Season Announcement
Mainstage Irving-Las Colinas drafts farces + famous names for 2024-25 season
A scene from the 2016 Broadway revival of Noises Off.
MainStage Irving-Las Colinas' 2024-25 season is here, and it borrows a line from the master himself, Stephen Sondheim. "Art Isn't Easy" may be from the musical Sunday in the Park With George, but it's A Little Night Music that starts off the season, followed by four plays.
Set in 1900 Sweden, A Little Night Music explores the tangled web of affairs centered around actress Desirée Armfeldt and the men who love her: a lawyer by the name of Fredrik Egerman and Count Carl-Magnus Malcom.
When the traveling actress performs in Fredrik's town, the estranged lovers' passion rekindles. This strikes a flurry of jealousy and suspicion between Desirée; Fredrik; Fredrick's wife, Anne; Desirée's current lover, the Count; and the Count's wife, Charlotte. Both men — as well as their jealous wives — agree to join Desirée and her family for a weekend in the country at Desirée's mother's estate. With everyone in one place, infinite possibilities of new romances and second chances bring endless surprises. It runs November 1-16, 2024.
Ira Levin's 1978 play Deathtrap is next. Comfortably ensconced in his charming Connecticut home, Sidney Bruhl, a successful writer of Broadway thrillers, struggles to overcome a dry spell which has resulted in a string of failures and a shortage of funds.
A possible break in his fortunes occurs when he receives a script from a student in the seminar he has been conducting at a nearby college — a thriller that Sidney recognizes immediately as a potential Broadway smash. Sidney’s plan, devised with his wife’s help, is to offer collaboration to the student for co-credit. Or is it? It runs January 17-February 1, 2025.
Next, Into the Breeches! by George Brant gives women the spotlight.
It’s 1942, and Oberon Playhouse’s director and leading men are off at war with the Axis. With the men overseas, it appears that the season must be canceled. Until, that is, the women of the company see their chance to move from the sidelines to center stage and mount the first all-female production of Shakespeare’s Henry V. Will their show be a victory in the battle for equality or a target for tomatoes? It runs March 7-22, 2025.
Amadeus by Peter Shaffer is set in the court of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, where Antonio Salieri is the established composer.
Enter the greatest musical genius of all time: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Salieri has given himself to God so that he might realize his sole ambition, to be a great composer. Mozart is a foul-mouthed, graceless oaf who has that which is beyond Salieri’s envious grasp: genius. How far will Salieri go to achieve the fame that Mozart disregards? The show received the Tony Award for Best Play in 1981. It runs May 2-17, 2025.
The season concludes with crowd favorite Noises Off by Michael Frayn. Called “the funniest farce ever written,” Noises Off takes a fond look at the follies of theater folk, whose susceptibility to out-of-control egos, memory loss, and passionate affairs turn every performance into a high-risk adventure. This play-within-a-play captures a touring theater troupe’s production of Nothing On in three stages: dress rehearsal, the opening performance, and a performance toward the end of a debilitating run. A side-splitting backstage farce with slamming doors, falling trousers, and flying sardines, it runs July 18-August 2, 2025.
All productions will take place at Irving Arts Center’s Dupree Theater at 3333 N. MacArthur Blvd.
Season tickets and flex passes range from $106-$136 and will be available for purchase on July 9 at the Irving Arts Center box office, at www.IrvingArtsCenter.com, or by calling 972-252-2787. Single tickets will go on sale September 17. For more about MainStage, visit www.MainStageIrving.com.
