Novato Theater Company Announces 2013-14 Season: NEXT TO NORMAL, GYPSY & More!

Long-time Novato residents will remember Pinky's Pizza in the shopping center on Nave Drive, or maybe the bowling alley that once was there as well. Nave Drive parallels Highway 101 and ends at the south end of Novato. Well, that's the center where the Novato Theater Company has moved and opened a cozy 99-seat theater.

Novato Theater Company has been a viable part of Marin County since 1919, performing in different venues and under different names. In 2004, they changed their name from Novato Community Players to the current Novato Theater Company. From 2006 to 2012, they worked out of the NTC Playhouse on Ignacio Boulevard in Novato.

Now NTC has moved to a new theatre space in a new location, one that has easy access and parking just off Highway 101 at 5420 Nave Drive.

"With a 94-year history behind us and a new theater space, we think of ourselves as the oldest start-up in Marin," quips NTC Board President Sandi Rubay.

Eager to start its exciting new season, NTC will open its first production while some of the finishing touches inside the theater space will not have been made. When you go to The Lion in Winter, (August 30-September 22) you won't find a lobby - - yet. But no matter - the stage, the seating, the lights, and the sets are all in place.

More importantly, the talented cast will be ready, under the guidance of award-winning director Kris Neely.

NTC is proud of the selections for its 2013-2014 season and its new digs. NTC is confident that its loyal audience will be, too.

NTC's 2013-2014 Season

Aug 30 - Sept 22, 2013 - The Lion in Winter by James Goldman.
The Lion in Winter is an engrossing historical drama depicting the personal and political conflicts of Henry II of England, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, their children and their guests during Christmas, 1183. On display is one of history's most powerful - and dysfunctional - families.

The deliciously convoluted story concerns the gamesmanship between Henry, Eleanor, whom Henry has imprisoned for ten years, their three surviving sons Richard,Geoffrey, and John, and their Christmas Court guest, the King of France, Philip II, who was the son of Eleanor's ex-husband, Louis VII of France (by his third wife,Adelaide). Also involved is Philip's half-sister Alais, who has been at court since she was betrothed to Richard at age eight, but has since become Henry's mistress.

It is palace intrigue and politics at the highest level.

The Lion in Winter was adapted by Goldman into an Academy Award-winning 1968 film of the same name, starring Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn.

The NTC production is directed by award-winning director Kris Neely.

Oct. 18 - Nov. 10, 2013 - Gypsy by Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim
Set during the vaudeville era, Gypsy is about the quintessential stage mother, Rose, traveling the country with her two daughters and their manager. While June and Louise wish their mother would settle down and marry Herbie, Rose continues to pursue dreams of stardom for her girls. But June deserts the act, and Rose tries to turn shy Louise into a star. When the act is booked into a burlesque house by mistake, Louise is forced into the spotlight and Gypsy Rose Lee is born. A classic of American musical theater.

Feb. 14 - March 9, 2014 - The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller's The Crucible dramatizes the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. It is a classic study of mass hysteria, when good people let their beliefs make them see what is not there. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the U.S. governmentblacklisted accused communists. Miller himself was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of "contempt of Congress" for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended. It was first performed on Broadway on January 22, 1953. The New York Times called it "a powerful play [in a] driving performance". The production won the 1953 "Best Play" Tony Award. Arthur Miller's play has become a classic and is a central work in the canon of American drama.

April 4 - 27 - Next to Normal by Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt
Next to Normal is a rock musical about a mother who struggles with worsening bipolar disorder and the effect that her illness has on her family. The musical also addresses such issues as grieving a loss, suicide, drug abuse, ethics in modern psychiatry, and life in the suburbs.

The show opened on Broadway in April 2009 and was nominated for eleven Tony Awards, winning three. It won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In awarding the prize to Kitt and Yorkey, the Pulitzer Board called the Next to Normal "a powerful rock musical that grapples with mental illness in a suburban family and expands the scope of subject matter for musicals."

Produced in association with Theatre at Large.

May 23 - June 15 - As You Like It by William Shakespeare.
One of the Bard's best-loved comedies, As You Like It mixes nobles and rustics in a warm and witty quest for freedom and romance. The play follows its heroineRosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin Celia and Touchstone the court jester, to find safety and eventually, love, in theForest of Arden. As You Like It features one of Shakespeare's most famous and oft-quoted speeches, "All the world's a stage", and is the origin of the phrase "too much of a good thing".

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