Guthrie Theater's new season mixes familiar with edgy

The Guthrie season announced Wednesday gives the theatergoing public its first glimpse at some of the work that interests the Minneapolis theater's new artistic director, Joseph Haj.

The nine-play 2015-16 subscription season includes pieces that had been in the pipeline and some contributions from Haj, who takes over from Joe Dowling on July 1.

The slate pushes more challenging work on the proscenium stage and then balances that with familiar chestnuts on the larger thrust stage. This is somewhat consistent with Dowling's programming.

In interviews following his appointment in February, Haj said diversity would be a goal in his administration. With two contemporary plays — plus a couple of older warhorses — that discuss racial themes, the new season reflects that desire to a degree, although it also includes projects previously planned for 2015-16.

"The coming season will offer our patrons an exceptionally rich variety of theatergoing experiences, and I can't wait to get to know our Guthrie community this fall," Haj said in a statement. He remains at his post as producing artistic director at PlayMakers Repertory Theatre in Chapel Hill, N.C., until July 1.

He will direct two productions. Shakespeare's "Pericles," which he staged at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this year with Wayne Carr as the lead, will run Jan. 16-Feb. 21 on the Guthrie's thrust stage. Haj will then direct Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" on the thrust stage June 18-Aug. 28, 2016.

The thrust stage will open with "To Kill a Mockingbird" Sept. 12-Oct. 18, directed by John Miller-Stephany. "Harvey," playwright Mary Chase's Pulitzer-winning play that has become a staple of community and academic theaters, will run there April 9-May 15.

Proscenium stage

That leaves five shows for the proscenium stage. The season opens there with a WorldStage Series presentation of "The Events" by Scottish playwright David Greig, Sept. 30-Nov. 1.

This is a production by Actors Touring Company, based in the United Kingdom. Greig was moved to write by the terrorist attack that left 77 people dead in Norway in 2011. The play is about a community searching for peace in the aftermath of violence. It will include a soundscape sung by choirs drawn from the Upper Midwest.

While "A Christmas Carol" plays the holiday season on the thrust stage (as usual, that show is not part of the subscription package), director David Ivers will stage the old Marx Brothers vehicle "The Cocoanuts" in the proscenium, Nov. 14-Jan. 3. Irving Berlin wrote the songs and George S. Kaufman the book for the zany comedy that takes place in a Florida hotel. The Guthrie will use a script adaptation by Mark Bedard and musical arrangements by Gregg Coffin.

The Guthrie will then present a program of two one-act plays, "The Real Inspector Hound," by Tom Stoppard, and "The Critic," written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan and adapted by Minnesota playwright Jeffrey Hatcher. Both plays revolve around backstage theater stories and critical response. Running Feb. 23-March 27 in association with Shakespeare Theatre Company, based in Washington, D.C., they will be directed by that troupe's artistic director, Michael Kahn.

"Trouble in Mind," by Alice Childress, is also a backstage comedy, but with greater bite and a stinging look at racism. It will run May 7-June 5 in the proscenium. Childress wrote the story about a racially integrated production hoping to be a Broadway hit. A black actor struggles with her conscience regarding material that reveals prejudice and stereotypes.

The proscenium season concludes with "Disgraced" by Ayad Akhtar, July 16-Aug. 28. This play deals with ethnicity through the experience of a Pakistani-American lawyer on the cusp of a job promotion.

Programming for the ninth-floor studio theater has not been announced.

Season packages go on sale June 19. More information at 612-225-6238 or www.guthrietheater.org.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299