Bay Street Theater Announces 'The Forgotten Woman,' 'My Fair Lady' for 2016
Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater has revealed two of the three plays that will make up its 2016 Mainstage Season: The Alan Jay Lerner classic My Fair Lady and the world premiere of The Forgotten Woman.
By Jonathan Tolins, who also wrote the new comedy Buyer & Cellar, The Forgotten Woman tells the story of Margaret Meier, a gifted soprano on the verge of a major operatic career. When a handsome reporter shows up at her Chicago hotel room, this anything-but-diva-like diva is forced to grapple with every aspect of her life – her less-than-passionate marriage, her child, her ambition, her weight, and the price she must pay in a most demanding and irrational art form.
Noah Himmelstein directs.
May Fair Lady, with music by Frederick Loewe, is adapted from George Bernard Show’s play and Gabriel Pascal’s film Pygmalion. At the center of My Fair Lady is Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower seller who takes speech lessons from Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, in order to pass as a lady. Their relationship, which starts on a bet as student and pupil, becomes much more than either of them could ever have expected.
Bay Street’s intimate production will feature a two piano arrangement of the score and an up-close perspective that will bring out the humanity and complexity of the characters and relationships for a new vision of this classic musical, according to the theater.
“These two productions continue to affirm Bay Street’s commitment to new works and visionary new productions of great classics,” Bay Street Theater Artistic Director Scott Schwartz says. “They also both focus on strong and complex women, and in Margaret Meier and Eliza Doolittle we will get to spend the summer with two great female characters. Our 25th season will be full of an exciting array of diverse work, and will be one of our best yet!”
The Mainstage season begins on May 31 and runs through August 28. Bay Street states that the third play in the season will be announced soon.