A Year Dark, The Madison Lyric Stage Is Back For 2021 Season

MADISON, CT —Dark for a year, the curtain will rise again as professional theater company Madison Lyric Stage will present a 2021 mainstage season.

“It has been a long and painful year of loss and isolation for so many of us,” artistic director Marc Deaton said. “We are thrilled to be able to once again present live theater – and do it in a way that will be safe for our audiences, casts and crews. I believe we are all eager to once again come together in community to experience the joy that can only come from live performance.”

All of the productions will be presented entirely outdoors under a tent on the grounds of the Deacon John Grave House in Madison’s historic district with COVID-19 safety guidelines in place including socially-distanced seating and face masks for audience members.

The season begins with The Sun Sits Low: An Evening of Stephen Sondheim in June, the landmark Mart Crowley play 'The Boys in the Band' will be staged in July and a double bill of Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Schoenberg’s Erwartung will be presented in September.

All three productions will be directed by Deaton.

The Sun Sits Low: An Evening of Stephen Sondheim – June 11-13
The music of Stephen Sondheim, composer of Into the Woods, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Company and many others, has always been a favorite with Madison Lyric Stage. As we resume public performances after a year of being away, we return to the music we presented at our very first concert, with an evening of some of Sondheim’s most loved songs. This evening features a cast of 14 singers, interpreting the magical, urbane, funny and poignant songs from the canon of this prolific Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning composer.

The Boys in the Band – July 22–August 1
Before Stonewall, before AIDS, before Marriage Equality – there was Mart Crowley’s landmark play The Boys in the Band. It premiered Off-Broadway in 1968 and was turned into a film the next year by the director William Friedkin. In 2018, it premiered on Broadway for its 50th anniversary, and was a celebrated Netflix film in 2020. The Tony Award-winning play revolves around a group of gay men who gather for a birthday party in New York City, and was groundbreaking for its humorous and poignant portrayal of gay life. The play has been called "a true theatrical game-changer, helping spark a revolution by putting gay men's lives onstage — unapologetically and without judgment — in a world that was not yet willing to fully accept them."

Suor Angelica and Erwartung – September 9-19
Puccini’s beloved one-act opera Suor Angelica (“Sister Angelica”) contains moments of harrowing drama and unequaled redemptive beauty. Sister Angelica, a Florentine noblewoman, has been forced by her family to enter a convent after giving birth to a child out of wedlock - and for seven years has in vain waited for tidings from her family. Finally, Angelica’s aunt, the Princess, comes to visit to reveal the fate of the child she was forced to give away, and to cruelly ask her to sign away her rights to her inheritance. Schoenberg’s Erwartung (“Expectation”) is a one-act monodrama that follows a lone individual through the forest in search of a lost lover. Suor Angelica will be performed in Italian with English subtitles; Erwartung will be performed in English.

Madison Lyric Stage is supported in part by generous gifts from The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Guilford Savings Bank, the Maureen E. and Peter F. Dalton Fund of The Madison Foundation, and the New Alliance Foundation, along with support from the Connecticut Office of the Arts, which also receives funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Madison Lyric Stage is an award-winning, non-profit arts collective serving the Connecticut shoreline. Its mission is to expand participation in the arts by presenting accessible, inclusive and affordable professional-quality opera, musical theater and drama. Past productions include: A Little Night Music, Agnes of God, Blithe Spirit, Company, Evita, Godspell, Hansel and Gretel, Into the Woods, Jesus Christ Superstar, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men, Peter Grimes, Salome, The Glass Menagerie, The Turn of the Screw, and many others.

Madison Lyric Stage is offering money-saving subscriptions for its three mainstage shows, according to its news release. Learn more at madisonlyricstage.org or by calling 203-215-6329.