The Public Theater announces 2017-2018 Season

The off-Broadway non-profit Public Theater has announced its 2017-2018 season, which marks the company's 50th Anniversary at Astor Place.

The 2017-2018 season, which includes four world premiere and four New York premiere productions, will be presented in the following order:

The season will begin in September with the return of Public Works which features over 200 actors and community members in a free musical adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like It. Adapted by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery, the production is directed by Woolery, featuring music and lyrics by Taub and will run for five nights only, from September 1 to 5, 2017, at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

Synopsis: "This musical adpatation of Shakespeare's classic is an immersive dream-like tale of faithful friends, feuding families and lovers in disguise. Forced from their homes, Orlando, Duke Senior, his daughter Rosalind and niece Celia, escape to the Forest of Arden, a fantastical place of transformation, where all are welcomed and embraced. Lost amidst the trees, the refugees find community and acceptance under the stars. Fall under love's spell in this magical story of chance encounters and self-discovery."

The creative team behind As You Like It features choreography by Sonya Tayeh, scenic design by David Rockwell, costume design by Andrea Hood, lighting design by David Weiner, and sound design by Jessica Paz.

The season will then continue with the world premiere production of Elevator Repair Service's take on William Shakespeare's Measure For Meaasure. Directed by John Collins, the production will play the LuEsther Hall from September 18 to October 29, 2017.

Synopsis: "With athletic theatricality and Marx-Brothers-inspired slapstick, the Elevator Repair Service ensemble brings exciting new life to this story of impossible moral choices in 17th-century Vienna. Radical experiments with speed set the play's combination of the comically absurd and the tragically serious in stark relief, and deliver a remarkable new show that marries the company's unique performance style with the Bard's exquisitely lyrical language."

Co-produced with the Elevator Repair Service, the company's ensemble includes Rinne Groff, Lindsay Hockaday, Maggie Hoffman, Mike Iveson, Vin Knight, April Matthis, Gavin Price, Greig Sargeant, Scott Shepherd, Pete Simpson, and Susie Sokol.

Next up, The Public Theater presents an encore engagement of Tiny Beautiful Things, which will run from September 19 to November 12, at the Public's Newman Theater.

Co-conceived by Marshall Heyman, Thomas Kail & Nia Vardalos, Tiny Beautiful Things is based on the book by Cheryl Strayed and adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos, who once again stars as "Sugar". Thomas Kail directs.

Synopsis: "Thousands of people wrote letters asking for advice from an anonymous online columnist named Sugar, who drew from her own life experiences to answer in a candid, often brutally honest exchange. It was later revealed that Sugar was Cheryl Strayed. Nia Vardalos adapts the book, weaving together the real letters to explore the monstrous beauty, unfathomable dark and glimmering light which are at the heart of being human."

Next up is the New York premiere of Oedipus El Rey, written by Luis Alfaro and directed by Chay Yew, which runs from October 3 to November 12, 2017, at the Public's Shiva Theater.

Synopsis: "Set in South Central LA, Oedipus El Rey is a new take on the Greek tragedy. Oedipus is reimagined as a troubled Latino whose dreams of controlling his own destiny soar above the barbed wire of the prison where he's spent his life. But in a place where everyone is trapped—by desperation or fate, history or violence—no one man can change his story alone. Love, family and belief collide in this chilling, incredibly powerful new play that asks: what's fate, and what's just the system?"

The production is presented in collaboration with The Sol Project.

The season then continues with the New York premiere of Julia Cho's Office Hour, directed by Neel Keller, which will play a limited engagement from October 17 to December 3, 2017, at the Public's Martinson Theater.

Synopsis: "Office Hour is about a teacher and student desperate to change the narrative of who they are and how their story ends. Gina was warned that one of her students would be a problem. Eighteen years old and strikingly odd, Dennis writes violently obscene work clearly intended to unsettle those around him. Determined to know whether he's a real threat, Gina compels Dennis to attend her office hours. But as the clock ticks down, Gina realizes that 'good' versus 'bad' is nothing more than a convenient illusion, and that the isolated young student in her office has learned one thing above all else: that for the powerless, the ability to terrify others is powerful indeed. This this inventive, penetrating new drama is about a single day that could end in tragedy or hope -- and the endless possibilities in between."

This will be followed by the world premiere of Illyria, written and directed by Richard Nelson, which will play the Public's Anspacher Theater from October 22 to November 26, 2017.

