The season will launch May 30, 2017, with the world premiere of the musical The Man in the Ceiling, which continues through June 25. Featuring a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Jules Feiffer and music and lyrics by Tony nominee Andrew Lippa, the new musical is based on Feiffer’s novel of the same name. Jeffrey Seller will direct.
In The Man in the Ceiling, according to production notes, “Jimmy Jibbett someday will be an artist! But for now he is a flop as a boy: a disappointment to his father, a daydreamer in the classroom and a failure on the ball field. Can he find happiness as a boy cartoonist? A Pulitzer Prize cartoonist joins a Tony-nominated composer and the producer of Hamilton to find out.”
The season will continue with Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel, which runs July 4-30. Directed by artistic director Scott Schwartz, the production, according to Bay Street, “tells the story of Esther Mills, a skilled African-American seamstress who has her own successful business in 1905 making lingerie for both society ladies and ’ladies of the night.’ But Esther is lonely, and as she searches for something more in her life, she finds intimacy comes in many forms, from a poetic love with George, a handsome Caribbean laborer working far away on the Panama Canal, to complicated friendships with the different women in her life, to the most unlikely connection of all, a growing bond with Mr. Marks, a Hasidic shopkeeper, who shares his exquisite finds of fabrics and maybe something deeper.”
Tony winner John Doyle will direct the third production of the season, William Shakespeare's As You Like It. A co-production with Classic Stage Company, performances are scheduled for August 8-September 3.
“We are very excited to announce Bay Street's 2017 Mainstage Summer Productions. It will be a season about love, imagination, and self-discovery,” says artistic director Schwartz in a statement. “We are thrilled to welcome so many renowned, award-winning artists to our stage who will make theatrical magic for our East End audience. With a world premiere musical, a great drama by a masterful contemporary playwright, and Bay Street's first full production of a play by William Shakespeare, we know 2017 is going to be one of our most entertaining and adventurous yet!”
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