With summer vacations behind us, it's time to look ahead to the new arts season. Here are some fall preview performing arts highlights.
Screen to Stage
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? At the Huntington Theatre Company through October 5th.
TV veterans Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Julia Duffy star in this staged adaptation of the 1967 film classic.
Far From Heaven, At SpeakEasy Stage Company from September 12th to October 11th.
The creators of the musical Grey Gardens and Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg have adapted the 2002 film for the stage as a lush musical about a 1950s Connecticut housewife whose perfect life is shattered when she discovers her husband's shocking secret. She seeks comfort in a forbidden relationship that dramatically alters her view of herself and the world.
The Lion King, At the Boston Opera House from September 9th to October 12th.
The epic, Tony-winning, ground-breaking musical returns to the Boston.
Suddenly Sondheim
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, At the Lyric Stage Company until October 11th.
Stephen Sondheim's macabre musical thriller, blends his characteristic wit with a sweeping and hauntingly beautiful score, grisly humor, and chilling drama.
Assassins, At New Repertory Theatre October 4th to November 26th.
Stephen Sondheim takes us into the criminal minds of some of history’s most notorious assassins, including John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and John Hinkley, Jr. Bending both time and space, this musical gathers a most unlikely meeting of historical misfits.
Stars on Stage
The Trip to Bountiful, ArtsEmerson presents from November 20th to December 7th.
In a post-Broadway engagement, the starry cast includes Cicely Tyson reprising the role that won her the Tony as the frail but feisty Carrie Watts in Horton Foote’s beloved American classic The Trip to Bountiful, a story of intergenerational family conflict. Living in a cramped apartment in Houston with her dutiful son Ludie (Golden Globe nominee Blair Underwood) and bossy daughter-in-law Jessie Mae (Grammy and Tony nominee Vanessa Williams), the elderly Carrie dreams of making one final journey to her hometown of Bountiful, Texas, which she was forced to abandon twenty years earlier. With pension check in hand, her last journey to Bountiful begins. Filled with joyous gospel hymns including an unforgettably moving “Blessed Assurance,” this American treasure is a masterpiece of memory, mortality and the undeniable, universal yearning for the warmth of home.
O.P.C., At The American Repertory beginning November 28th.
Following its splashy start with the Broadway-bound Finding Neverland, the A.R.T. premieres a new piece by Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues. Exploring issues of consumption and politics, Ensler asks, “How are we to survive as a species if we insist on destroying the world we love?” A dumpster-diving freegan is doing just fine squatting in an abandoned apartment, but when her mother, a candidate running for the Senate, tries to make her tow the party line, radicalism comes into collision with mainstream liberalism. Mother and daughter wrestle with the inconvenient truths at the heart of consumer culture, tossed between political compromise and "obsessive political correctness."
Ballet
Swan Lake, Presented by the Boston Ballet October 30th to November 16th.
This is the world premiere of Mikko Nissinen's Swan Lake, the classic fairytale of the Swan Queen Odette, Prince Siegfried, and the sorcery, betrayal and love, that unites them for all eternity. The production features magnificent new costumes and sets, with choreography that captures the flare and heart of Tchaikovsky's romantic score. As the second collaboration between Mikko Nissinen and award-winning designer Robert Perdziola (set and costume designer for Boston Ballet's The Nutcracker), this has a new prologue and scenic details that recall the emotion and impact of Petipa and Ivanov's original ballet. As timeless as the love that binds Siegfried and Odette it will leave you spellbound until the very end. This is the Swan Lake not to be missed.
Opera
La Traviata, At the Boston Lyric Opera from October 10th to the 19th.
The opera that spawned Pretty Woman gets a saucy make-over, sung in Italian with projected English translation. Giuseppe Verdi’s classic has not seen been performed at the BLOs in nearly a decade, and returns in a glorious new production. The tale of Violetta, a worldly courtesan with all the men of Paris at her feet, takes a wrenching turn when she risks all for a chance at enduring love. Anya Matanovic makes her Boston Lyric Opera debut in the role opposite Weston Hurt as the father who will stop at nothing to protect his family’s honor. His son Alfredo loses and regains Violetta, leading to one of the greatest scenes of reconciliation in all of opera.
Underway here at WGBH
Sing That Thing! Have a singing group that the rest of Boston should hear?
Sign up for a juried singing competition that will showcase the best amateur choirs in the region. Church choirs, high school groups, glee clubs, community choruses, college ensembles — you name it — will be invited into our studios to perform.
Each group will “sing their thing” before a live studio audience, and viewers at home will vote online to help pick the winners. We’ll also tell the singers’ stories, revealing the passion, dedication, and teamwork at the heart of choral singing.
Open Studio will take a break during our summer pledge drive and resume in the fall. Be sure to catch up with episodes you missed by visiting our video archive online, and thank you for supporting WGBH.
Have you had an interesting encounter with the arts around Boston? » Tell me about it on Facebook or Twitter .
