Chautauqua Theater Company (CTC), under the leadership of Vivienne Benesch Artistic Director and Sarah Clare Corporandy Managing Director, is proud to announce programming for its 30th Anniversary season featuring Tennessee Williams’ classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (June 28-July 7), the Pulitzer and Tony-winning Clybourne Park (July 19-28) and Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors (August 9-16) on the Bratton Theater Mainstage. CTC’s innovative The New Play Workshop (July 11-13; August 1-3) will present two exciting new plays and in a signature CHQ event two years in the making, The Romeo & Juliet Project will re-interpret this classic tale of star-crossed lovers in a ground-breaking multi-disciplinary reimagining on July 27 on the celebrated 5000-seat Ampitheater stage.

Single tickets and group packages go on sale April 1. Tickets to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Clybourne Park and The Comedy of Errors are $30; tickets to the New Play Workshop are $15. Ticket packages range from $65 – $150. Tickets for The Romeo & Juliet Project are $40. Order by phone at (716) 357-6250, M-F 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. or order online at www.ciweb.org.

Founded in 1983 as the resident theater company on the grounds of the historic Chautauqua Institution is western New York’s premier summer arts festival; Chautauqua Theatre Company’s season runs for eight weeks from June 28 through August 16.

An American Classic

The raw emotions and crackling dialogue of Tennessee Williams’ 1955 Pulitzer Prize winning play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof rumble like a thunderstorm in this masterwork of family guilt, frustration and greed. Directed by Lisa Rothe (CTC’s Ah! Wilderness, Off-Broadway’s Hold These Truths), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof kicks off the 30th Anniversary season from June 28 through July 7.

A Contemporary Masterpiece

Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and 2012 Tony Award, Clybourne Park is a wickedly funny and fiercely provocative new play about race, real estate and the volatile values of each. Picking up where Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun leaves off, the play traces the history of a house, a neighborhood and the people who have come and gone over the course of fifty years. Bruce Norris’s pitch-black comedy takes on the issues of gentrification in our communities, leaving no stone unturned in the process. Performances are July 19 – 28. CTC welcomes back Davis McCallum (CTC’s Arcadia) to direct after his recent successes at the helm of 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning Water by the Spoonful and Playwrights Horizons’ The Whale.

Shakespeare for the Whole Family

In The Comedy of Errors, not one, but two sets of identical twins, separated at birth, find themselves in the same city, on the same fast-paced, bewildering day in Shakespeare’s riotous farce of wild misadventures and mistaken identities. Performances are August 9 through 16. The play, Shakespeare’s shortest and silliest comedy is perfect fare for the whole family and promises to feature a circus of surprises. CTC Associate Artistic Director Andrew Borba directs.

The New Play Workshop – July 11-13; August 1-3

Continuing to build on the enormous success of new play development at CHQ, we once again present two workshop signature readings of fresh plays by important new voices in the American theater. Be a vital part of the process: participate in post-show discussions and other related events with playwrights, actors and the creative teams. Play titles and directors TBA.

The World’s Greatest Love Story

Chautauqua Institution’s production of The Romeo & Juliet Project on Saturday, July 27, is an original retelling of Shakespeare’s timeless love story and the first in a three-year series of projects featuring the collaborative efforts both off and onstage of CHQ’s signature arts programs, including Chautauqua Opera Company, Chautauqua Theater Company, Chautauqua Dance, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, and the Chautauqua Music Festival.

Shakespeare, Prokofiev, Gounod, Berlioz, Ellington, Bernstein, Sondheim, Dire Straits and more join forces to retell the world’s most inspiring love story in word, song, dance, and music.

No other work of dramatic literature has been interpreted by as many artists and left as many enduring masterpieces in the performing arts cannon as this tale of star-crossed lovers. Conceived, curated and directed by Vivienne Benesch, the work unites for the first time the combined talents of five great performing arts companies under the Chautauqua Institution’s umbrella. Heralding a new era of collaborative art-making, The Romeo & Juliet Project will inaugurate an annual series that celebrates the Institution with a work that could only be created amongst the unique “ecstatic mix of arts” central to CHQ.

About Chautauqua Theater Company

Celebrating its 30th Anniversary Season in 2013, the Chautauqua Theater Company is the resident professional theater and Conservatory of the Chautauqua Institution. Internationally known actors, directors, designers and writers join 20 emerging artists drawn from the nation’s top training programs to form a unique company that produces a vibrant summer of work in the historic Bratton Theater. Dedicated to the next generation of theater artists, the development of new work, first rate productions of modern and contemporary classics, and fresh insight into Shakespeare’s cannon, this “full service” company provides the best a year-round regional theater has to offer in the period of an eight week summer season.