Synopsis: "It is 1958, and New York City is in the midst of a major building boom; a four-lane highway is planned for the heart of Washington Square; Carnegie Hall is designated for demolition; entire neighborhoods on the West Side are leveled to make room for a new 'palace of art'. And a young Joe Papp and his colleagues face betrayals, self-inflicted wounds and anger from the city's powerful elite as they continue their free Shakespeare productions in Central Park. From the creator of the most celebrated family plays of the last decade, comes a drama about a different kind of family - one held together by the simple and incredibly complicated belief that the theater, and the city, belong to all of us."

Following this, the Public stages another world premiere with Sarah Burgess' Kings, directed by Thomas Kail, which will run from January 30 to March 25, 2018.

Synopsis: "Kings is a new play about money, politics and the state of the American republic. Kate is a whip-smart lobbyist who doesn't waste her time on anyone who can't get elected, stay elected and help her clients get what they want. Kate thinks Representative Sydney Millsap is a political neophyte whose staunch ideals are going to cost her a burgeoning political career. But Representative Millsap and her high-minded principles turn out to be more resilient than Washington was expecting, and for the first time Kate is faced with a choice that might change everything for her: back the system, or back what she believes in? Kings is a scathingly funny new play about the people at the heart of our democracy."

The Public Theater's 2017-2018 season continues with the New York premiere of The Low Road, written by Bruce Norris and directed by Michael Greif, playing a limited engagement from February 13 through to April 1, 2018.

Synopsis: "The Low Road is an epic play, featuring sixteen actors in fifty roles, examining the basic beliefs upon which we've built our economy and our country. Set in the 18th century, this wild new work imagines America's first laissez-faire capitalist, a young man inspired by a chance encounter with Adam Smith to put his faith in the free market. But his path to riches becomes inextricably entangled with that of an educated slave, a man who knows from experience that one person's profit is another's loss, in this parable about the true cost of inequality. The Low Road is about the imaginary lines between exploitation and opportunity."

At Joe's Pub, the season continues with Black Light. Created by Daniel Alexander Jones, who performs as his alter-ego Jomama Jones, and featuring original songs by Jones, Bobby Halvorson & Dylan Meek, performances run from February 13 to March 25, 2018.

Synopsis: "Black Light is a musical revival for a turbulent time. Jomama leads an intimate journey - through the darkness of personal and political upheaval, and the shards of shattered illusions - illuminated by spontaneous humor. Set to pop, soul, rock and disco, this immersive performance piece removes the barrier between artist and audience through inquiry, story and song."

The next world premiere sees the return to the Public Theater of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage - currently represented on Broadway by Sweat. Her new play - Mlima's Tale will begin performances on March 27 and close on May 20, 2018.

Synopsis: "Taking us on a journey from the heart of Africa and around the world, Mlima's Tale is the story of Mlima, a magnificent elephant trapped in the clandestine international ivory market. Following a trail of greed and desire as old as trade itself, Mlima leads us through memory and fear, history and tradition, want and need, and reveals the surprising and complicated deals that connect us all."

The final production of the Astor Place 50th Anniversary season will be the New York premiere of Fire in Dreamland, written by Rinne Groff and directed by Marissa Wolf. Performances will run from July 17 to September 2, 2018 at the Public Theater.

Synopsis: "On Coney Island, in the aftermath of 2013's Superstorm Sandy, a disillusioned do-gooder named Kate meets Jaap Hooft, a charismatic European film-maker who sees in the devastation wrought by the storm an opportunity to make a work of art about another disaster that struck Coney Island some hundred years before: the 1911 fire that started in the amusement park known as Dreamland, burning it to ashes from which it never arose. As Kate throws herself into the vortex of Jaap's visionary schemes, she finds beauty, pain and betrayal, and eventually herself. Breaking the boundaries of time and narrative, Fire in Dreamland is a vibrant new play that explores the astonishing things we do when faced with devastation."

Additional casting and creative team information for all the shows in the 2017-2018 season will be announced in the coming months.

The Public Theater's 2017-2018 season will also include the 14th annual Under The Radar Festival in January 2018, as well as two free Mobile Shakespeare Unit tours to all five boroughs - The Winter's Tale, directed by Lee Sunday Evans, in the fall of 2017 and Henry V, directed by Robert O'Hara, in the spring of 2018.