Tennessee Williams is in, Charles Dickens is out. At least for now.
Portland Stage Company announced its 2011-12 season this week, and one notable absence on the schedule is the annual holiday production of the theater’s adaptation of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
Instead, Portland Stage will create an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snow Queen.” It will run Dec. 2-24 on the main stage in tandem with a studio theater production of the David Sedaris comedy “The Santaland Diaries.”
Artistic and executive director Anita Stewart said the theater intends to alternate between “The Snow Queen” and “A Christmas Carol” every other year.
“We’ve been doing ‘A Christmas Carol’ for a while, and there is still a market for it, but there is also a need from our standpoint to try some different programming,” she said. “It’s a big change, but we are at a point where we have had a good enough season this year and are in a financially strong enough position where we can take a risk and try something different.”
The rest of the season includes new plays and classics and a return of one of the current season’s most popular plays, “2 Pianos 4 Hands.” Portland Stage will revive that show in summer 2012. It is not part of the upcoming subscription season.
The 2011-12 season looks like this:
• “The Morini Strad” by Connecticut playwright Willy Holtzman, Sept. 27-Oct. 23. It’s a new play about a friendship between an elderly violinist, who once was a prodigy, and the violin maker she hires to restore her Stradivarius.
• “God of Carnage” by Yasmina Reza, Nov. 1-20. This is a biting comedy about a playground fight between boys that spills over to the parents.
• “Marlowe,” an adaptation of two Raymond Chandler novels by James Glossman, Jan. 24 to Feb. 19. This is a world premiere adaptation of “Red Wind” and “Trouble is My Business,” set in 1930s Hollywood.
• “Hidden Tennessee” by Tennessee Williams, Feb. 28 to March 18. In honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1911, Portland Stage is presenting two one-acts by one of American’s most important playwrights: “Something Unspoken” and “This Property is Condemned.”
• “Heroes” by the French playwright Gerald Sibleyras, adapted by Tom Stoppard, March 27 to April 22, 2012. This is touching show about three aging WWI veterans in a French retirement home, who make their last stand together.
• “Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh” by Joel Gross, May 1-20, 2012. In 18th-century Paris, an ambitious portrait painter hooks up with a nobleman to gain access to paint the young queen as the country veers toward revolution.
Current season subscribers will receive renewal letters later this month. Single tickets will go on sale in July.
– BOB KEYES
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