Five new plays and musicals will make their world premiere at San Diego's Old Globe in the company's newly revealed 2025 season, including a musical from husband-and-wife Legally Blonde songwriting team Nell Benjamin and Laurence O'Keefe. The pair has written the book, music, and lyrics to Huzzah!, which will perform September 13-October 19, 2025, on the company's Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage. Opening night will be September 25, 2025.
The original story takes audiences to the Kingsbridge Midsummer Renaissance Faire, where two sisters are working to save the family business from financial ruin. To save the faire, the sisters shell out big bucks for the greatest swordsman on the Ren Faire circuit, which could fix everything or be the final nail in the coffin. Annie Tippe is directing, with casting and further creative team members to be announced.
Benjamin and O'Keefe previously collaborated on The Mice, Sarah Plain and Tall, Cam Jansen, and Legally Blonde. Separately, Benjamin has contributed lyrics to Mean Girls, while O'Keefe's other musicals include Bat Boy and Heathers.
Old Globe's season also includes a world premiere for Jen Crittenden, Gabrielle Allan, Curtis Moore, and Amanda Green's Regency Girls, about an unmarried pregnant woman in 19th-century England who embarks on a road trip with her best friends in search of a new fate. The work features a book by Crittenden and Allan, music by Moore, and lyrics by Green; and will be directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes. The musical will perform on the Shiley Stage April 2-May 4, 2025, with opening night set for April 10.
The company's Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre will host the season's play premieres, including Keiko Green's Empty Ride. Sivan Battat will direct the Globe commission, about a woman who returns to her small Japanese hometown following the 2011 tsunami to fill in for her ailing father and drive his taxi. Performances will run February 8-March 2, 2025, with opening night set for February 13.
Deepak Kumar's House of India will be next, performing May 10-June 1, 2025, and opening May 15, 2025. Zi Alikhan is directing the world premiere, about an Indian restaurant in a Cleveland strip mall that's past its prime. The play follows its owners as she decides whether to embrace newer, trendier fusion dishes or stick to the traditions she's always known.
The final world premiere will be Anna Ziegler's The Janeiad, a modern-day take on The Odyssey set in modern-day Brooklyn. Tyne Rafaeli is directing, with performances set for June 21-July 13, 2025, and an opening night June 26, 2025.
The season also includes the San Diego premieres of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Appropriate, in a new production to be directed by Steve H. Broadnax III; and Gloria Claderón Kellett's One of the Good Ones. Johanna Wright and Patty Jamieson's Deceived, a new adaptation of Gas Light; and Robert Montano's Small will also make their West Coast premieres in the season. In the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, stagings of Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well and The Comedy of Errors are planned for summer 2025. The company will also present an additional production, to be announced, on the Shiley Stage next summer.
Full details and dates are available at TheOldGlobe.org.
