MANSFIELD – The Mansfield Playhouse has officially announced their 2018-2019 season, including a musical, a bit of drama and a lot of laughs.
It’s the first full season under the Playhouse’s new artistic director Mark Jordan, who joined the staff in November 2017.
“It’s nice to be able to follow the whole process all the way through, from selecting the shows to actually doing them,” Jordan said.
The season of the Mansfield Playhouse is chosen via a reading committee, then approved by the board. According to Jordan, this was a particularly difficult season to put together due to circumstances beyond control.
“Not once, not twice, but three times we selected a show only to have the publisher say we couldn’t do it because it was going out on tour,” Jordan said. “So we had to go back to the drawing board several times to come up with the season we ended up with.”
When choosing shows for the Playhouse, practical considerations like cast sizes and set requirements are taken into account. Jordan also considers the curation of an entire season, and bringing a variety of performances to both audiences and actors alike.
“Big, well-known popular musicals and fast-paced comedies tend to sell best, but we can’t do things like that all the time,” he said. “We know if we schedule something a little more dramatic it’s not going to be a bestseller, but it’s something that stretches and develops our actors’ abilities.
“It’s about finding a balance of familiar favorites but also new shows that are not as well known and trying to do a little bit of everything.”
The season opens on Sept. 14 with a Second Stage production of “The Smell of the Kill,” which follows three delicious, malicious wives, and three miserable, unloving husbands. The play revolves around Nicky, Debra and Molly who have tolerated one another during once-a-month dinners for years.
While their unseen spouses play golf in the dining room, the women exchange confidences for the first time revealing that all three marriages are on the brink of disaster and all three women are facing the challenges of their lives. When the men mistakenly lock themselves in a basement meat locker, the women are faced with a decision.
The Playhouse opens its main stage on Oct. 19 with the musical “Young Frankenstein,” the musical adaptation of the classic Mel Brooks film. Frederick Frankenstein, grandson of the infamous mad scientist, inherits his family’s Transylvania estate. With the help of a hunchbacked sidekick and a leggy lab assistant, Frederick soon finds himself following in his grandfather’s footsteps.
“Young Frankenstein” comes to the Playhouse at the suggestion of Jordan, not to mention it was the overwhelming winner in a “fan favorite” Facebook poll. It’s also the first musical on the Playhouse stage since “Little Shop of Horrors” in 2016.
Youth theatre kicks off at the Playhouse on Nov. 30 with the musical “Elf Jr.” on the main stage, the perfect show to usher in the holiday season. Based on the beloved holiday film, the comedy follows Buddy the Elf in his quest to find his true identity.
Faced with the harsh reality that his father is on the naughty list and that his half-brother doesn’t even believe in Santa, Buddy is determined to win over his new family and help New York remember the true meaning of Christmas.
The year 2019 begins on Jan. 18 at the Playhouse with “Murder at the Howard Johnson’s,” a show Jordan is very much looking forward to. The fast-paced farce presents a love triangle between a woman, a lover and her husband, with each pair plotting to murder the other.
“We’ve tried that kind of a show in different spots throughout the year, but it never seems to do better than in January,” Jordan said. “It’s bleak and cold, it’s the time of the year when people need a laugh badly, and they come ready to laugh. It really hits the spot in that time of year.”
The second Second Stage production of the season opens on Feb. 8 with “Love/Sick” a collection of nine slightly twisted and completely hilarious short plays. Set on a Friday night in an alternate suburban reality, Love/Sick explores the pain and the joy that comes with being in love.
The poignant play “On Golden Pond” opens at the Playhouse on March 8, following the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer as they return to their summer home on Golden Pond for the 48th year. The couple is visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist fiancé before they head to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for an enlightening summer with his surrogate grandparents.
Comedy returns to the Playhouse stage (as if it ever left) with “Making God Laugh” opening on April 26. The play follows one typical American family over the course of thirty years’ worth of holidays.
Starting in 1980, Ruthie and Bill’s grown children — a priest, an aspiring actress, and a former football star — all return home, where we learn of their plans and dreams as they embark on their adult lives. The empty-nester parents contend with their own changes, too, as old family rituals are trotted out and ancient tensions flare up.
The season closes with a youth production of “DreamWorks Madagascar: A Musical Adventure, Jr.” modeled after the popular animated film. Alex the lion is the king of the urban jungle, the main attraction at New York’s Central Park Zoo. He and his best friends – Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe and Gloria the hippo – have spent their whole lives in blissful captivity before an admiring public and with regular meals provided for them.
Not content to leave well enough alone, Marty lets his curiosity get the better of him and makes his escape – with the help of some prodigious penguins – to explore the world.
Jordan is most excited about seeing an entire season through from start to finish, though not without some trepidation.
“I have a grasp on the picture of the whole season, figuring out how the whole thing works and how things flow along,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of guest directing, but I’ve never done it continuously.
“There’s a steep learning curve with that, and it’s tough. I feel like it might take a couple of months before I get into that rhythm.”
