Miller, Shakespeare and Sondheim form the basis of the 2010 season at the Open Air theatre, announced today as the last production in the 2009 season, Hello, Dolly!, prepares to close this Saturday.
Following on from this year’s Oscar Wilde play The Importance Of Being Earnest, which was the first non-Shakespeare play to be produced at the Regent’s Park venue in recent history, Artistic Director Timothy Sheader continues to break with tradition by programming Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, which plays from 24 May to 19 June 2010.
Miller’s gripping drama, which is based on the 17th century Salem witch trials, was written in the 1950s as a response to Senator McCarthy’s investigation into communist activity in America.
The two Shakespeare plays in Sheader’s season are The Comedy Of Errors (24 June to 31 July), the bard’s farce about identical twins causing mistaken identity, and the dark tragedy Macbeth (from 3 July), which will be reimagined for young theatregoers aged six and over, as was this year’s production of The Tempest.
The season ends with musical fare as Sheader directs Stephen Sondheim’s fairytale comedy Into The Woods, which plays from 5 August to 11 September.
Details of casts and creative teams are yet to be announced. Public booking for all productions opens on 1 December.
CB