Theater News
Tony winners and a Neiman Marcus meltdown highlight Theatre Three's new season
UPDATE: Theatre Three has revised its upcoming season. Inherit the Wind is out, The Glass Menagerie is in and a few of the shows have switched spots. The most recent lineup is reflected below.
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Theatre Three's 54th season has a theme: yay USA! From 1950s Midwesterners chasing romance to a dysfunctional Houston oil family to a Tennessee Williams classic, the lineup highlights the American experience.
It's also bringing back the perennial favorite I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change to the basement Theatre Too space beginning on New Year's Eve. (Additional T2 programming will be announced later.)
Tennessee Williams' "dream play" The Glass Menagerie opens the season from July 30-August 23. The delicate work has its narrator reflecting back on his controlling mother and disabled sister, and what finally drove him away from his family. Cheerful stuff.
The 95-minute comedy Fix Me, Jesus, by Helen Sneed, is set in a dressing room of NorthPark's Neiman Marcus, where a woman experiences a meltdown while shopping for a dress to wear to her sister's wedding. It plays September 17 through October 11.
William Inge's Pulitzer Prize-winning Picnic is next, from November 5-22. Paul Newman made his Broadway debut in this lusty, longing tale of a charming drifter who stirs up the feelings of the town's women.
End the year 2015 with an old favorite — the world's longest-running musical, to be exact. The Fantasticks premiered in 1960 and has been playing more or less continuously Off Broadway ever since. (It was recently set to shutter, but anonymous donors contributed enough to keep it open indefinitely.) It's at Theatre Three from December 3 to 27. Written by University of Texas grads Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones (perhaps you've heard of him?), the boy-meets-girl trope gets a sweet twist courtesy of the couple's scheming fathers.
A new play by Raelle Tucker and Neil Tucker focusing on the outrageous matriarch of a 1980s Houston oil clan kicks off 2016. Running from January 21 through February 14, Oil is "the story of a family, and a country, so desperate to hold on to what they have that they are willing to sacrifice what matters most: each other."
Peek behind the velvet curtain with Moss Hart's Light Up the Sky, a backstage comedy from 1948 that showcases the drama that occurs immediately before and after the opening of a Broadway-bound show. This is exactly the kind of flashy, gossip-filled, show-biz ode that Theatre Three typically excels at, but we'll have to wait until March 10 through April 3 to see if the company can muster its usual magic.
The theater in the Quadrangle ends its season April 28 through May 22 with Memphis, the Tony-winning musical about a white DJ and a black club singer who shake up Beale Street and the airwaves with their with their love. It also features a rock, blues and 1950s-pop score by Bon Jovi's David Bryan.
Season subscriptions and individual tickets are available by calling Theatre Three's box office at 214-871-3300.
