TUTS slates four area premieres for ’15-’16
Houston premieres of three Tony-winning musicals fresh from Broadway — the mordantly witty “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” the rhapsodically romantic “The Bridges of Madison County” and the exuberantly imaginative “Matilda” — highlight Theatre Under The Stars’ 2015-16 season at Hobby Center.
With another area premiere, “A Christmas Story,” as its holiday attraction, the season boasts four Houston premieres with significant new scores written for the theater — a welcome reversal of the recent trend stressing familiar fare and music recycled from other media.
Oliver!, the ever-popular 1960s Dickensian smash, is the one warhorse in the mix, returning for its first TUTS staging since 2004. Rounding out the season is TUTS’ first presentation of “Mary Poppins,” the recent London and New York hit seen here as part of its 2009 tour.
“Matilda,” “The Bridges of Madison County” and “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” will be national tours; the other shows will be TUTS productions.
As an extra, TUTS will offer a brief return engagement of “The Little Mermaid,” another Disney screen-to-stage adaptation, which TUTS first presented in 2014. The season:
Matilda, Oct. 6-18. “Matilda” began in the imagination of the great Roald Dahl, who wrote the 1988 children’s novel about a precocious 5-yearold who uses her love of books and language (and a little supernatural power) to triumph over her horribly selfish parents and the monstrously cruel headmistress of her school. Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin wrote the unique and ingeniously subversive musical that premiered in London in 2011 and on Broadway in 2013, in both cases to a tremendous response from critics and audiences alike. Bloomberg News deemed it “deliriously amusing, heartwarming and head- spinning.” It won seven of London’s Olivier Awards, including best new musical, and five Broadway Tonys, including best book.
A Christmas Story, Dec. 8-20. The 1983 film of Jean Shepherd’s nostalgic memoir has become one of the best-loved holiday movies — all about young Ralphie, his family and pals, but, especially, Ralphie’s obsession with acquiring an official Red Ryder BB gun. Joseph Robinette wrote the book, and Benj Pasek and Justin Paul the songs, for the faithful and smoothly professional musical version. After several regional stagings, it premiered on Broadway in 2012 to favorable reviews. The New York Times praised the “likable, perky score that translates all of the major episodes of the story into appropriate musical numbers.” The show received Tony nominations for best musical, book and score.
The Bridges of Madison County, Jan. 19–31. Based on Robert James Waller’s best-selling novel, this heartfelt musical assembled one of the most distinguished creative teams of recent years: music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, book by Marsha Norman, and direction by Bartlett Sher. Set in Iowa in the 1960s, the show chronicles the brief, life-altering affair that develops between disenchanted farm wife Francesca, who came to the American Midwest 20 years earlier as an Italian war bride; and Robert, the visiting photographer she meets while her husband and two children are away at the state fair. Widely praised for the most beautiful and moving new theater score in years, “Bridges” won two 2014 Tonys, for best score and orchestrations.
Mary Poppins, March 8-20, 2016. Staged first in London in 2004, then on Broadway in 2006, the hit theatrical version of the magical nanny’s exploits turned out to be not just another Disney screen-to-stage transfer. The show was half-based on Disney’s beloved 1964 live-action film musical, but half-based on other episodes from P.L. Travers’ “Mary Poppins” books not used in the movie. Julian Fellowes’ book shrewdly melded the materials, but perhaps the stage show’s best feature is that the new songs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe proved just as tuneful and appropriate to the period and characters as the songs retained from the Oscar-winning film score by Richard and Robert Sherman.
Oliver!, April 5-17, 2016. Long before Andrew Lloyd Webber, composerlyricist Lionel Bart scored a London hit that became an international sensation with “Oliver!,” his musical based on “Oliver Twist,” Charles Dickens’ classic about a beleaguered yet plucky orphan’s adventures in 19th-century London. The show premiered in London in 1960, arrived on Broadway under the aegis of famed producer David Merrick in 1963 and was brought to the screen by director Carol Reed in 1968, winning the Oscar for best picture. Bart stocked his most famous score with irresistible tunes, from poignant ballads “Where Is Love” and “As Long As He Needs Me” to such sing-along rousers as “Consider Yourself” and “It’s a Fine Life.”
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, May 3–15, 2016. Broadway’s most devilishly witty musical in years, “Gentleman’s Guide” is based on the novel that also inspired the classic Alec Guiness film “Kind Hearts and Coronets.” Protagonist Monty Navarro, raised in poverty, learns after his mother’s death that he’s actually distant heir to a title and the fortune that goes with it. Trying to gain recognition from any of the uppity D’Ysquith clan, he discovers just how insufferable privileged and condescending they are — and decides to claim the title and fortune himself, by discreetly bumping off all those ahead of him in the line of succession. One of the treats is that the show is constructed to have one versatile comic actor play all the relatives Monty must dispatch on his way to the top. The New York Times called the show “inspired and entertaining,” and praised co-authors Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak for “matching streams of memorable melody with fizzily witty turns of phrase.” “Gentleman’s Guide” won five 2014 Tonys, including best musical.
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everett.evans@chron.com