The Old Globe’s 2023 season includes four world premieres, touching on the Olympics, baseball, time travel and a Russian literary classic.
In addition, the summer Shakespeare Festival will feature Twelfth Night, directed by Tony Award-winner Kathleen Marshall, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Globe Resident Artist James Vásquez.
The slate for the new season at the Old Globe in Balboa Park, beginning in January 2023:
- Jan. 21 to Feb. 26 – Tony Award-winner and MacArthur Fellow Mary Zimmerman both adapts and directs The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, based on the scientist’s and artist’s own notebooks.
- March 17 to April 23 – Oscar-nominee Kemp Powers – of film fame for Pixar’s Soul and One Night in Miami – wrote The XIXth (The Nineteenth), a premiere inspired by the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, where sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists in protest while accepting their medals. Directed by Carl Cofield.
- May 19 to June 25 – Karen Zacarías’s musical comedy, Destiny of Desire, an homage to the telenovela filled with live music and choreography, will be directed by Tony Award-winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
- July 1-30 – the theatrical company The 7 Fingers’s production of Passengers, an innovative blend of acrobatics, theater, music and dance in a performance about strangers in transit. Conceived and directed by Shana Carroll (Traces).
- Sept. 7 to Oct. 22 – a musical to be announced.
In addition, the upcoming season at the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, adjacent to the Old Globe, features three world premieres:
- Feb. 11 to March 12 – José Cruz González’s Under a Baseball Sky, a Globe-commissioned play about baseball’s deep roots in the Mexican-American community, is inspired by the Logan Heights community. Directed by Vásquez.
- April 8 to May 7 – Keiko Green’s Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play, a time-traveling adventure told through the eyes of an awkward Asian-American teen who makes a shocking discovery. Directed by Jesca Prudencio.
- July 15 to Aug. 13 – Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen’s Crime and Punishment, A Comedy, a Globe-commissioned play in which Dostoyevsky’s turn-of-the-century masterpiece takes a decided turn. Directed by Greenberg.
- Sept. 30 to Oct. 29 – the West Coast premiere of Alaudin Ullah’s Dishwasher Dreams, an autobiographical solo show that explores the American Dream through the eyes of the Americanized daughter of parents from Bangladesh. Directed by Chay Yew and featuring music by Avirodh Sharma.
Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein said the upcoming season highlights a “thrilling body of work (that) embodies the Globe’s values …” while also featuring San Diego-based talent.
“There’s something for every theatre lover in this season, and I am thrilled to bring the bounty of all of these works to audiences whose stalwart support continues to help the Globe make theater that matters,” he added.