Tag Archives: Covedale Center for the Performing Arts

NEXT TO NORMAL
October 4 – 21, 2018
Music by Tom Kitt; Book and Lyrics by Brian Yorkey

NEXT TO NORMAL, explores how one suburban household copes with crisis and mental illness. Winner of three 2009 Tony Awards, including Best Musical Score and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, Next to Normal was named “one of the year’s ten best shows” by critics around the country, including The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone and The New York Times.

Dad’s an architect; Mom packs lunches and pours cereal; their daughter and son are bright, wise-cracking teens in a typical American family. And yet their lives are anything but normal; mother has been battling manic depression for 16 years. Next to Normal takes audiences into the minds and hearts of each character, with deep love and sympathy. An emotional powerhouse encompassing grieving a loss, bewildering psychiatry and modern life.

THE GRADUATE
January 24 – Feb. 10, 2019
A Play Adapted by Terry Johnson; Based on the Novel by Charles Webb
And the Motion Picture Screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry
By Special Arrangement with StudioCanal

Benjamin Braddock is a confused young man. Having spent four years crafting a brilliant scholastic record, he finds himself adrift upon graduation, uncertain about his future, disconnected from his purpose, and increasingly alienated from the upper-class, suburban, “plastic” world of his parents. Fighting panic and boredom, he is deeply conflicted but ultimately willing when Mrs. Robinson, the unhappily married, alcoholic, and dangerously charismatic wife of his father’s business partner, tempts him into an affair. Benjamin’s tenuous existence of lazy days and stolen nights falls apart when he falls in love — with Elaine, Mrs. Robinson’s upbeat, optimistic daughter. Terry Johnson’s stage adaptation of The Graduate, based on the novel and the iconic 1967 film, is a bitterly hilarious dark comedy, full of rapid fire dialogue between fascinating and horrifying characters. This play explores family dysfunction, parental expectations, crumbling marriages, and the naive, yet disillusioned, dichotomy of youth, against the backdrop of 1960’s America.

THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS
March 21 – April 7, 2019
Book by Larry L. King and Peter Masterson
Music and Lyrics by Carol Hall Based on a story by Larry L. King

THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS is a rollicking hootenanny of a musical based on the true story of a legendary Texas brothel, which operated from the 1840s to 1973. Protected by a friendly sheriff and frequented by politicians, football teams, and others, the “Chicken Ranch” thrived in the small town of Gilbert, Texas. Girls came from all over to work at the ranch and make a little extra cash. However, a crusading do-gooder Houston radio commentator and his conservative audience expose the Chicken Ranch, forcing it to shut its doors forever. Great songs include: Dolly Parton’s Hard Candy Christmas, The Aggie Song and Twenty Four Hours of Lovin’. The hit movie featured Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds!

The 2018/2019 Marquee Seaon at THE COVEDALE CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS includes:

A FEW GOOD MEN
September 13 – October 7, 2018
By Aaron Sorkin

This Broadway hit about the trial of two Marines for complicity in the death of a fellow Marine at Guantanamo Bay sizzles on stage. The Navy lawyer, a callow young man more interested in softball games than the case, expects a plea bargain and a cover-up of what really happened. Prodded by a female member of his defense team, the lawyer eventually makes a valiant effort to defend his clients and, in so doing, puts the military mentality and the Marine code of honor on trial.

THE WIZARD OF OZ
October 25 – November 18, 2018
By L. Frank Baum
With Music and Lyrics by Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg; Background Music by Herbert Stothart Dance and Vocal Arrangements by Peter Howard; Orchestration by Larry Wilcox; Adapted by John Kane for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Based on the 1939 movie with Judy Garland.

Dorothy Gale, a young girl living on a Kansas farm with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, dreams of escaping her mundane life. So when witchy old Miss Gulch threatens to impound Dorothy’s dog Toto, Dorothy runs away with her pet, only to be whisked away to the Land of OZ in a terrifying cyclone. Looking for her way back home, she and her new friends sing some of the most iconic songs ever, including “If I Only Had a Brain/Heart/Nerve”, “Munchkin Land”, “Follow The Yellow Brick Road” and the classic “Over the Rainbow”.

A CHRISTMAS STORY
November 29 – December 23, 2018
By Philip Grecian. Based on the movie A Christmas Story, Written by Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown and Bob Clark

“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!” Jean Shepherd’s memoir of growing up in 1940’s Indiana, follows Ralphie Parker in his quest to get a genuine Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Ralphie pleads his case to his mother, his teacher and Santa Claus himself at Goldblatt’s Department Store. All the elements from the beloved movie are here – the family’s temperamental furnace, the school bully Scut Farkas, the boys’ bet concerning a wet tongue on an icy lamppost, the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring; and Ralphie’s father winning “a major award” – the lady’s leg lamp in a fishnet stocking! A Christmas Story has become a theatrical holiday classic!

ALMOST HEAVEN, SONGS OF JOHN DENVER 
February 14 – March 10, 2019
Conceived by Harold Thau with orchestrations, vocal arrangements, and music supervision by Jeff Waxman

ALMOST HEAVEN weaves together the songs of John Denver to create a uniquely theatrical narrative that reflects upon the country during the years in which he wrote them. Twenty-nine of Denver’s songs – including “Rocky Mountain High,” “Sunshine on My Shoulders,” “Annie’s Song,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “Calypso” and more – are rediscovered and reinvented, performed against a backdrop of stunning visual images of America in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s,a time of political upheaval, yet great beauty and hope.

42ND STREET
April 4 – April 28, 2019
Music by HARRY WARREN; Lyrics by AL DUBIN; Book by MICHAEL STEWART & MARK BRAMBLE Based on the Novel by BRADFORD ROPES Original Direction and Dances by GOWER CHAMPION Originally Produced on Broadway by DAVID MERRICK

The ultimate show-biz musical, 42ND STREET celebrates Broadway, Times Square, and the people who make the magic of musical theatre. Aspiring chorus girl Peggy Sawyer comes to the big city from Allentown PA, and soon lands her first big job in the ensemble of a glitzy new Broadway show. But just before opening night, the leading lady breaks her ankle. Will Peggy be able to step in and become a star? The score is chock-full of Broadway standards, including “Dames,” “We’re In the Money,” “Lullaby of Broadway,” “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” and “Forty-Second Street.”

Subscriptions are on sale now!
Subscription renewal deadline is Monday, July 2, 2018
Subscription package tickets will be mailed Friday, July 20, 2018
Single tickets go on sale, Monday, July 23, 2018