Berkeley Repertory Theatre has announced the plays that will be included in its upcoming 2022-2023 season. The six-play subscription series will feature works by Lynn Nottage, Emma Rice, Ari'el Stachel, Jack Thorne, Sanaz Toossi, and Lauren Yee.
Kicking off the season in November will be Emma Rice's Wuthering Heights, which reimagines the gothic novel by Emily Brontë with live music and dance into a modern revenge tragedy. Making its West Coast premiere, the National Theatre, Wise Children, Bristol Old Vic, and York Theatre Royal co-production will take place in the Roda Theatre.
Currently up for the 2022 Tony for Best Play, Lynn Nottage's Clyde's will make its West Coast premiere in January 2023. Taylor Reynolds, who directed Playwrights Horizons' Tambo & Bones, will direct the co-production with Huntington Theatre Company in Peet's Theatre. Taking place in a truck stop sandwich shop, Clyde’s explores redemption and reconnection amongst the staff of formerly incarcerated individuals.
After a postponement from the 2021-2022 season, Lauren Yee's Cambodian Rock Band is now scheduled to take the stage in February 2023. This new play with music features songs by Los Angeles band Dengue Fever and direction by Chay Yew. A Signature Theatre production in association with Alley Theatre, Cambodian Rock Band presents a Khmer Rouge survivor returning to Cambodia for the first time in decades, while his daughter prepares to prosecute one of the country's most infamous war criminals.
In the spring Sanaz Toossi's Lucille Lortel-winning English will play the Peet’s Theatre in April 2023. Making its West Coast premiere, language and identity intertwine in this play about four adults studying for the Test of English as a Foreign Language exam in an Iranian classroom.
National Theatre of Scotland's production of Let the Right One In will make its West Coast premiere in the Roda Theatre in May 2023. The supernatural thriller, part coming-of-age romance and part vampire myth, follows the evolving friendship between Oskar, a bullied boy from a broken home, and Eli, a young, hermit-like girl who moves in next door. Their connection is tested, however, when a series of mysterious murders begin to unfold in town. Jack Thorne's stage adaptation of the Swedish novel and screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist will be directed by John Tiffany with associate direction and movement by Steven Hoggett. The three previously collaborated on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
The world premiere of Out of Character, penned by Tony winner Ari'el Stachel (The Band's Visit), will close out the season in June 2023 in Peet's Theatre. Directed by Tony Taccone, Stachel opens up about hiding his Middle Eastern background growing up post-9/11 as an Israeli American of Yemeni Jewish descent, exploring the intersections of race, mental health, and survival.
“It has been a joy to welcome audiences back to Berkeley Rep over the last six months, to see people coming together to experience the transformative pleasure of live performance,” said Artistic Director Johanna Pfaelzer in a statement. “And now, as we look ahead to the coming season, I am delighted to be joined by these artists who have crafted stories of thrilling theatricality. They are tender, they are terrifying, they are heartfelt and funny."
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