Park Square and SteppingStone announce seasons, as two legendary detectives meet

Two detecting giants will put their great minds together next season at Park Square Theatre.

The St. Paul company and SteppingStone Theatre have announced their 2022-23 season, the first since they joined forces in 2020, but at least one thing is business as usual. Park Square's 2023 summer still will be highlighted by a classic murder-mystery, in this case a collaboration between Jeffrey Hatcher, who has written several whodunits for the theater, and Steve Hendrickson, who often has played Sherlock Holmes in them.

Their play is "Holmes/Poirot," an adaptation of early Agatha Christie novel "Murder on the Links," which features sleuth Hercule Poirot. It also will incorporate characters from Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle.

The season begins in September with Stephen Karam's "The Humans," which was adapted into a 2021 film. Other Park Square titles include "Fire in the New World," a collaboration with Full Circle Theatre that was written by Full Circle co-founder Rick Shiomi; "The Diary of Anne Frank;" "The Revolutionists," presented in partnership with Prime Productions; Stephen Adly Guirgis' Pulitzer Prize-winning "Between Riverside and Crazy," featuring James A. Williams, and an adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing" whose title boils it down to its essence, "Fools and Lovers."

SteppingStone's season kicks off with December offering "The Snowy Day and Other Stories by Ezra Jack Keats." The theater for young people's season also includes Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and two yet-to-be-named titles.