Asolo Repertory Theatre Announces 2016-17 Seasons

Asolo Repertory Theatre and the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training have announced plans for their 2016-2017 seasons, which will feature two mainstage musicals in the fall and spring, four productions playing in rotating rep on the Mertz stage from January through April, and one production in the Jane B. Cook Theatre. This will also be the final season of Asolo Rep's American Character Project, a five-year exploration of who we are as a country.

The season will kick off with Guys and Dolls (November 15-January 1), featuring music and lyrics by Tony, Academy Award, and Pulitzer Prize winner Frank Loesser, and a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. The production will be directed and choreographed by Broadway choreographer Josh Rhodes (Bright Star). Following last year's production of All the Way, the theater will continue to chronicle President Lyndon Baines Johnson's divisive presidency with The Great Society (January 11-April 2), by Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Schenkkan. Broadway actor Nick Wyman (Catch Me If You Can) will reprise his role as President Johnson, with Nicole A. Watson directing a production that is based on the original production directed by Bill Rauch.

The rep season continues with the The Originalist (January 18-March 5). This new stage play, which had its world premiere at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater last spring, follows a liberal law school graduate who embarks on a nerve-racking clerkship with Justice Scalia. Arena Stage artistic director Molly Smith directed the world premiere and will also helm Asolo Rep's production.

Next, Peter Amster will direct Academy Award winner Garson Kanin's girl-meets-world comedy Born Yesterday (February 8-April 15). Then in March, Tony Award winner Frank Galati will direct The Little Foxes (March 15-April 15), written by Lillian Hellman. The spring will bring The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (April 5-April 30), written by Kristoffer Diaz, followed by the world premiere of Beatsville (April 27-May 28), a musical comedy with a book by Tony-winning lyricist Glenn Slater (School of Rock) and music and lyrics by Wendy Leigh Wilf. Beatsville is being coproduced with Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre. A summer production, yet to be announced, will close the season.

In October and November of 2016, Asolo Rep will present the seventh annual New Stages Tour, an FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training production of a reimagined adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Directed by former Asolo Rep directing fellow Justin Lucero, the New Stages Tour, which features a cast of third-year Conservatory students, brings condensed, 45-minute adaptations of classic literature to schools and community venues throughout the state.

The FSU/Asolo Conservatory’s 2016-17 season will also include Lanford Wilson’s Book of Days (November 1-November 20), Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge (December 27-January 15), Adam Bock’s The Drunken City (February 21-March 12), and Shakespeare in the Gardens: A Midsummer Night's Dream (April 11-April 29), performed on the grounds of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.

For tickets and more information information about these and other Asolo Rep productions, click here.