Season Announcement
Fort Worth's Casa Mañana rewards youth with risk for 2019-20 season
Casa Mañana's 2019-20 season is full of nostalgic and largely safe choices, while its apprentice program gets to dig into two musicals not often performed in North Texas.
The rock-and-roll bio-musical Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story is first, bringing such rousing hits as "Peggy Sue," "That'll Be the Day," and "Rave On" to a concert-like format that details the young performer's short but impressive rise to fame. The last half of the show reenacts his infamous last concert at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, right before the day the music died 60 years ago. It runs September 7-15, 2019.
If you've somehow managed to never see the pop-culture classic that is Annie, now's your chance. The lovable little orphan is determined to find the parents who abandoned her years ago on the doorstep of a 1930s New York City orphanage, all while escaping the cruel Miss Hannigan and singing about "Tomorrow." It runs November 2-10, 2019.
Another installment of the popular Tuna series brings the eccentric characters from "the third-smallest town in Texas" to Sin City, with Vegas showgirls, Elvis impersonators, and more included. Two actors play dozens of oddball citizens in Tuna Does Vegas, which sees conservative radio host Arles Struvie and his wife Bertha Bumiller renew their wedding vows in Las Vegas, with everyone in Tuna, Texas, along for the ride. It runs February 29-March 8, 2020.
Based on the cult hit film of the same name, The Full Monty is a raucous romp with the most highly anticipated closing number of any show. A group of unemployed steelworkers decides to try their luck at stripping, both to make a quick buck and boost their egos, but discover a new-found confidence in the process. It runs May 30-June 7, 2020.
Two add-on concerts are also on the docket: Christmas with the Annie Moses Band (December 19, 2019) and A Dean Martin Christmas (December 4-22, 2019). The former has the acclaimed classic crossover ensemble performing stunning arrangements of holiday favorites, while the latter celebrates the stories and songs of the "King of Cool."
The apprentice program's lineup is a bit riskier, with a fully re-imagined musical version of a Stephen King classic and a touching tale set in 1960s Dublin from the team behind Ragtime and Anastasia.
Carrie the Musical, with book by Lawrence D. Cohen, lyrics by Dean Pitchford, and music by Michael Gore, revolves around Carrie White, a misfit living in the small town of Chamberlain, Maine, who's bullied by the popular crowd and virtually invisible to everyone else. At home she's at the mercy of her loving but cruelly overprotective mother. But Carrie's just discovered she's got a special power, and if pushed too far, she's not afraid to use it. It runs August 2-4, 2019.
A Man of No Importance follows Alfie Byrne, a bus driver in 1964 Dublin whose heart holds secrets that he can't share with anyone but his imagined confidante, Oscar Wilde. When he attempts to put on an amateur production of Wilde's Salome in the local church hall, he confronts the forces of bigotry and shame over a love "that dare not speak its name." Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens wrote the score, while Pulitzer Prize nominee Terrence McNally wrote the book. It runs July 31-August 2, 2020.
Season tickets for Casa Mañana's 2019-2020 Broadway season are on sale now and can be obtained by calling 817-332-2272, visiting the box office, or going to www.casamanana.org. Season ticket packages for four Broadway shows and the apprentice program start at $120 per person.
