In announcing TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s 54th season, artistic director Giovanna Sardelli acknowledged the help the company received to make it possible. A fundraising drive last year raised more than $3 million to keep TheatreWorks afloat.
“We are so immensely grateful to TheatreWorks’ vast network of supporters who responded to last year’s Save TheatreWorks Now campaign in full force and provided crucial funding in our time of need,” said Sardelli in a release. “This inspired us to explore the theme of being better together onstage. (The six plays and musicals in the season) center on community—uplifting the power of human connection and how joining together makes us stronger.”
TheatreWorks’ 54th season will kick off in the fall with the regional premiere of Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph’s “King James,” running Oct. 9-Nov. 3. The buddy comedy centers on basketball superfans Matt and Shawn, who forge a friendship through their shared love of the Cleveland Cavaliers and star player LeBron James.
Sardelli directs the production, continuing a long collaboration with Joseph at TheatreWorks, where she also directed his plays “Archduke,” “The Lake Effect” and “The North Pool.” Sardelli also directed Joseph’s Obie Award-winning “Describe the Night” at TheatreWorks’ 2014 New Works Festival.
The 21st annual New Works Festival is set for Aug. 9-18 at Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto. Sardelli programmed the festival before becoming artistic director last summer.
The company’s 2024-25 season lineup includes two world premiere musicals, both favorites from the company’s 2023 New Works Festival.
“Happy Pleasant Valley: A Senior Sex Scandal Murder Mystery Musical” is set to run March 5-30, 2025. Directed by Jeffrey Lo, the musical is a co-production with Center Repertory Company, where it will appear following its TheatreWorks run. “Happy Pleasant Valley” features book, music and lyrics by Bay Area composer/playwright/lyricist Min Kahng, whose “The Four Immigrants: An American Musical Manga” had its world premiere at TheatreWorks.
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TheatreWorks will close its season June 18-July 13, 2025 with the world premiere musical “5 & Dime.” Based on the play and film “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” by Ed Graczyk, this country musical spotlights the 20th anniversary reunion of a James Dean fan club.
The company’s holiday show adds to its Jane Austen oeuvre, which includes stage adaptations of “Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility” and “Emma.” Written by Bay Area playwrights Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, “Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley,” running Dec. 4-29, is a sequel to “Pride and Prejudice” that focuses on middle Bennet sister Mary, who is tired of being in the middle of her sisters’ romantic mishaps.
TheatreWorks will start the new year with a familiar face: pianist/performer Hershey Felder, who has staged several of his one-man shows examining the lives of composers with the company. In the regional premiere of “Hershey Felder: Rachmaninoff and the Tsar,” running Jan. 10-Feb. 9, 2025, the Russian composer remembers his mother country, which he fled during the political turmoil that culminated in the execution of the Tsar Nicholas II. Stepping away from his solo show format, Felder will be joined onstage by Jonathan Silvestri as the Tsar.
Along with “Happy Pleasant Valley,” another co-production in TheatreWorks’ upcoming season is “The Heart Sellers,” running April 2-27, 2025. Presented with Aurora Theatre Company and Capital Stage and written by 2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist Lloyd Suh, the play takes its title from the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, which paved the way for thousands to become U.S. citizens. Set in 1973 during the aftermath of Watergate, “The Heart Sellers” centers on two Asian women navigating their first American Thanksgiving.
TheatreWorks stages its shows at Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto and at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. For tickets and more information, visit TheatreWorks.org.