Off-Broadway's Classic Stage Company has unveiled its 2024-2025 season, which will kick off with Alice Childress' seldom-produced Wine in the Wilderness, directed by LaChanze. The Tony-winning actor-producer was scheduled to helm the production at Classic Stage this past spring, but it was postponed.

Performances will now begin in March 2025. Set against the backdrop of the 1964 Harlem riot on a hot summer night, Wine in the Wilderness follows artist Bill Jameson, whose friends just introduced him to a model for the final piece of his triptych on Black womanhood. But Tomorrow Marie is no mere muse, and she’s about to give Bill much more than he bargained for.

CSC will build up to the production with The Rediscovery Readings, a series of four staged readings spotlighting female playwrights of the early 20th century. Titles are to be announced, with readings held September 12-November 12.

Next up will be a revival of William Inge's 1955 classic Bus Stop. A co-production with NAATCO and Transport Group, the production will feature an all-Asian American cast. The work centers on the happenings in a midwestern bus stop when stormy weather strands a bus full of eccentric passengers. Marilyn Monroe famously starred in a 1956 film version. Classic Stage, NAATCO, and Transport's revival will begin in May 2025.

CSC is also scheduled to present two Arlekin in Residence productions as previously announced, with Tadeusz Słobodzianek's Our Class running September 12-November 12, directed by Igor Golyak; and a new adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, directed and adapted by Golyak. The latter will perform November 22-December 22. Richard Topol will star as Shylock.

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