Season Announcement

Fort Worth's Stage West racks up regional premieres in 2022-23 season

A scene from the national tour of The Play That Goes Wrong.

Photo by Jeremy Daniel

For its 44th season, Stage West is presenting six shows, two of which will be co-productions. Three will be presented in the Evelyn Wheeler Swenson Theatre (“The Evie”), and three will happen in the Jerry Russell Theatre.

It’s a unique mix of five plays and one musical, which range from laugh-out-loud funny to breathtakingly beautiful, from campy and naughty to warmly moving and kind.

The regional premiere of Rajiv Joseph's Guards at the Taj is up first, set in India, 1648. Two hapless Imperial Guards watch from their post as the sun rises for the first time over the newly completed Taj Mahal. But the morning light brings with it an unthinkable task that will shake the foundations of everything they thought to be true. It runs October 20-November 20, 2022.

Another regional premiere is next, Jason Odell Williams' Handle With Care. A young Israeli woman on holiday with her grandmother in the United States is confronted by an unexpected turn of events. Now, she finds herself stranded in a motel room on Christmas Eve with an oddball delivery man. Is their meeting an accident, or is it destiny generations in the making? It runs December 8, 2022-January 8, 2023.

The big 2019 touring hit that was The Play That Goes Wrong makes its way to Fort Worth in a co-production with WaterTower Theatre. Welcome to the opening night of The Murder at Haversham Manor, where things are quickly going from bad to fiasco.

With an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines), the whole evening is a disastrous smash. Written by Henry Lewis, Henry Shields, and Jonathan Sayer, the show runs at Stage West February 16-March 5, 2023.

Another co-production, this time with Uptown Players, is Cruel Intentions: The '90s Musical. Created by Jordan Ross, Lindsey Rosin, and Roger Kumble, based on the film by Roger Kumble, and with music direction and arrangements by Zach Spound, this epic game of cat and mouse sees two diabolically charming step-siblings place a bet, and vow to destroy anyone who gets in their way.

Seduced by passion and revenge, this devious duo spins a web of dangerous liaisons, and they soon find themselves entangled in the cruelest game of all: love. It runs May 4-21, 2023.

Morgan Gould's I Wanna F*cking Tear You Apart will enjoy its regional premiere, introducing us to best friends and roommates Sam and Leo.

But when a new friend enters the scene, doubt creeps in, and a shattering secret is about to be dragged kicking and screaming into the light. It runs June 15-July 9, 2023.

The season closes with the regional premiere of Grand Horizons by Bess Wohl. Bill and Nancy are 50 years into their marriage — they can anticipate each other’s every sigh, snore, and sneeze. But just as they settle comfortably into a new senior living community, the unthinkable happens: Nancy wants a divorce. It runs August 31-October 1, 2023.

Season tickets will go on sale to the general public July 18, and will include the Bargain Season Ticket (good on Thursdays only) at $155 each, the Standard Season Ticket at $210 each, the Premium Season Ticket (which includes several great additional perks) at $318 each, and the Select 4 Season Ticket (patrons choose four shows from the list) at $152 each.

For more information, call Stage West at 817-784-9378 or go online at www.stagewest.org.

theater

Season Announcement

Fort Worth's Circle Theatre nabs 'A Strange Loop' + new venue for 2025

Photo by Sara Krulwich, The New York Times

"A Strange Loop" made waves on Broadway and across the pond.

The theme of Circle Theatre's 2025 season is "Ignite," and its lineup is certainly turning up the heat with three musicals on tap and a reimagined second performance space.

The big "get" of the season is Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop, which won not only the 2022 Tony Award for Best Musical but also the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2020. This will be the musical's regional premiere, following its runs on Broadway and in the West End that both concluded in 2023.

But let's start at the beginning of Circle's 44th season:

Destroying David is a world premiere by Jason Odell Williams where an enigmatic art restorer intertwines Michelangelo's statue’s fascinating history with their own deeply personal story. It examines perceptions of beauty, resilience, and the quest for redemption in a confrontation between artistry and anguish. It runs January 30-February 22, 2025.

The action next moves into the theater's recently renovated lobby for Ain't Misbehavin', the musical conceived in 1978 by Richard Maltby Jr. and Murray Horwitz, and with music by Thomas “Fats” Waller.

Renamed The Velvet Lounge, the lobby will now host cabarets, special performances, and a fully immersive musical like this one, where audiences will travel back in time to 1929 and experience the exuberance of the Harlem Renaissance. There will only eight performances, with 40 seats available each night. It runs March 6-15, 2025.

The regional premiere of Lauren Yee's The Hatmaker's Wife is full of magical realism and fantastical adventure.

When a young woman and her boyfriend move into their new home, they uncover the magical history of its previous occupants: a distracted hatmaker and his long-suffering wife, who has left him, taking his beloved hat along with her. Walls literally talk, words appear out of nowhere, a house comes alive, and, obviously, there's a golem with a softness for Cheetos. It runs April 17-May 10, 2025.

Now it's time for A Strange Loop. It's a bold and exhilarating dive into the life of Usher, a Black queer musical theater writer navigating his identity, creativity, and personal challenges as he crafts a show about his own complex journey. With its raw, adult themes and vital exploration of the queer Black experience, this musical offers a unique blend of song and storytelling that is intensely relevant, and vitally important. It runs June 19-July 12, 2025.

Adrienne Warren and Nick Jonas are about to star as Cathy and Jamie in The Last Five Years, but Fort Worth audiences will get Jason Robert Brown's musical shortly after its Broadway run.

The Last Five Years movie "The Last Five Years" film starred Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan.Courtesy photo

This critically acclaimed musical delves into the five-year romance between Cathy and Jamie through a unique narrative structure: Cathy’s story unfolds from the end of their relationship moving backward, while Jamie’s perspective moves forward from the start. It runs August 14-September 6, 2025.

The season closes with Mac Beth, adapted by Erica Schmidt from William Shakespeare's classic play. After school, seven teenage girls convene in an abandoned lot. They drop their backpacks, transform their uniforms, and dive into a DIY retelling of Macbeth. As the girls conjure kings, warriors, and witches, Shakespeare’s bloody tale seeps into their reality. It runs October 9-November 1, 2025.

"We invite you to witness how art reflects and reshapes the human experience by sparking conversations, building communities, and igniting our minds," says artistic director Ashley H. White. "Circle Theatre’s 44th season is its biggest ever, and it has something for everyone."

More information and tickets can be found here.

the last five years theater