2016-2017

Stephen Sondheim’s bloody masterpiece Sweeney Todd,  a worldwide success since its Broadway premiere in 1979, tells the tale of an unjustly exiled barber returning to 19th century London to seek vengeance against the lecherous judge who framed him and ravaged his young wife. The road to revenge leads Todd to Mrs. Lovett, a resourceful proprietress of a failing pie shop, above which he opens a new barber practice. Mrs. Lovett’s luck sharply shifts when Todd’s thirst for blood inspires the integration of an ingredient into her meat pies that has the people of London lining up.

  One evening ten-year-old Rhona goes missing. Her mother, Nancy, retreats into a state of frozen hope. Agnetha, an American academic, comes to England to research a thesis: “Serial Killing—A Forgivable Act?” Then there’s Ralph, a loner who’s looking for some distraction. Drawn together by horrific circumstances, these three embark on a long, dark journey which finally curves upward into the light. Angry, humane and compassionate, FROZEN is an extraordinary play that entwines the lives of a murderer, the mother of one of his victims and his psychologist to explore our capacity for forgiveness, remorse and change after an act that would seem to rule them out entirely.

  It is Annie Desmond’s sixteenth birthday and her friends have decided to help her celebrate in style, complete with a brand new tattoo. Before her special night is over, however, Annie and her friends enter into a life altering pact. When Annie tries to make good on her promise to her friends, she is forced to take a good look at the world that surrounds her. She befriends Malik, who promises a bright future, and Keera, whose evangelical leanings inspire Annie in a way her young parents have not been able to do. In the end Annie’s choices propel her onto an irreversible path in this story that combines wit, poetry, and hope.

  By turns smartly funny and powerfully resonant, this latest play from acclaimed dramatist Terrence McNally (Love! Valour! Compassion!, Corpus Christi, Master Class) portrays a woman who pays an unexpected visit to the New York apartment of her late son’s partner, who is now married to another man and has a young son. Challenged to face how society has changed around her, generations collide as she revisits the past and begins to see the life her son might have led.

When starcatcher-in-training Molly meets an orphan boy longing for a home, they embark on the adventure of a lifetime to protect a precious cargo. In this Tony Award-winning, magical and hilarious play with music, a dozen brilliant actors play more than 100 unforgettable characters.  Peter and the Starcatcheruses ingenious stagecraft and the limitless possibilities of imagination to finally reveal the origins of Peter Pan, Wendy, the Lost Boys, their piratical nemesis, Captain Hook – and a far-off place known as Neverland.

Join ArtsWest as the season opens with acclaimed British director Richard Eyre’s stunning adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s GHOSTS. Described as scandalous work when it was first performed in 1892, the story follows widow Helene Alving as she tries to start her life anew after the death of her philandering husband. She is determined that her son will not follow his father’s footsteps, but when Oswald returns from France, she discovers that she may be too late.