From psychological thriller to farce, there will be something for everyone at the DBPH!

For Immediate Release
Contact:  Carol Kassie
carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244

May 11, 2022

Delray Beach, FL:  The Delray Beach Playhouse has a varied, eclectic, and thoroughly entertaining lineup planned for their 2022-2023 season. From musicals to musical comedy, to a myriad of musical memories… not to mention a suspenseful psychological thriller, a classic Neil Simon play, and a British backstage farce.

The Playhouse, which first opened its doors in 1947, has become a beloved fixture in South Florida theatrical community, and boasts large, strong, and supportive membership composed of year-round and seasonal patrons, an excellent roster of local talent both backstage and front of house, and an enthusiastic and committed team of volunteers.   

“Our lineup is jam-packed with new and exciting shows,” says Kevin Barrett, Delray Beach Playhouse Executive Director, “And there will be something for everyone to enjoy.  We have also made the strategic decision to kick off our season later in the year – in December, rather than October.  It will give our patrons time to become more comfortable returning to the theatre.” 

The season will begin with Villainous Company, a suspense-filled thriller by Victor Cahn. The Playhouse’ next production, Something’s Afoot, A Musical Mystery by James McDonald, David Vos, and Robert Gerlach, will be followed by Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite and then by Noises Off a farcical comedy by Michael Frayn. (Show descriptions below)

The Playhouse’ ever-popular Musical Memories Series will feature a celebration of The Songs of Jule Styne, New York, New York – Broadway Celebrates the Big Apple, From Showboat to Hamilton – Celebrating Broadway’s Landmark Musicals, A Celebration of Fiddler on the Roof, Making Whoopee! Ziegfeld’s “Clown Royal”, Celebrating the Music of Eddie Cantor. Three one-of concerts are also planned: This Land is Your Land – The Life and Song of Woody Guthrie, Remembering Woodstock – Songs from a Seminal Event in an Upstate Pasture, and Bleecker Street and Beyond:  The Greenwich Village Music Scene of the 60s. (Show descriptions below)

Subscriptions are on sale now, and group rates are available for the Main Stage productions as well as the Musical Memories Concerts. Single tickets for productions and concerts will be $42 and will be on sale in August/September.  

For more information about The Delray Beach Playhouse visit delraybeachplayhouse.com, or contact Carol Kassie at carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244.

The Delray Beach Playhouse is located at 950 NW 9^th Street, in Delray Beach, 33444. (561-272-1281).

~

Delray Beach Playhouse Mainstage Productions:

December 2 – 18, 2022
Villainous Company
By Victor L. Cahn

This suspenseful play begins when Claire returns from shopping to find that she’s apparently left one of her purchases (an expensive clock) at the store. Moments later, Tracy (a clerk from the store) appears with the clock. But what seems at first to be a kind gesture becomes an increasingly menacing interrogation as Tracy suggests that the store’s management suspects that Claire might be a thief. As Claire begins to feel more and more threatened by Tracy’s accusations, her friend Joanna appears. Claire and Joanna are surprised to learn that Joanna has also been under surveillance. But has Tracy really come from the store? Or is she a criminal herself trying to recruit new members to a ring of professional shoplifters. Villainous Company casts three women into a world of crime and detection and into roles we usually see occupied only by men.  Alive with deceit, dark humor, betrayals and surprising character revelations, Villainous Company builds to an astonishing climax worthy of Alfred Hitchcock.
~
January 27 – February 12, 2023
Something’s Afoot
By James McDonald, David Vos, & Robert Gerlach

This wonderfully witty musical takes place in 1935 on the country estate of Lord Dudley Rancor. As the play begins, Lord Dudley’s butler Clive greets a motley assortment of weekend guests, including Colonel Gillweather, Nigel (the black sheep of the family), Lady Grace Manley-Prowe, Dr. Grayburn, a theatrical ingenue, a mysterious young stranger and Miss Tweed (an amateur artist and detective). As the last guest arrives, Clive announces that a storm has made the estate inaccessible and that all of the phone lines are down. Then – one by one – the guests begin to die in the most varied and unlikely ways. Miss Tweed (who has clearly read all of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple novels) takes charge and launches an investigation. The deliciously musical score includes such songs as “A Marvelous Weekend,” “I Don’t Know Why I Trust You (But I Do)” and “The Man With the Ginger Mustache.” If you enjoy Agatha Christie’s mysteries and tuneful, toe-tapping melodies, you’ll love Something’s Afoot!
~
March 17 – April 2, 2023
Plaza Suite
By Neil Simon

