazed by all the creative ways playwrights re-imagine works when they adapt them to the stage. This adaptation of Capra’s well-loved takes a brilliant mashup of old time radio, live theater, and classic movie and mixes them all up together into a heartfelt treat for the whole family. The same earnestness imbued in the original is what makes Joe Landry’s play so perfect for the holidays. It is at once completely familiar and brand new.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
by Charles Dickens, adapted by Preston Lane
December at Hanesbrands Theatre in Winston-Salem
Presented by Mercedes-Benz of Winston-Salem
Celebrate the season. Scrooge and the Spirits are headed back for a holiday ghost story of hope and redemption. One night changes everything as the shadows of his past give Ebenezer one last chance for a future. Thrill to the chills and give in to the joy of A Christmas Carol.
From the Artistic Director
Dicken’s story is perhaps my favorite book. Its promise of a second chance, a life rediscovered and its constant urging to take care of each other inspires us to be our better selves. All of us at Triad Stage approach each year’s production with childlike joy, eager to rediscover the magic and promise that lies just beyond the dark night of fear that Scrooge must survive. Our home in Winston-Salem provides the perfect space to share our Carol – the Triad’s newest holiday tradition.
2 Wolves and a Lamb
by Preston Lane
February 2 – 23, 2020 at The Pyrle Theater in Greensboro
Let your voice be heard. The local elections in Hawboro, NC pit old friends against each other, and special interests rule. There are no bystanders here. Immerse yourself in the rush of the campaign and become a participant as you vote in the election and decide the end of the story.
From the Artistic Director
In our Hawboro project, all of us at Triad Stage are trying to create on ongoing dialogue on issues facing the Piedmont Triad. These handmade experiences are crafted especially for you. And this time, we want to make you honorary citizens of Hawboro. I started working on this play last year as a literary fellow at The Montalvo Arts Center, challenging myself to make a way for everyone-- liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between—to be a part of Hawboro’s future.
Pride & Prejudice
by Kate Hamill, based on the novel by Jane Austen
March 22 – April 12, 2020atThe Pyrle Theater in Greensboro
Shake off the mothballs, this isn’t your grandmother’s Jane Austen. In a world of ball gowns and palatial estates, Mrs. Bennett schemes to find suitable husbands for her daughters, but Elizabeth isn’t so sure – at least not when it comes to the impossible Mr. Darcy. Dance into a world of mixed-up lovers in this irreverent adaptation of the classic romance.
From the Artistic Director
I’m going to make a confession: I’ve never been a big Jane Austen fan. I like my British novels more Bronte style—but this Pride and Prejudice is brought to the stage by the incomparable Kate Hamill. She manages to not only remain faithful to the story of the novel, but to make an archaic, unpredictable, and brilliantly funny piece of theater out of the novel. Austen fan or not, you’re going to fall in love with the Bennett family and the crazy things they’ll do in the name of marriage.
Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill
by Lanie Robinson
May 3 – 24, 2020atThe Pyrle Theater in Greensboro
Come on down to Emerson’s. In a low rent South Philly bar, a legend prepares to perform. It’s 1959 and Billie Holiday is taking the stage for almost last time, intimately sharing her loves and losses just with you. Give yourself over and be swept away by the singer and the song.
From the Artistic Director
When I was a freshman in college in Chicago, I lucked into taking an amazing African American history course taught by a professor emeritus at DePaul. I was fascinated by his stories of the people he had known—but my favorite story had to be of the night he got to hold Billie Holiday’s dog. I’ve loved the music of Holiday since I was a child, and the story of her turbulent life and times is deeply moving. I love the gorgeous way story and song bring Lady Day to life in this powerful play.
* Season subject to change