Sacramento Theatre Company quietly revealed its 2008-09 season by slipping the titles into the program for “Topdog/Underdog” and sending out postcards to current subscribers only. Though my posting undermines the integrity of that stealth campaign, here’s what’s coming:
The Main Stage season opens with “Treasure Island” (Oct. 8-Nov. 2), an adaptation by playwright Ken Ludwig (“Lend Me a Tenor”), based on the well-known adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.
The English panto-based “Cinderella” returns for the holidays (Dec. 3-Jan. 4, 2009), with book and lyrics by Kate Hawley and music by Gregg Coffin (his “rightnextto me” is playing now at the B Street Theatre).
The company then follows with the opening installment of its pledge to present the complete 20th Century Cycle by August Wilson with “Gem of the Ocean.” It will be the first professional Sacramento production of a Wilson play in nearly 20 years.
Another playwright who doesn’t get as much exposure as he used to, Aristophanes, gets some play with his 411 B.C. comedy “Lysistrata” (March 11-April 5, 2009), as the women of Greece try forcing an end to war with a sex strike.
The Main Stage closes with what may be a perfect play, Michael Frayn’s devastatingly funny “Noises Off” (April 22-May 17, 2009).
Managing director Mark Standriff says subscriptions will go on sale some time in March. For more information, call (916) 443-6722 or go to www.sactheatre.org.
Meanwhile, there are also plans for a Stage 2 season and a naming announcement for that smaller theater, which the company will doubtlessly reveal in its own inscrutable way.
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