Neil Simon’s popular triptych features three different plays set in the same hotel suite:  Suite 719 of New York’s Plaza Hotel. The first act – Visitor from Mamaroneck – tells the story of Sam and Karen, a couple who are revisiting the site of their honeymoon in the hope of rekindling the passion they felt as newlyweds. The second act – Visitor from Hollywood – depicts a rendezvous between a movie producer named Jesse Kiplinger and a suburban housewife named Muriel Tate. Muriel thinks Jessie just wants to renew a high-school friendship. She’s wrong. The third act – Visitor from Forest Hills – revolves around a couple’s efforts to persuade their altar-shy daughter to emerge from the bathroom and go through with the very costly wedding they’ve prepared for her. Their efforts are Herculean…and hilarious! In fact, it is generally conceded that this is the single funniest scene that Neil Simon ever wrote! Not a small claim to make for America’s favorite comic playwright!
~
April 28 – May 14, 2023
Noises Off
By Michael Frayn

This fast-paced comedy has become one of the most frequently revived plays of the twentieth century. An award-winning hit on both sides of the Atlantic, Noises Off recounts the catastrophic meltdown of a regional theater production of a farce called Nothing On in which everything – but everything! – goes wrong! Act One depicts the play’s fraught dress rehearsal.  Act Two lets us watch the actual performance of the play as it slowly implodes on stage.  And Act Three gives us a view of the play ten weeks after its Opening Night when the cast no longer care whether they live or die. Noises Off is regarded today as the ultimate “back-stage comedy!” Even if you’ve never been in a play, you will both empathize and laugh out loud at the often embarrassing and catastrophic mistakes being made on the stage before you. Frank Rich wrote that “Noises Off is the funniest play written in my lifetime!” High praise from New York’s most
exacting critic!

Delray Beach Playhouse Musical Memories Series:

December 12 – 20, 2022
Celebrating the Songs of Jule Styne

In a career that spanned 40 years, Jule Styne wrote over 1400 songs. In Hollywood he wrote some of the most popular songs of World War II, including “I’ll Walk Alone” and “I’ve Heard That Song Before.” For Broadway, he wrote one smash hit show after another, including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (“Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”), High Button Shoes (“Papa, Won’t You Dance With Me?”), Funny Girl (“People”), Bells Are Ringing (“Just in Time”), Do Re Mi (“Make Someone Happy)” and Gypsy (“Everything’s Coming Up Roses’). And along the way, he gave Frank Sinatra some of his biggest hits, penning such Sinatra classics as “Three Coins in the Fountain,” and “I Fall in Love too Easily.” To paraphrase one of Jule’s own songs, people who know the music of Jule Styne are “the luckiest people in the world!”
~
February 6 – 14, 2023
New York, New York – Broadway Celebrates The Big Apple

Ever since Governor Al Smith adopted “East Side, West Side” as his campaign song, composers and lyricists have been describing and celebrating the unique rhythms and joyous energy of The Greatest City in the World. The result? More great songs have been written for New York than for Frank Sinatra…and that’s saying a lot! Needless to say, many of these songs were born on Broadway, the musical heart of the city. The city itself has played a major role in shows from Annie to West Side Story and from Guys and Dolls to The Producers! And many of our finest songwriters have written heart-felt love songs to their favorite city, including Richard Rodgers (“Manhattan”), Jule Styne (“Every Street’s a Boulevard”), Bock and Harnick (“Little Old New York”) and Stephen Sondheim (“Another Hundred People”). Come and help us celebrate the rebirth of our own Big Apple!
~
March 27 – April 4, 2023
From Showboat to Hamilton – Celebrating Broadway’s Landmark Musicals

