Arlington Heights' Metropolis announces 2015-2016 season
Metropolis Performing Arts Centre announced its 2015-2016 season today, hours before members of the Arlington Heights village board are to meet to discuss financial contributions to the theater as well as Metropolis' proposed new business plan.
The 15th anniversary season includes the world premiere of the musical re-creating Johnny Cash's seminal 1968 performance at Folsom State Penitentiary along with revivals of "Rent" and "Spamalot." The season begins July 9 with "Moon Over Buffalo," Ken Ludwig's backstage comedy about a couple of fading Broadway stars who take their show on the road to Buffalo, N.Y.
A revival of the Tony Award-winning "Monty Python's Spamalot" runs from Sept. 10 to Oct. 25. Eric Idle's and John Du Prez's delicious sendup of Broadway spectacles centers on the efforts of King Arthur, his loyal squire Patsy and Sirs Galahad and Lancelot to find the Holy Grail, which leads to confrontations with killer rabbits and ill-mannered knights.
Patrick Barlow's adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film "The 39 Steps," featuring four actors playing more than 100 roles, begins previews Feb. 18, 2016. A theatrical re-creation of the director's groundbreaking cinematic devices, this comedy whodunit centers on an ordinary man who meets a woman claiming to be a spy. After she's murdered, he becomes the prime suspect, prompting him to flee pursued by constables, criminals and cool blondes.
Loosely inspired by the opera "La Boheme," Jonathan Larson's "Rent" centers around a group of New York City friends and artists struggling personally and professionally at the height of the AIDS crisis. The Metropolis revival runs May 19 to July 3, 2016.
The season concludes with the world premiere of "Folsom: The Night The Man Became The Man in Black" by Joe Keefe and James Sherman. Set in 1968, the musical re-creates Johnny Cash's live recording at Folsom Prison. It runs July 21 to Aug. 28, 2016.
Performances take place at 111 W. Campbell St., Arlington Heights. Five-show subscriptions range from $90 to $114. Four show subscriptions range from $84 to $106.40. Individual tickets are $30 for previews and $38 for the regular run. Tickets are available at metropolisarts.com or (847) 577-2121.
The Arlington Heights village board will meet as a committee of the whole tonight to increasing the village's contribution to the theater as well as the theater's finances, programming, the school of the performing arts, fundraising and sponsorship, marketing and infrastructure.