American Stage’s 47th season announced
Claude, Berger, Woof, Sheila and the rest of the “tribe” will take over Demens Landing Park in next spring, as American Stage produces the groundbreaking 1960s rock musical Hair as part of its 2024-25 season.
The company’s current season is still in full flower, with Hedwig and the Angry Inch – a different kind of rock ‘n’ roll story – running from May 15 through June 16 on the mainstage, with the last three of those days happening at Jannus Live (unlike Hair, with its more or less traditional narrative, Hedwig is staged like a full-blown rock concert).
From July to Aug. 4, Producing Artistic Director Helen R. Murray directs the world premiere of The Figs, a comedy by Doug Robinson.
Season subscriptions go on sale May 21 for the 2025/25 season, American Stage’s 47th, which begins in September:
Ring of Fire (Sept. 26-Oct. 20)) A jukebox musical set to the songs of country music icon Johnny Cash. It’s not about the Man in Black; rather, it utilizes more than 30 of his best-known songs to tell a story described thusly by Ben Brantley in the New York Times: “The show follows a sort of ages-of-man path from green country-boy idealism into the sloughs of a hard-living musician’s disillusionment and on up to the mountains of spiritual redemption.”
The Mountaintop (Nov. 6-24). Katori Hall’s fictionalized depiction of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life set entirely in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Winner of the 2010 Olivier Award for New Play, The Mountaintop, according to playwright Hall’s website, ” is a surrealistic fantasy about a chance encounter between King and a mysterious hotel maid who brings him a cup of coffee and prompts him to confront his life, his past, his legacy and the plight and future of his people.”
This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing (Jan. 22-Feb. 9). A modern-day fairy tale: Three sisters born to a poor woodcutter father make their ways in the world. Each chooses a dramatically different path in life, and life brings them back to what matters most: Each other.
Hair (March 26-April 27) is followed by a return to the mainstage for Fat Ham, a reimagining of Shakespeare’s Hamlet through the lens of an African American cookout. James Ijames’ play won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was nominated for five Tony Awards.
“We’re always going to try to have a balance between entertainment and challenge,” Murray said during a St. Pete Catalyst podcast last month, during which she teased the shows that she had chosen for season 47.
Listen to the April 5 Arts Alive! podcast here.
