Chicagoland's Drury Lane Theatre announced today that its 2015-2016 season will feature the regional premieres of the musicals Billy Elliot (score by Elton John) and Peter and the Starcatcher, in addition to Irving Berlin's classic army-buddy tuner White Christmas.
Rounding out the season will be Ira Levin's classic Deathtrap, Broadway's longest-running thriller, and the perennial favorite Bye Bye Birdie.
Drury Lane is coming off a record-breaking season, with 21 Joseph Jefferson Award nominations for excellence and a hit production of Les Misérables.
Billy Elliot will open the upcoming season in April 2015, directed by Multi-Jeff Award winner Rachel Rockwell. Jeff Award winner Roberta Duchak, who served as vocal coach for Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman in the Academy Award-winning film version of Les Misérables, will be the music director.
Deathtrap ran on Broadway for four years, from 1978-1982. (I remember seeing it with Stacy Keach in the cast). Christopher Reeve, Michael Caine, and Dyan Cannon starred in the 1982 film adaptation directed by Sidney Lumet. The show will run at Drury Lane during the summer, followed by the regional premiere of the Tony Award-winning Peter and the Starcatcher directed by Drury Lane Theatre Artistic Director and Jeff Award Winner William Osetek.
Osetek will also direct White Christmas presented over the holiday season. Irving Berlin's classic songs drive the stage musical adaptation of the 1954 film. The show premiered 50 years after the film's release, in San Francisco in 2004, and has had two holiday season runs on Broadway.
Finally, Bye Bye Birdie opens in January. The original cast of the classic 1960 feel-good musical by Charles Strouse, Lee Adams and Michael Stewart featured Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera. A Broadway revival in 2009-2010 starred Bill Irwin, Gina Gershon and John Stamos.
Right now through January 4, 2015 Drury Lane is presenting Lerner and Loewe's Camelot, directed and choreographed by Alan Souza. West Side Story then closes out the current season.
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