Pasadena Playhouse wades into the vaccine debate with 2025-26 season led by Tony winner 'Eureka Day'

Pasadena Playhouse announced a 2025-26 play Thursday led by Jonathan Spector’s satire “Eureka Day,” a recently minted Tony Award victor for champion revival of a play, which centers connected a mumps outbreak astatine a progressive backstage schoolhouse successful Berkeley whose PTA tries to travel up with a vaccine argumentation that suits everyone — to hilarious results successful an epoch of vaccine skepticism.

“In these times we request laughter and we request to beryllium capable to deliberation critically astir ourselves,” Playhouse producing creator manager Danny Feldman said. “An assemblage laughing unneurotic is specified a bully entranceway to dense themes and large ideas.”

Next up volition beryllium Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus,” which opened successful 1979 and won the Tony for champion play successful 1981 with Ian McKellen winning pb histrion honors. Director Miloš Forman made it into a 1984 film, which won 8 Oscars including champion picture. Shaffer besides won an Oscar for champion adapted screenplay. The communicative is simply a fictional relationship of the contentious narration betwixt Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his rival, Antonio Salieri, the tribunal composer of the Austrian emperor.

Calling “Amadeus” 1 of the large pieces of humanities fabrication for theater, Feldman said it’s a amusement he’s been readying for the Playhouse for rather immoderate time.

Another Feldman favorite, and the 3rd amusement connected adjacent season’s calendar, is simply a world-premiere adaptation of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1947 musical, “Brigadoon.” The adaptation, by Alexandra Silber, remains existent to the original, Feldman said, but “really puts it guardant for today’s assemblage ... with covert but impactful changes that sharpen it successful an breathtaking way.”

The two-person hip-hop musical, “Mexodus,” rounds retired the main signifier offerings. A 5th amusement volition beryllium announced astatine a aboriginal date.

Written by and starring Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson, “Mexodus” explores the small known past of the Underground Railroad to Mexico. Using looped philharmonic tracks that the men laic down unrecorded during the show, the accumulation follows the travel of an enslaved antheral who flees southbound and meets a rancher.

“It’s much of a philharmonic acquisition than a accepted musical, truthful it’s precise genre busting and innovative,” Feldman said of the method utilized to bring the euphony to life. “It’s a spot of a magic trick.”

Two household shows are connected the schedule: “The Song of the North,” created, designed and directed by Hamid Rahmanian for children ages 6-12; and “The Lizard and El Sol,” primitively developed and produced by the Alliance Theater successful Atlanta for ages 5 and younger.

The erstwhile volition beryllium presented connected the Playhouse’s main stage, which is simply a departure from past household programming. “Hamid Rahmanian’s Song of the North,” based connected a classical Persian emotion communicative and presented adjacent the Iranian New Year, promises breathtaking visuals done the usage of 483 handmade shadiness puppets wielded by talented puppeteers.

“The Lizard & El Sol,” staged astatine section parks arsenic good arsenic successful the Playhouse courtyard, tells the charming communicative of a lizard successful hunt of the recently missing sun. It’s based connected a Mexican folktale and presented mostly successful Spanish, though it tin beryllium enjoyed by non-Spanish speakers too, Feldman said.

“We don’t look astatine our household programming arsenic separate,” says Feldman. “It’s truly halfway to our mission.”

The play announcement comes during a banner twelvemonth for Pasadena Playhouse. The State Theater of California celebrated its 100th day successful May, and successful April it announced it had raised $9.5 cardinal to bargain backmost the historical field it mislaid to bankruptcy successful 1970 — putting the institution successful complaint of its destiny for the archetypal clip successful much than 50 years.

That bully quality came 2 years aft the theatre became the second-ever L.A. enactment to triumph the the Regional Theatre Tony Award.

“As we purchased our gathering and came into this infinitesimal of reasoning astir the adjacent century, it felt similar determination was a precise large duty with this season,” Feldman said. “How are we turning the country into our adjacent chapter?”

His answer: “An enlargement and continuation of what I deliberation we bash champion astatine the Playhouse,” which is to deliberation astir the presumption of creation and theatre done a California lens.

Feldman said that with it being the authorities theater, helium feels a unsocial work to guarantee that the enactment presented connected the Playhouse signifier engages with the satellite — but that it is besides theatre for everyone.

“What I emotion astir this twelvemonth is that it truly is the afloat spectrum,” Feldman said. “Comedies and tragedies and musicals and plays — aged things and caller things and kids’ things.”

For tickets and further accusation astir the upcoming season, spell to pasadenaplayhouse.org.