Syracuse Stage to bring back live performances for 2021-22 season
Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.
Syracuse Stage announced its 2021-2022 season schedule, which includes live and in-person performances starting in October. In addition to six performances — “Eureka Day,” “Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical,” “Yoga Play,” “Somewhere Over the Border,” “The Play That Goes Wrong” and “salt/city/blues” — the theater will host educational and family-oriented events, as well as the Cold Read Festival and holiday-themed performances.
Customers can purchase subscriptions for all six shows starting in July, and single-show tickets will go on sale closer to the start of the season.
The season will open on Oct. 13 with the play “Eureka Day” directed by Robert Hupp, who will also direct the play, “The Play That Goes Wrong,” slated for April 2022. “Eureka Day,” revolves around a school in Berkeley, California, dealing with a mumps outbreak and how the community deals with administering vaccines. “The Play That Goes Wrong” is a murder mystery where everything that could go wrong — from forgotten lines to corpses that won’t stay still — happens.
Hupp, who directed online during the pandemic, said that, although learned a lot through directing online, he is excited to get back to in-person rehearsals and shows with live audiences.
“I can’t wait to get back in the rehearsal room,” he said. “Nothing can replace the joy of making a production with actors and a creative team that will be experienced by a live audience in a shared space.”
From Nov. 19 through Jan. 2, the theater will show “Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical.” This marks the return of the tradition to perform a musical during the holidays, and the show will be produced in collaboration with Syracuse University’s Department of Drama.
“Yoga Play,” a comedy about an athletic-wear company attempting to save its brand’s reputation, will be the first full performance of 2022, running from Jan. 19 to Feb. 6. The new play will be followed by the second musical of the season, “Somewhere Over the Border,” written by Brian Quijada. The musical is inspired by the journey the writer’s mother made from El Salvador to the U.S. follows the general storyline of Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
In March, the Cold Read Festival of New Plays will return, and a schedule of events for the festival will be announced during the season. Additionally, educational, family and community programs and events are scheduled throughout the season. More information can be found on Syracuse Stage’s website.
The season will conclude with the premiere of Kyle Bass’s “salt/city/blues,” from June 8 through 26. The play is set in a fictionalized Syracuse and focuses on a mother moving to Salt City for work, leaving her husband and teenage son behind. The mother, an independent consultant, is tasked with taking down a stretch of highway that has divided Salt City and, in turn, understanding the city’s complex history.
“The heart of ‘salt/city/blues’ beats with the character, spirit, challenges, history and hopes of the city which has inspired me in its writing,” Bass said. “I’m thrilled that its world premiere at my artistic home is part of Syracuse Stage’s season of enriched focus on our communities and the meanings of home.”