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Box Office: 619-337-1525 Search for: Search for: Box Office: 619-337-1525 Primary Menu Home Tickets Visit Connect Donate About Contact Box Office: 619-337-1525 Join our Email List Directions Login Backstage Blog Cygnet Theatre Announces Season 20 HomeConnectBackstage Blog Text Size: A A A ShareCygnet Theatre Announces Season 20 We can’t believe it but Season 20 will be our last full season in Old Town. Because of this we have designed a lineup that captures our past, present, and future in a celebratory way…with music! 2024 is going to be a landmark year for Cygnet Theatre and we and hope you’ll join us for it. Favorite Holiday Musical A CHRISTMAS CAROL Adaptation & Lyrics by Sean Murray Original Score by Billy Thompson Directed by Sean Murray Music Direction by Patrick Marion Dec.1 – Dec. 30, 2023 Cygnet’s holiday smash hit is back for its eighth season! Enjoy the holiday classic adapted from Charles Dickens’ timeless tale of hope and redemption. This imaginative production features original music, creative stagecraft and puppetry, and live sound effects. Step into a Victorian Christmas card for a unique storytelling experience that is sure to delight the entire family! Riveting One-Act Musical LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR & GRILL By Lanie Robertson Directed by Wren T. Brown Featuring Karole Foreman In Association with Ebony Repertory Theatre Jan. 24 – Feb. 18, 2024 Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill recounts Billie Holiday’s life story through the songs that made her famous. 1959, in a small, intimate bar in Philadelphia, Holiday puts on a show that unbeknownst to the audience, will leave them witnesses to one of the last performances of her lifetime. Through her poignant voice and moving songs, one of the greatest jazz singers of all-time shares her loves and her losses. An Electropop Opera WEST COAST PREMIERE NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 Book, Lyrics and Music by Dave Malloy Adapted from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Directed by Sean Murray Music Direction by Patrick Marion Choreography by Katie Banville Apr. 10 – May 12, 2024 From the celebrated and award-winning composer Dave Malloy comes Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 , an electropop opera based on a scandalous slice of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace . Young and impulsive, Natasha Rostova arrives in Moscow to await the return of her fiancé from the front lines. When she falls under the spell of the roguish Anatole, it is up to Pierre, a family friend in the middle of an existential crisis, to pick up the pieces of her shattered reputation. This award-winning musical expands the possibilities for the genre with its daring score and bold storytelling. Intimate and Inspiring Musical tick, tick… BOOM! Book, Music & Lyrics by Jonathan Larson Jul. 3 – Aug. 4, 2024 Before he electrified the world with Rent, Jonathan Larson was a young man struggling to make his mark in the theater. While he waits tables and seeks his big break, the pressure to give it all up grows as Jon approaches his 30th birthday. Will he sell out to keep the lights on? Will he lose the love of his life? Will he finally write the soaring song that can change everything? And if he does, will anyone be there to see it? Set in 1990 and scored by the music that redefined a genre, tick, tick… BOOM! cracks open the ticking-time-bomb world of creating theater to celebrate the power of finding your voice and holding on to a dream. Cult Musical RICHARD O’BRIEN’S THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW Music, book and lyrics by Richard O’Brien Directed by Sean Murray Musical Direction by Patrick Marion Sep. 11 – Oct. 20, 2024 Cygnet is remounting one of our audiences’ favorite shows! A satirical tribute to the science fiction and B-list horror movies of the 20th century, the show centers around two naïve lovers, Brad and Janet. Seeking shelter from a thunderstorm in an old castle, they find themselves thrust into the laboratory of the cross-dressing mad scientist Dr. Frank ‘N’ Furter and his motley crew. Stripped of inhibitions – and their clothes – Brad and Janet embark on a wild, unforgettable journey of pleasure and self-discovery. Reality, fiction, and camp collide in this mash-up of comics, rock and roll, and late-night horror flicks. New Subscriptions will open in July!Playwright Q & A with Keiko Green Keiko Green Cygnet is pleased to present the world premiere of Sharon to its audiences this summer! Get insight into this witty thriller from playwright Keiko Green. Q: What experience do you hope audiences will have when they see Sharon? A: My plays are always driven by a theme, or as my mentor at UCSD Naomi Iizuka would call it, an existential question.” Sharon is technically a play about gentrification, power imbalances, about growing up in a toxic home — but it was driven by the question: What will we do to survive?” Sharon is a darkly comedic psychological thriller. The play is rooted in emotional twists and turns that will hopefully stun audiences with an unforgettable final scene that flips back and forth between hilarious and unnerving. Q: What was your inspiration for writing this play? A: There was a point a few years ago that I got really sick of watching stories about rich New Yorkers (with the exception of Succession, of course — I’m no monster). During lockdown, I understood how stories about rich people traveling the world, dealing with first world problems like fashion and inheritance was scratching an escapist itch, but after being stuck within the same small room day after day, working in what seemed like a dead industry, I started to feel like I was losing my mind. I decided to write a play about people who were poor, who were barely scraping by in a town that was left behind by Seattle’s tech boom. The first three scenelets were written as I explored my version of a transactional relationship, and a challenge presented itself: how can I flip these positions of power? I had to unearth the complex experiences that turned the protagonist into what he is and find empathy for someone I didn’t initially connect with. Q: You’re actually IN the play – what are you most looking forward to (or nervous about) stepping into the role of Tina? A: I haven’t been in one of my own plays since we were building sets out of cardboard, putting up productions for $3,000! I’m very excited. I pride myself on writing actor-forward plays, in which characters really want something from each other and really want to change each other. I’m also very nervous — I work with my trusted directors to build rooms that don’t have that hierarchical structure that I think can actually be so harmful to an artistic process. In a play about power, here comes the playwright acting opposite Raf in a semi-romantic scene. Luckily, we’ve put together a really incredible cast and crew that I’m personally intimidated and wow-ed by on a regular basis. I feel confident that the final product will be due to the collaboration of everyone in the room, something we can all feel ownership over. Q: This is your second World Premiere in 2023! How is Sharon the same (and different) from your first World Premiere Exotic Deadly: Or, the MSG Play? A: For people that saw Exotic Deadly over at the Old Globe, they might be surprised to see this darker side of my brain (though they’ll probably recognize its strangeness). This play isn’t about the Asian American experience, and though some characters might seem like they’re in a slightly heightened world, we’re not seeing things from the perspective of an unreliable, semi-manic 14 year-old perspective. Sharon isn’t cute or pretty or flashy — the walls are falling apart, the characters are desperate, it’s much more adult. But ultimately I have a love for my protagonists, even the ones that seem kind of scary at first. I think that’s the feminine part of my writing. I adore my characters, and I want to be tender with them. And though Sharon isn’t a straight comedy like Exotic Deadly, humor is an intrinsic part of my writing. Q:...