SCR to Open Season With ‘The Crucible’

After a banner year that brought a Tony Award and box-office records despite controversial programming, South Coast Repertory announced its 25th season Tuesday night at a gala dinner in Costa Mesa.

Beginning with a revival of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” (Sept. 9-Oct. 13), it will include four world premieres, two West Coast premieres and the debut of SCR’s California Play Festival, threatened earlier by the loss of state funding.

Miller’s play will be followed on the Mainstage by Mark Stein’s “At Long Last Leo” (Oct. 28-Dec. 1); Athol Fugard’s “The Road to Mecca” (Jan. 13-Feb. 16); George Bernard Shaw’s “You Never Can Tell” (March 3-April 6); Ellen McLaughlin’s “Infinity’s House” (April 21-May 25) and the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical “Sunday in the Park With George” (June 9-July 13).

With 36 characters, “Infinity’s House” will be one of the most ambitious productions ever undertaken at SCR. The play takes place in the desert and leaps back and forth in time between construction of the railroads and the testing of the atom bomb. It will be the centerpiece of the play festival and will run in repertory with two as yet undetermined works.

Producing artistic director David Emmes said he and artistic director Martin Benson wanted the offerings “to reflect the richness and diversity of literature that have been the hallmark of SCR. The season will be every bit as strong and challenging as last,” Emmes added. “Obviously it doesn’t have the strong language of ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ or the (Nazi) subject matter of ‘Aunt Dan and Lemon.’ So it may seem less controversial. But we certainly haven’t retreated from our principle of providing our audience with the most stimulating plays we can.”

On the Second Stage, the offerings will be more offbeat. They will include the West Coast premiere of Eric Overmyer’s “In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe” (Sept. 23-Oct. 23), Lanford Wilson’s “Talley’s Folly” (Jan. 27-Feb. 26) and Christopher Durang’s most recent play, “Laughing Wild,” another West Coast premiere (March 17-April 16).