39 Steps Replaces Hudsucker Proxy and Other Updates Announced for La Jolla Playhouse Season

La Jolla Playhouse announces updates to its 2009/2010 season. Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, based on the beloved Alfred Hitchcock thriller, adapted for the stage by Patrick Barlow, directed by Maria Aitken, will replace the previously-announced Page-to-Stage production of The Hudsucker Proxy. The 39 Steps will run August 11 - September 13 in the Mandell Weiss Theatre.

Additionally, two new EDGE productions have been added to the season: Dogugaeshi, created by celebrated international puppeteer Basil Twist (master puppeteer for the Playhouse's acclaimed Peter and Wendy), running June 10 - 14 in the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre; and Hoover: Tanned, Rested and Ready to Rock, by Sean Cunningham, with songs by Michael Friedman, and directed by Alex Timbers (Peter and the Starcatchers), running September 8 - 13 in the Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre.

"These new productions round out our already thrilling 2009/10 line-up and bring San Diego audiences the enormous talents of such artists as Basil Twist and Les Freres Corbusier, not to mention Alfred Hitchcock," noted La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley. "While we are saddened that The Hudsucker Proxy won't be a part of the current season, the postponement allows us to present the runaway Broadway hit, The 39 Steps, a riotous take on Hitchcock's classic film that spins four virtuoso performances and wonderfully inventive staging into a highly entertaining comedy thriller."

Ashley continued, "In light of the current economy, it simply wasn't feasible to workshop The Hudsucker Proxy at this time. However, the project is still very much alive, and we sincerely hope to bring it back during a future Playhouse season, when we can give it the full treatment it deserves."

"I am also particularly excited about our two EDGE productions," said Ashley. "The work of Basil Twist is revered around the world, and his latest piece showcases his unique theatricality, centered on a fascinating, rarely-performed style of Japanese puppetry. At the other end of the spectrum, Les Freres Corbusier brings Playhouse audiences their hilarious reinvention of Herbert Hoover in a delightfully irreverent musical gem. Both of these new works perfectly illustrate the mission of the Playhouse's EDGE series."

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Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps is a charming, fast-paced whodunit packed with nonstop laughs, inventive staging, and more than150 zany characters played by a talented cast of four. This Tony and Olivier Award-winning show follows the incredible adventures of the handsome hero Richard Hannay, complete with stiff-upper-lip, British gung-ho and pencil moustache as he encounters dastardly murders, double-crossing secret agents, and devastatingly beautiful women. The New York Times dubbed it "absurdly enjoyable. This gleefully theatrical riff on Hitchcock's film is fast and frothy, performed by a cast of four that seems like a cast of thousands."

In Dogugaeshi, renowned artist and puppeteer Basil Twist takes audiences on an intimate, abstract, contemporary journey of images and emotions influenced by the rare tradition of Japanese dogugaeshi technique. The intricate dogugaeshi mechanism of sliding screens that create an unfolding of various images and landscapes was developed centuries ago as the climactic sequence in Japanese traditional puppet theater. Now only practiced in the Awaji region of Japan, Twist has recreated the technique with his own interpretation, blending Japanese tradition with his own inimitable style. Visually and aurally stunning, the performance features original live shamisen (traditional Japanese lute-like instrument) music and sound collages, created and performed by Yumiko Tanaka, a master of traditional shamisen. The multidisciplinary production featuring video projection design by The Builders Association's Peter Flaherty (Continuous City), lighting design by Andrew Hill, and sound design by Greg Duffin was the recipient of a 2005 Bessie Award and a New York Innovative Theater Award.

After stewing for 70 years in political disgrace (and presumed death), Herbert Hoover takes the stage in Hoover: Tanned, Rested and Ready to Rock, to reclaim his legacy and save America in the process. Elvis' classic '68 Comeback Special serves as inspiration for Hoover's own interactive, rock-infused rebirth. Award-winning theatre company Les Freres Corbusier celebrates the presidency of one of history's most vilified leaders in this hilarious new concert performance piece directed by Obie Award-winner and Les Freres Corbusier Artistic Director Alex Timbers (Peter and the Starcatchers).

Since 2004, Native Voices at the Autry has hosted Native theatre professionals at week-long retreats in Southern California, during which they shape plays of promise from emerging and established Native writers. With full readings of workshopped plays, Native Voices comes to La Jolla Playhouse to bring San Diego audiences their first look at what's new in Native theatre. The 2009 free readings include: Carbon Black, by Terry Gomez (Comanche) on June 19 at 8:00 pm; Fancy Dancer, by Dawn Dumont (Cree, Metis) on June 20 at 1:00 pm; and The Frybread Queen, by Carolyn Dunn (Muskogee Creek, Seminole, Cherokee) on June 21 at 4:00 pm. All readings take place in the Mandell Weiss Forum Studio.

ABOUT

The nationally acclaimed, Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse is known for its tradition of creating the most exciting and adventurous new work in regional theatre. The Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, and is considered one of the most well-respected not-for-profit theatres in the country. Numerous Playhouse productions have moved to Broadway, including Big River, The Who's Tommy, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, A Walk in the Woods, Dracula, Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays, the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, Jersey Boys, The Farnsworth Invention and 33 Variations. Located on the UC San Diego campus, La Jolla Playhouse is made up of three primary performance spaces: the Mandell Weiss Theatre, the Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre, and the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for La Jolla Playhouse, a state-of-the-art theatre complex which features the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre.

THE EDGE: Is the newest of the Playhouse's signature programs designed to bring the freshest, most adventurous work to our stages. Supported through a generous grant from The James Irvine Foundation and the Jordan Ressler Endowment Fund, projects in THE EDGE are produced outside of the subscription season. THE EDGE encompasses bold new works being created in the theatre today by established and up-and-coming cutting-edge artists. A third generation puppeteer, Basil Twist is the only American to graduate from the École Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette, one of the world's premiere puppetry training programs. His work was first spotlighted in 1995 with his creation of The Araneidae Show, for which he won a Bessie Award and a UNIMA Citation of Excellence. In 1998 he premiered Symphonie Fantastique at HERE Arts Center, for which he received the Henry Hewes Design Award and an Obie Award. Twist has continually expanded the realm of puppetry by creating and touring new pieces, focusing especially on work integrated with live music. Recent works include Petrushka, commissioned by Lincoln Center; Master Peter's Puppet Show, and a collaboration with Lee Breuer and composer Ushio Torikai entitled Red Beads. He developed the puppetry for Paula Vogel's acclaimed play The Long Christmas Ride Home and was the underwater puppetry consultant for the third Harry Potter film. .Twist is the director of The Dream Music Puppetry Program at HERE and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a United States Artists Fellow.

The award-winning Les Freres Corbusier creates aggressively visceral theater, combining historical revisionism, multimedia excess, found texts, sophomoric humor and rigorous academic research. They are devoted to the notion of a populist theatre that draws on prevailing tastes and comedic sensibilities to speak directly to the mainstream audience continually ignored by the American theater. Les Freres rejects the shy music, seamless dramaturgy, and -muted performance style of the 20th century in favor of the anarchic, the rude, the juvenile, the spectacle. Their works include The Franklin Thesis, President Harding Is a Rock Star, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, among others.

Subscriptions to La Jolla Playhouse's 2009/2010 season are available by calling (858) 550-1010 or by visiting lajollaplayhouse.org. Subscriptions are available in six-play, four-play and three-play packages, ranging from $131 to $374. Single tickets for the 2009/10 season go on sale Sunday, April 26, 2009.

 

 

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