NEW YORK - The Public Theater's 2008-09 season will feature some of the best-known names in American theatre including Stephen Sondheim, John Guare, Christopher Durang and Craig Lucas, among others.
The season, announced Thursday by artistic director Oskar Eustis, will include the long-awaited New York premiere of "Bounce," the Sondheim-John Weidman musical seen in 2003, in a different production, at Chicago's Goodman Theatre and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
The Public's version, opening in October, will be directed by John Doyle, who has directed recent Broadway revivals of Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" and "Company." Doyle currently is represented on Broadway with the musical "A Catered Affair." "Bounce" deals with the American Dream and two brothers' attempts to reinvent themselves as they pursue it.
The Public's fall season will also include "If You See Something Say Something," created and performed by Mike Daisey at Joe's Pub, the Public's intimate cabaret space. In the show, Daisey looks at the Department of Homeland Security and what it means to feel safe.
A third fall offering will be "Taking Over," Danny Hoch's examination of New York's never-ending gentrification and its consequences for those who are displaced. Tony Taccone directs.
The winter will bring the world premiere of John Guare's "A Free Man of Color," set in New Orleans during the time of the Louisiana Purchase. Directed by George C. Wolfe, the play will star Mos Def and Jeffrey Wright and feature a parade of famous people including Napoleon, Josephine, Jefferson and Talleyrand.
Spring offerings include the world premiere of Durang's black comedy, "Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People who Love Them," the tale of a woman who wonders about her husband's possible terrorist connections, particularly when he drinks.
Also on the schedule is Tracey Scott Wilson's "The Good Negro," a highly personal story set against the backdrop of the 1960s civil rights movement. The play is a co-production with the Dallas Theater Center.
A third spring offering is "The Singing Forest," a look by Lucas at three generations of one family. Bartlett Sher, director of the current Broadway revival of "South Pacific," directs.
And, looking even farther ahead, one of the Public's free offerings in Central Park next summer will be Nicholas Ruddall's adaptation of Euripides' "The Bacchae," directed by JoAnne Akalaitis and featuring music by Philip Glass.
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