The Signature Theatre Company will populate its 2012 season at the brand-new Signature Center with three Athol Fugard dramas, as well as premieres by Edward Albee, Kenneth Lonergan, Will Eno and Katori Hall.
Fugard’s 1961 play Blood Knot will open the season Jan. 31, 2012. The Tony-winning South African playwright will direct his work about two biracial brothers during the apartheid. Also planned is Fugard’s 1989 work about racial tensions, My Children! My Africa!, to be directed by Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Seven Guitars, Stick Fly). It will begin performances May 1, 2012.
Fugard will also direct the New York premiere of The Train Driver, which had its South African world premiere in 2010 at the theatre named in his honor. The two-man drama centers on a grief-stricken train driver searching for the identities of a mother and child he unintentionally killed. Previews begin Aug. 14, 2012.
Patricia McGregor will direct the world premiere of Mountaintop playwright Hall’s Hurt Village, which will begin Feb. 7, 2012. According to the Signature, “It’s the end of a long summer in Hurt Village, a housing project in Memphis, Tennessee. A government Hope Grant means relocation for many of the project’s residents, including Cookie, a thirteen year-old aspiring rapper, along with her mother Crank and great-grandmother Big Mama. As the family prepares to move, Cookie’s father Buggy unexpectedly returns from a tour of duty in Iraq. Ravaged by the war, Buggy struggles to find a position in his disintegrating community, along with a place in his daughter’s wounded heart.”
David Esbjornson (The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?) will direct the world premiere of Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner Albee’s Laying an Egg, which will begin previews Feb. 14, 2012. Here’s how the work is billed: “Faced with a domineering mother, an adoring husband, and the damning conditions of her late father’s will, a middle-aged woman renews her vow to get pregnant with chaotic results.
Middletown playwright Eno will be represented with the U.S. premiere of Title and Deed, to be directed by Judy Hegarty Lovett beginning May 1, 2012. According to the Signature, “A nameless traveler from a far off place searches for connection and solace in an unknown country in this funny and sad meditation on mortality, loneliness, innocence, home, family, love, funerals, words, and the world.”
Beginning May 15, 2012, the Signature will stage an untitled world premiere by Academy Award nominee Lonergan (“You Can Count On Me,” This Is Our Youth, The Starry Messenger).
The Signature has also announced the creation of A Decade of Access, a new ticket initiative that will price all seats at $25 for the initially scheduled performances of each production for the next ten years. Single tickets are normally priced $75 prior to extensions.
The 2012 season marks the organization’s first at the Signature Center, a new 70,000 square foot venue, with three intimate theatres and a studio theatre designed by acclaimed architect Frank Gehry, located at 480 West 42nd Street.
For tickets and more information visit SignatureTheatre.
Playwright Katori Hall and producer/directorWoodie King, Jr. will be honored with All Stars Project Groundbreakers Awards at the All Stars Project’s national gala benefit entitled, Big Builders for Young People, to be held at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, on on Monday, May 7. The evening will begin with cocktails at 6pm followed by dinner and program at 7pm.
