Martin shapes Huntington season
Intrigue, intimacy, mystery, and music mark the Huntington Theatre Company's 2007- 08 season, announced yesterday. In artistic director Nicholas Martin's final season at the helm of the Huntington, his choices reflect the unique stamp he's put on the company, including his championing of new plays and local playwrights (two world premieres), his affection for his friends (the last play by Wendy Wasserstein), his close ties to New York (one Broadway-bound play), and his appreciation for joyously offbeat musicals ("She Loves Me").
"It's really a comprehensive season," says Martin, "that encompasses everything I want to accomplish at this theater, culminating with my chance to direct a musical I think is everyone's secret favorite."
The season opens with the London hit "The 39 Steps" (Sept. 14-Oct. 14) at the Boston University Theatre. Based on the John Buchan novel that became the Alfred Hitchcock film, this adaptation mixes espionage with slapstick comedy in a production that has four actors playing more than 150 roles. The adaptation, by Patrick Barlow, won London's 2007 Olivier Award for best new comedy, and it heads to Broadway after its Huntington run.
Next up is the world premiere of "Brendan," by Boston-based playwright Ronan Noone (Oct. 12-Nov. 11 at the Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts). A Huntington playwriting fellow, Noone captures the personal struggles of individuals just trying to make their way in the world -- in this case, a recent Irish immigrant starting a new life in Boston.
Hot New York director Scott Ellis ("Curtains," "The Little Dog Laughed") heads to Boston for "Streamers," David Rabe's tale of recruits preparing to go to Vietnam in 1965 who discover a different kind of war among themselves (Nov. 9-Dec. 9, BU Theatre).
"Third," award-winning playwright Wasserstein's final play before her untimely death, explores the tensions created when a comfortable English professor locks horns with a conservative jock student (Jan. 4-Feb. 3, BU Theatre).
In Conor McPherson's "Shining City," which earned critical acclaim on Broadway last year, the playwright returns to Dublin for another adventure through dark psychological turf when a guilt-stricken man turns to a therapist who is struggling with his own demons (March 7-April 6, BU Theatre).
Another local playwright and a former Huntington playwriting fellow, Sinan Unel, will see the world premiere of his drama "The Cry of the Reed." When a journalist is kidnapped by insurgents at war, she is offered one phone call, to her mother in Turkey, with whom she hasn't communicated in a decade (March 28-May 4, Calderwood Pavilion).
In May, Martin takes on his final directorial effort as Huntington artistic director in "She Loves Me," the 1960s musical based on the story that also became the film "You've Got Mail." Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock ("Fiddler on the Roof") turned to romance in this intimate musical (May 16-June 15, BU Theatre).
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