Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

After being closed and silent for a number of months, the San Pedro Playhouse came alive with the sound of excited voices this past Friday during the Public Theater’s season announcement event. The occasion brought together theater folks and theater fans from across the city and felt a bit like a reunion of kindred souls.

Everyone’s spirits were further buoyed by the terrific Divas of Eastwood, who opened the formal-presentation part of the evening with a goose-bumps-inducing rendition of “Amazing Grace” and sang several other powerful songs.

Board chairman, Dennis Karbach, greeted the assembled crowd, saying “We haven’t had this many people in this auditorium since a year-and-a-half ago,” a comment that elicited a burst of supportive applause.

The 2021-22 season will consist of six musicals, all of which will be performed in the upstairs, Russel Hill Rogers Theater. An effort has clearly been made to involve theater artists from across the community and beyond, including directors, choreographers, music directors and stage managers. The downstairs Cellar is not going to be entirely dark but it will be used by other local production companies, such as Teatro Audaz-San Antonio and the San Antonio Playwrights & New Works Consortium.

Here’s the lineup:

Tick, Tick…BOOM! (Sept.10 – Oct. 17, 2021) With book, music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson, this is a story of a young man who badly wants to be a Broadway composer but getting there is not easy. The musical is largely autobiographical. Though Larson died in 1996, his musical became a success, with a couple of Off-Broadway productions, a London show, and many others in the U.S. and in Europe. (At the Public, it will be directed by Ken Urso, who has directed other musicals at the Public in 2018 and 2019, and choreographed by resident choreographer, Courtnie Mercer, with music direction by Billie Whittaker.)

Plaid Tidings: Holiday Edition of Forever Plaid (Nov.19 – Dec.19, 2021) Do you remember the premise of the original “Forever Plaid”? A quartet of young men who had dreamed of stardom before they were killed in an accident, return to earth for one last concert. In this holiday version, they return for the second time to deliver a version of the Ed Sullivan Show, featuring the Rockettes, the Chipmunks and the Vienna Choir Boys. (Director: Matthew Byron Cassi; Choreographer: Lizel Sandoval; Music director: Darrin Newhardt).

35MM: A Musical Exhibition (Jan. 14 – Feb. 20, 2022) You have probably heard of ekphrastic poetry, which is poetry inspired by visual art works. This show starts with the idea that a picture can also inspire a song. Based on photographs by Matthew Murphy, this is an “intricately woven collection of stories told through songs.” The show is described as “a stunning new multimedia musical which explores a groundbreaking new concept of what the modern American musical can be.” (Director: Rick Sanchez; Choreographer: Stacy Jones: Music Director: Andrew Hendley)

She Loves Me (March 25 – May 1, 2022) This one, goes back to 1963! Based on a Hungarian play “Parfumerie,” the action is set in a perfume shop where two employees, a man and a woman, bicker a great deal. It is eventually revealed that they are pen-pals who write tender letters to each other not realizing who the recipient really is. It was also the first play produced and directed by Harold Prince. (Director: Donna Provencher; Choreographer: Kristin McGregor; Music Director: Lana Potts)

A Bronx Tale, The Musical (May 20 – June 26, 2022) Also based on a play – that inspired a film by the same name, directed and starring Robert De Niro – the musical deals with life on the mean streets of New York in the 1960s, where a young Italian-American is torn between opting for a life of crime, Mafia-style, and the values that his honest father and family represent. The music is by Oscar, Grammy and Tony-winner, Alan Menken. (Director: Vincent Hardy; Choreographer: Andre Abrams; Music Director: Jaime Ramirez)

Once on This Island (July 15- Aug. 21, 2022) Yet another musical based on a literary work – the novel “My Love, My Love” by Rosa Guy – this show premiered in 1990. It’s a fairytale of sorts, told to a little girl disturbed by a storm. It involves a good deed, unreciprocated love, frivolous gods, and a girl who is turned into a tree after she dies, a tree “so strong and tall,” it breaks the wall that separates communities. (Director: Danielle King; Choreographer: Tanesha Payne; Music Director: Ana Hernandez)
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Information about ticket packages and single tickets can be found at www.thepublicsa.org. The Public Theater, 800 West Ashby Place, 78212; box office 210-733-7258.

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