Pasadena Playhouse Producing Artistic Director, Danny Feldman, announces the 2022/2023 Season featuring a six-month-long celebration of the works and impact of Stephen Sondheim. The State Theater of California’s Sondheim Celebration will begin in January 2023 and extend into June. Continuing their mission of creating notable revivals of the American Musical (Ragtime, Little Shop of Horrors, and Head Over Heels), the celebration will center around two full productions – Sunday in the Park with George and A Little Night Music, commemorating the latter show’s 50th anniversary. The grand finale will be a special concert by Sondheim muse Bernadette Peters. Additionally, in a landmark partnership, the Playhouse is working with the high schools of Pasadena Unified School District to present a production of Into The Woods with students collaborating with theater professionals in creating their own special production. The 2022/2023 Season will be rounded out with two Los Angeles Premieres – Sanctuary City by Martyna Majok and Stew by Zora Howard. Creative teams and casting for all productions as well as additional Sondheim Celebration events will be announced at a later date.
Memberships, with options starting at $100, are now available at pasadenaplayhouse.org, or by calling 626-356-7529.
“This ambitious celebration has been several years in the making and has taken on even deeper meaning since the loss of Stephen Sondheim last year. Our goal is to provide a mosaic experience for our community, engaging audiences with multiple works by Sondheim and his collaborators’ side by side, so that audiences can have a richer appreciation of his impact and work.” Producing Artistic Director Danny Feldman added, “After our first season back on stage, we knew this year had to be about celebrating: Celebrating the masterworks of the greatest musical theater writer of all time. Celebrating new voices in the American Theater. Celebrating our community coming together at the Playhouse once again.”
SONDHEIM CELEBRATION (January – June 2023)
The most ambitious and momentous event in the history of Pasadena Playhouse. This celebration of Stephen Sondheim features premier, full-scale productions of his monumental musicals seldom seen in the greater Los Angeles area and a one-of-a-kind concert by one of Sondheims’ most beloved muses. Additional concerts, classes, digital programming and special events will be announced at a later date.
“Put simply, Stephen reinvented the American musical. He’s loomed large over more than six decades in the theater. And with revivals from Broadway to the big screen, he is still here, pulling us up short, and giving us support for “being alive.” – Barack Obama, Presidential Medal of Freedom Ceremony
Sunday in the Park with George (February 14 – March 19, 2023)
Book by James Lapine, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
One of the most acclaimed musicals of all time, Sondheim’s most innovative and groundbreaking musical has rarely been produced in Los Angeles with the full-scale production it deserves—until now. Inventive, insightful, and in a class of its own, this ravishing, captivating masterpiece encapsulates the complexity of life—and the art of understanding it.
Recipient of the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, “Sunday remains a masterpiece that affirms the painful, isolating joys of creation, and the need to learn new lessons. Like a densely plotted canvas, it’s worth seeing, no matter where or how it’s hung.” – Time Out New York
A Little Night Music (April 25 – May 28, 2023)
Book by Hugh Wheeler, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Suggested by a film by Ingmar Bergman
In honor of its 50th Anniversary, the Playhouse is proud to present this unsung sensation in its full, original, and soaring orchestration. Boasting one of the most singular and sumptuous scores in Broadway history, Sondheim’s enchanting, hilarious romantic farce is a bona fide classic of American musical theater.
Recipient of three Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score, A Little Night Music is “heady, civilized, sophisticated and enchanting.” – New York Times
Bernadette Peters in Concert (June 10 – 11, 2023)
Bernadette Peters, Broadway’s brightest star and Sondheim’s most stunning muse, in an unforgettable evening of song from the Broadway shows she’s received accolades for, as well as from all her Grammy Award winning and nominated albums. A glamorous evening as only Bernadette Peters can do.
Into the Woods (January 26 -27, 2023)
Book by James Lapine, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Presented by students of the Pasadena Unified School District
Into the Woods is a lyrically rich retelling of classic Brothers Grimm fables, with Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine bringing the cockeyed fairytales to life on stage featuring all of your favorite characters — Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (and his beanstalk) and the Witch. In a landmark partnership, the Playhouse will collaborate with the high school students and teachers of Pasadena Unified School District to present Into The Woods with students working alongside theater professionals in creating their own special production.
Recipient of the 1988 Tony Award for Best Original Score and the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, “Into the Woods blends imagination and playfulness in its own very special proportions” and follows “a path strewn with wit and the beguiling songs we’ve come to expect from Sondheim.” – Newsweek
Sanctuary City (September 14 – October 9, 2022)
By Martyna Majok
From Pulitzer Prize-winner Martyna Majok (Cost of Living) comes a provocative, unforgettable story of two life-long friends, their tenuous grip on living in America, and persevering through whatever comes their way with wit and grit. Profoundly human and undeniably universal, it begs the question: how much do we owe to one another?
Recipient of the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award and Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Theater Development Grant, Sanctuary City “makes for a compelling contemporary drama that has enigmatic characters, rising intensity, vigorous argumentation, timely themes, and an underlying sense of humor and compassion.” (amNY). Elysa Gardner of New York Stage Review says, “Majok has given us something that transcends politics as only the best and most humane art can.” In addition to the Los Angeles premiere of Sanctuary City, Majok’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Cost of Living will open on Broadway this fall.
Stew (July 11 – August 6, 2023)
By Zora Howard
Mama’s in the kitchen early preparing her famous stew for a big event, but even as her daughter and granddaughters help, she still feels like time is running out. Soon these three generations of Black women begin to feel their past and present closing in. A finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Zora Howard’s hilarious, haunting, and taut 90-minute drama has a lot more cooking underneath the surface.
A 2021 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Stew “feels familiar without being cliché, delivering a captivating story that’s intimate, funny, and heartbreaking in equal measure.” – The New Yorker
MEMBERSHIPS
Membership is our form of Subscription. It is the best and most cost-effective way to celebrate the season at the Playhouse and includes tickets/access to Sanctuary City, Sunday in the Park with George, A Little Night Music, Bernadette Peters in Concert, and Stew. With packages starting at $100 for the PlayhousePass, there are packages for everyone. Members receive advanced access to tickets, significant discounts on tickets, reduced/waived fees and unprecedented flexibility,
- Traditional Subscription/Classic Memberships: Receive tickets to all 5 productions with preassigned seats for the entire season. Packages start at $275.
- Dynamic Memberships: Prepaid access to all 5 productions, allowing you to pick your seats as you go (before tickets are available to the general public). Packages start at $250.
- PlayhousePass: $100 annual membership fee unlocks access to $50 tickets for the best available seats to any production you want to attend, with advanced access to tickets before they go on sale to the public.
Buy Early and Save: The prices above reflect packages sold on or before July 1, 2022; after July 2, 2022, Membership pricing will increase.
More information on all these packages, or higher-level Memberships, can be found at pasadenaplayhouse.org/
