Regional NewsKennedy Center’s Broadway Center Stage to Return Next Season, Plus Dear Evan Hansen and The Band’s VisitThe D.C. venue will also welcome the national tours of Falsettos, Hello, Dolly!, and more.
By
Ryan McPhee
April 10, 2018
Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub
Matthew Murphy
The Kennedy Center has unveiled its 2018–2019 season, featuring an array of self-produced titles and Washington, D.C., engagements of various national tours.
Ben Platt in Dear Evan Hansen at Arena Stage.
Margot Schulman
Following the current premiere season of Broadway Center Stage, including starry, semi-staged productions of Chess and In the Heights (with How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on the horizon), the Kennedy Center will follow-up the lineup with Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s Little Shop of Horrors, Meredith Willson’s The Music Man (starring Tony nominee Norm Lewis), and The Who’s Tommy. Additional casting will be announced at a later date.
The Center Stage season will also expand to include three one-night-only readings of classic American plays; titles will be announced at a later date.
Eight titles currently or recently seen on Broadway will play D.C. engagements, beginning with Anastasia. The Center will also play host to Dear Evan Hansen (which premiered at D.C.’s Arena Stage in 2015), Miss Saigon, The Play That Goes Wrong, Hello, Dolly!, Aladdin, and Falsettos. The Band’s Visit, expected to officially announce a national tour in the coming months, will also make its D.C. premiere in the 2018–2019 season.
The Kennedy Center will also self-produce Evan Linder’s Byhalia, Mississippi as part of a season-long initiative titled The Human Journey, which aims to celebrate art through the lenses of migration, identity, and citizenship.
The upcoming “World Stages” series will bring five international productions to D.C.: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure from director Declan Donnellan, the U.K.-based Cheek By Jowl, and Pushkin Theatre Moscow; Barber Shop Chronicles from London’s National Theatre; the visual music performance NeoArctic by Denmark’s Hotel Pro Forman and the Latvian Radio Choir; Swedish theatre company Circus Cirkör’s Limits; and The Last Supper by Egyptian playwright-director Ahmed El Attar.
Additional season highlights include National Symphony Orchestra concerts highlighted by Tony winner Leslie Odom, Jr. and Brandy Norwood, plus the return of Renée Fleming’s VOICES series with guests Patina Miller, Robert Fairchild, and Christopher Jackson. For more information and the complete itinerary, visit Kennedy-Center.org.
The Fred Ebb Award recognizes excellence in musical theatre songwriting, by a songwriter or songwriting team that has not yet achieved significant commercial success.
