Asolo Rep unveils 2024-25 season that limits traditional rotating repertory schedule

Just eight months into his first year as producing artistic director of Asolo Repertory Theatre, Peter Rothstein is making his mark by planning what he calls a robust season of two major musicals, a world premiere and four other plays and a holiday special of a show he created.

At the same time, Rothstein is limiting the Asolo’s traditional rotating repertory schedule in which actors would perform in two or more plays during the same period, and allowing tourists to see several plays in one week.

Next season, two shows will be presented in that traditional repertory schedule, and two others will be presented on an overlapping schedule but with no ties between them.

The rotating repertory model makes it difficult to cast specific actors for a world premiere like “Ken Ludwig’s Lady Molly of Scotland Yard,” based on two female detective characters created by “Scarlet Pimpernel” author Baroness Emma Orczy, or dealing with the cultural specificity of Nilo Cruz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning romantic drama “Anna in the Tropics,” set in an Ybor City cigar factory. Cruz, a winner of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, has had other plays produced at Asolo Rep, including “Sotto Voce” in 2015 and the Spanish translation for the company’s “Hamlet, Prince of Cuba¨ in 2012.

Rothstein said coming up with new business and production models was part of his conversations with the board of directors before he was hired last year. Only Brian Friel’s “Dancing with Lughnasa,” last produced here in 1993, will run in repertory with “Anna in the Tropics."

Asolo Rep will be part of the first wave of non-profit regional theaters to produce the Broadway hit “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.” The musical, featuring dozens of hits by the singer-songwriter, will open the season Nov. 13-Jan. 5. The 66th season will close with “Jesus Christ Superstar,” which will be directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes, who has staged many shows at Asolo Rep and recently made his Broadway directorial debut with a revival of “Spamalot.”

The theater also will present the regional premiere of Doug Wright’s recent Tony Award-winning play “Good Night, Oscar,” about actor, musician, composer, game show panelist and storyteller Oscar Levant.

In addition, Rothstein’s play with music “All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914,” which became a staple at his Theatre Latte Da in Minneapolis and was filmed for PBS, will be presented as a special holiday event in the Historic Asolo Theater.

“This feels like a big season, a robust season to me,” Rothstein said in an interview prior to his public announcement of the season schedule at a town hall-style event. “All of these shows are filled with big ideas and really stretches the genre, I feel.”

Here’s a closer look at the season:

‘Beautiful: The Carole King Musical’

Nov. 13-Jan. 5.

Shelley Butler, who has worked at theaters across the country and staged the Japanese premiere of “Beautiful,” will make her Asolo Rep directorial debut with this musical about the life and music of Carole King, her troubled marriage to Gerry Goffin , and the competition to create hits with friends Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill in the Brill building. Banji Aboroisade will choreograph and Angela Steiner will return as musical director after working on “Sweeney Todd,” “Cabaret” and “Crazy for You” at Asolo Rep.

‘All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914’

By Peter Rothstein

Dec. 4-22 (Historic Asolo Theater)

This special holiday event (not part of the theater’s subscription series) tells the story of the famed Christmas truce during World War I that began with a German soldier putting down his rifle and stepping into No Man’s Land to sing “Silent Night,” triggering an unexpected and heartwarming response from his fellow soldiers and enemy. Rothstein created the show in 2007 after the United States invaded Baghdad. It became an annual holiday tradition at his Theatre Latte Da in Minneapolis

‘Ken Ludwig’s Lady Molly of Scotland Yard’

Previews Jan. 17-23, Opens Jan. 24-Feb. 8.

Asolo Rep recently produced a workshop of this new play by the author of “Crazy For You,” “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Lend Me a Tenor” based on the detective stories by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, who may be best known as the author of “The Scarlet Pimpernel.”. The workshop helped build a relationship between Ludwig and Rothstein, who will direct the full production. “It went really well,” said Rothstein, adding that Ludwig is “also doing significant rewrites.” Rothstein directs the premiere.

‘Anna in the Tropics’

By Nilo Cruz

Feb. 19-March 13.

Nilo Cruz won the Pulitzer Prize for this tender and haunting play set in 1929 in a cigar factory in Ybor City, where the workers go about crafting cigars while listening to the emotion-laden voice of a lector who reads from newspapers and great works of literature. A new lector arrives from Cuba and reads Leo Tolstoy’s story of “Anna Karenina,” with explosive results. Marcela Lorca will make her Sarasota debut as director.

‘Dancing at Lughnasa’

By Brian Friel

March 19-April 19

Joe Dowling, former artistic director of Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theatre and the Abbey Theatre in Ireland, stages this tender Irish comic drama that uses music and memory to share the stories of five sisters supporting one another through their ups and downs in a rural community. Asolo Rep produced Friel’s “Philadelphia, Here I Come” in 2014.

‘Good Night, Oscar’

By Doug Wright

April 2-26

“Will & Grace” star Sean Hayes won a Tony Award for his performance as musician, actor and troubled raconteur Oscar Levant in this play that finds him at a low point as he makes one of his many celebrated appearances on “The Tonight Show.” Peter Amster, who most recently staged “The Three Musketeers” and “Murder on the Orient Express,” directs.

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‘Jesus Christ Superstar’

By Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice

May 14-June 15

Josh Rhodes returns to Sarasota to stage a long-discussed production of this ground-breaking Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice rock opera about the last days of Jesus. Rhodes most recently directed a revival of “Spamalot” on Broadway and staged “Cabaret,” “Evita” “The Sound of Music” and more at Asolo Rep. Jenny Kim-Godfrey will serve as musical director after last year’s production of “Man of La Mancha” and this season’s “Inherit the Wind.”

Tickets

Current subscribers can renew their tickets now. New subscription sales will begin May 13 and single-ticket sales will begin in September. For more information: 941-351-800; asolorep.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Asolo Rep plans a world premiere, three musicals and more for 2024-25