Acclaimed theater company A Noise Within has announced an eclectic six-play 2023-24 season sponsored by the S. Mark Taper Foundation that the company is dubbing a “Balancing Act.”
“Each of the six plays is about someone or something in desperate need of alignment,” explain co-artistic directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott. “Each has some kind of imbalance or discord at its center. Perhaps we can say the same about the world we’re currently living in.” Kicking off the season on Labor Day weekend will be The Bluest Eye, a haunting and tragic portrait of a Black girl’s coming of age in the racially turbulent 1940s, adapted by Lydia R. Diamond from the novel by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. Everything in 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove’s world is tragically out of order. Faced with constant ridicule and abuse, Pecola blames her dark skin and prays for blue eyes, sure that love will follow. Diamond’s adaptation captures Morrison’s distinctively rich language to expose the poisonous effects of systemic racism and the heartbreak of shame. Andi Chapman directs. (September 2 – September 24; previews August 27 – September 1) Next up, opening in October, Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott co-direct William Shakespeare’s most beguiling comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Everything is topsy-turvy in the enchanted woods of Athens, where mortal lovers chase and are chased and fairies make magical mischief. The comedy, romance and mayhem of Shakespeare’s wedding play unite the realms of magic and mortals, rulers and rustics, while never straying from the subject of love. (October 14 – November 12; previews October 8 – October 13) The world of Ebenezer Scrooge will once again be turned upside down by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future in December. Holiday season signifies the return of A Noise Within’s delightfully festive, musically merry adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with its innovative staging, whimsical costumes, original music and boundless good cheer. (December 1 – December 24) Previously announced in 2020 but delayed by the pandemic, A Noise Within will kick off 2024 with the multiple Tony Award-winning musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. In this dark, brooding, yet sharply comic story of love, revenge and meat pies, Sweeney returns to London to right the hideous wrong that destroyed his family and ruined his life. (February 17 – March 17; previews February. 11 – February 16) April brings A Noise Within one step closer to its goal of producing all 10 plays in August Wilson’s “American Century Cycle” with the opening of King Hedley II. Gregg T. Daniel, who previously directed productions of Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean, Seven Guitars and Radio Golf for the company, returns to helm the eighth play in Wilson’s decade-by-decade chronicle of the Black American experience. The year is 1985 and Pittsburgh’s Hill District has been ravaged by violence, unemployment and urban blight. King Hedley II returns home after a seven-year prison term looking to re-build his life, save some money and start a family. However, both he and those around him quickly find that in 1980s America, the rules have changed. (April 6 – April 28; previews March 31 – April 5) Finally, closing out the season in May, Guillermo Cienfugos, whose joyfully creative production of Much Ado About Nothing recently closed at A Noise Within, returns to direct the quintessential “balancing act”: Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw. In Shaw’s sparkling comedy, the social and the political collide with the romantic and the practical; the aristocrats take on the middle classes and vice versa, and-to top it all off, there’s a high wire acrobat who brings equilibrium to all. (May 18 – June 9; previews May 12 – May 17) A Noise Within has been called “an oasis for those who love classic stories” by the Los Angeles Times and is a leading regional producer based in Pasadena, California. ANW’s award-winning resident company is committed to representing the entire community at its state-of-the-art, 324-seat performance space. In addition to producing world-class performances of classic theater, the organization runs robust education programs with the goal of inspiring diverse audiences of all ages. ANW believes in working hard on its anti-racist practice across the whole organization. By interpreting its mission to fully engage audiences through community and artist-centered work in multiple creative disciplines, ANW is striving to be a theater that better serves the entire community. For more information about A Noise Within’s 2023-24 “Balancing Act” season, and to purchase season subscriptions (save up to 30% — subscriptions on sale now) or single tickets (on sale beginning July 11), call (626) 356-3100 or go to www.anoisewithin.org.