The Umbrella Stage 2023/24 Season Announced
June 2, 2023 by Rachel Olson
The Umbrella Stage Company is excited to announce its 2023/24 Season featuring a lineup of plays and musicals that exemplify brave storytelling and reimagine the theater experience.
The Season opens in September and October when – for the first time – the Company will present two productions in rotation in its Black Box and Main Stage theaters. Lizzie, The Musical – a cutting, fresh rock-band retelling of the Lizzie Borden story – will kick things off in the Main Stage Theater 144 with an inaugural weekend of shows. It will be followed by the opening of White Rabbit, Red Rabbit in the Black Box, an important and unconventional work that engages audiences in the improvisational and surprising pursuit of answers to timely and resonant questions.
December will feature a return of the popular Holiday Pops concert in partnership with Firebird Orchestra, a fun and festive event for the whole family.
The spring lineup features the Greater Boston Premiere of The Minutes by the multifaceted, award-winning actor and playwright Tracy Letts. Called “among the best new plays on Broadway in years” by Variety, The Minutes is the latest of Letts’ fiercely funny and foundation-rocking works.
The season will close in June with a fun, enduring, and uplifting musical never before seen on The Umbrella’s stages. Due to licensing restrictions, the title will be released this fall.
Though White Rabbit, Red Rabbit has the distinction of not having any director, The Umbrella is proud to announce two of the Directors who will be joining us for the season.
Ilyse Robbins is a prolific and award-winning director, choreographer, and performer who has worked with outstanding companies in the region including SpeakEasy Stage Company, The Lyric Stage of Boston, Front Porch Arts Collective, Greater Boston Stage Company, Peterborough Players, and more. She has been recognized on multiple occasions as a nominee and recipient of both the IRNEs and Elliot Norton awards. Most recently, her production of All is Calm at Greater Boston Stage won the 2022 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Musical. And her original choreography for the world premiere of Swan Lake in Blue: A Jazz Ballet at the same company won the Elliot Norton in 2020. Robbins will bring a strong, unique perspective and her incredible choreographic skills to Lizzie, The Musical.
No stranger to The Umbrella’s stages, Nancy Curran Willis returns in her 10th year to helm the spring musical. Curran Willis has directed some of the Stage Company’s most popular pieces including Glengarry Glen Ross, Angels in America, and Tuck Everlasting. A deft hand with both plays and musicals, Curran Willis’ 40+ year career in theater has been highlighted by multiple awards including the 2008 Elliot Norton for Best Direction of the Outstanding Production of the same year, Boston Theatre Works’ Angels in America.
A director for The Minutes will be named at a later date.
“This year, we were interested in presenting pieces that challenge our perspective as well as the conventions of traditional theater,” shares Director of Performing Arts Brian Boruta. “The stories of the 2023-2024 season lift up important questions: What is true? Whose stories do we hear – or even get to hear? How far would we go for what we believe? Our goal – in partnership with this incredible lineup of talented directors – is to create four distinct theater experiences that will be compelling and meaningful, spark conversations, and spread joy.”
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