In 1947, it was illegal for Black and White performers to dance together on a Broadway stage. But Finian’s Rainbow openly flouted that law and hastened its repeal. Forty years ago, color-blind casting was unheard of. But in its 1994 production of Carousel, Britain’s National Theatre cast actress Audra MacDonald in the role of Carrie Pipperidge opposite an appropriately named Mr. Snow and (today) color-blind casting is the rule. Case in point: before Hamilton, who could have imagined that Broadway’s best known George Washington would be played by a young Black performer? And in 1982, La Cage Aux Folles featured a Gay Marriage a full quarter of a century before Gay Marriages actually became legal. This program will highlight Broadway musicals that have not only anticipated – but, in some instances,  actually precipitated – change.
~
May 8 – 16, 2023
Celebrating Fiddler on the Roof

When Sholem-Aleichem first published his stories about Tevye the Milkman in 1894, he could not have imagined they would one day be adapted into a musical phenomenon that would be seen and celebrated in every major city in the world. The character of Tevye first appeared on stage in a Yiddish theater in New York in 1917; but it was not until 1971 that Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick would create the show that would quickly become one of the most successful musicals of all time: Fiddler on the Roof. This program will reveal how Fiddler came into being and the wide-ranging impact it’s had in theaters around the world. You’ll also hear the songs that have become Broadway standards, songs like “Tradition,” “Matchmaker,” “Do You Love Me?,” “If I Were a Rich Man” and “Far From the Home I Love.”
~
June 5 – 13, 2023
Making Whoopie – Ziegfeld’s “Clown Royal” – Celebrating Eddie Cantor

Eddie Cantor was a major star on Broadway (Whoopie! and Banjo Eyes), a popular radio personality, the star of over a dozen popular Hollywood films (Kid Millions and Roman Scandals), a television star (The Colgate Comedy Hour) and a best-selling recording artist. In addition to his career as an entertainer, he was also a noted philanthropist, both naming and helping to organize The March of Dimes. But today he is best remembered as one of America’s greatest comic performers, a man who shared the bill with W.C. Fields, Fanny Brice and Will Rogers and was (for over a decade) the leading star of The Ziegfeld Follies. In a singing career that spanned over 40 years, he introduced dozens of popular songs, including “If You Knew Susie,” “Ain’t She Sweet,” ‘Ballin’ the Jack,” “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me” and his signature song, “Making Whoopie!”
~
Delray Beach Playhouse Individual Concerts:

December 7, 2022
This Land is Your Land:  The Life and Song of Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie, the iconic wandering troubadour, created music that is part of the collective memory of generations of Americans who grew up in the mid-20th century. The PinkSlip Duo sings his upbeat message songs of social justice and worker’s rights, still relevant today, such as “This Land is Your Land,” “Worried Man Blues,” Union Maid, “So Long it’s Been Good to Know Ya,” and “Sinking of the Ruben James,” along with Guthrie’s most touching songs sung in beautiful harmony, such as “Hobo’s Lullaby,” “Deportee,”  “Pastures of Plenty,” and “Jarama Valley” and tells the story of this original performer who traveled the country, often perched atop a boxcar with his friend Pete Seeger.
~
February 1, 2023
Remembering Woodstock:  Songs from a Seminal Event in an Upstate Pasture

The Woodstock music festival was planned for 50,000 people in upstate New York, but attracted 10 times that on a rain-plagued weekend in August 1969, clogging traffic and taxing the local infrastructure. Yet, the event became a marvel of peaceful coexistence and a symbol of Sixties’ communal values. The music, by Crosby, Stills and Nash, Country Joe MacDonald, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Joe Cocker, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence, and others, became the soundtrack of a generation. The PinkSlip Duo will play much of that music and tell the story of that momentous event, with narration and slides.
~
March 22, 2023
Bleeker Street and Beyond:  The Greenwich Village Music Scene of the 60s.

Guitar-strumming poets of the 60s turned Greenwich Village Bohemian enclaves, like The Gaslight Cafe, Gerde’s Folk City, and The Bitter End into the focal point of the sixties folk revival and its evolution into folk-rock. Join the PinkSlip Duo in an examination of this cultural phenom, with narration and slides, and sing along to songs by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, Judy Collins, Simon & Garfunkel, the Serendipity Singers, and the Kingston Trio and as the music evolves to folk rock, to groups like the Mamas and Papas, CSNY, Lovin’ Spoonful, the Youngbloods and Dylan (plugged in!).