PlayMakers Repertory Company has announced nine comedies for a 2020–21 season called “All Too Human: The Art of Comedy,” from weathered touchstones (Shakespeare’s As You Like It) to our culture’s cutting edge (Lauren Yee and Lynn Nottage).
“We need to laugh right now,” artistic director Vivienne Benesch said in a press release. “We need the humor, the pathos, the emotional catharsis, and that ultimate, uncontainable exuberance that comes from watching a great comedic play in the company of others.”
In a season running from September 2020–May 2021, the six mainstage productions at UNC’s Paul Green Theatre include Steel Magnolias, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s Pulitzer-winning You Can’t Take It With You, and family-friendly play Akeelah and the Bee, which also features PlayMakers’ first sensory-friendly performance.
Elsewhere in the season, the fast-rising playwright Yee’s Periods of Collapse (or Mother Russia) receives its East Coast premiere. The double-Pulitzered Nottage’s Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine is a riotous satire of race and social mobility. (As it happens, you can see Nottage’s Sweat courtesy of Justice Theater Project right now.)
Only two of the three second-stage “PRC2” productions at Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre have been announced: Dignity, Always Dignity, a post-apocalyptic cabaret by Tony-nominated Broadway star Bryce Pinkham and PlayMakers’ own Zack Fine, and Laughing Matters, which will feature local stand-up, improv comedy, and storytelling, with performers to be announced.
Season subscriptions are on sale now, while single tickets go on sale June 8. Call (919) 962-7529 or visit PlayMakers’ website for more information.
Contact arts and culture editor Brian Howe at bhowe@indyweek.com.
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