The season includes new works by Tony Award winner Joe DiPietro, Pulitzer Prize winners Quiara Alegría Hudes and Ayad Akhtar, and 2014 Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwriting Award winner Jeff Augustin.
Here is the season, with descriptions supplied by the theatre. Precise production dates are yet to be announced:
Hollywood (World Premiere) by Joe DiPietro (Tony Award for Memphis); directed by Christopher Ashley.
In 1922, famed director William Desmond Taylor is found murdered in his home. The celebrity suspects mount as the headlines explode with lurid reports of love triangles, hush money and deception. Enter Will Hays, Hollywood's newly-appointed moral watchdog, determined to silence the scandal and purify this increasingly corrupt city. Based on the true story of Taylor’s unsolved murder, Hollywood is a noir thriller set in the Golden Age of movies.
JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt (World Premiere) by Ayad Akhtar (Pulitzer Prize for Disgraced); directed by Doug Hughes.
The Deal. The Board Room. The Takeover. This is the battleground where titanic egos collide, where modern day kings are made and unmade. It's a world where debt is an asset and assets are excuses for more debt, a world where finance runs the show. How did we get here? How did the world we once knew change? Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ayad Akhtar takes us back to the hotbed of the ‘80s and offers us an origin story for the world that finance has given us, a sexy and epic thriller about an upstart genius hell-bent on changing all the rules.
The Last Tiger in Haiti (World Premiere) by Jeff Augustin; directed by Joshua Kahan Brody.
In an earthquake-torn tent shack in Haiti, the sounds of kanaval fill the air as a group of restaveks – child slaves – spend the night trading fantastic folktales until the line between reality and fiction blurs. At daybreak, the oldest plans to break free for a new life but discovers the story of his future and past are in the hands of someone else. Set in a world that is utterly real and remarkably imaginative, this unforgettable new play weaves Haitian lore into a contemporary narrative of survival and betrayal. Miss You Like Hell (World Premiere, La Jolla Playhouse Commission), Book and lyrics by Quiara Alegría Hudes (Pulitzer Prize winner for Water by the Spoonful, Tony Award nominee for the book of In the Heights). Music and lyrics by Erin McKeown. Directed by Lear deBessonet.
When a free-spirited mother convinces her whip-smart teenage daughter to join her on a drive across the country, neither can imagine where it will take them. Chance encounters with a motley crew of characters along the way brings them closer to understanding what sets them apart — and what connects them forever.
Tickets to the Playhouse’s 2016-17 season are currently available only through subscription by calling Playhouse Patron Services at (858) 550-1010 or online at LaJollaPlayhouse.org.
