Zimmerman, Hwang in Berkeley Rep 2012-13 season
New works by David Henry Hwang, Mary Zimmerman and Lisa Peterson highlight a Berkeley Repertory Theatre season notable for the returns of four of the nation's top directors to the company's stages. Besides Zimmerman and Peterson, the directors include Mark Wing-Davey ("Mad Forest" at the Rep, "Angels in America" at American Conservatory Theater) and Leigh Silverman (Lisa Kron's "Well" and "In the Wake"). A world premiere by up-and-coming playwright Dan LeFranc completes the five works to be announced today for the seven-play 2012-13 season.
The season opens in August with Hwang's "Chinglish," a culture-clash comedy about an American trying to negotiate a lucrative contract in China by the author of "M. Butterfly," "FOB" and "Yellow Face." Silverman, who directed its recent Broadway run, will stage its West Coast premiere.
Peterson, who last directed a memorable "Mother Courage" at the Rep in '06, will direct "An Iliad," her own adaptation (written with actor Denis O'Hare) of Homer's epic, in October. The inexhaustibly inventive Zimmerman ("Metamorphoses," "Arabian Nights") fills the holiday slot with her dramatization of an ancient Chinese tale, "The White Snake," now playing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
