Playhouse announces new season, pricing
Youngstown Playhouse is bringing back some past productions and introducing a new scaled pricing model for its 2022-23 season.
The season will open Sept. 23 with “Sister Act,” a musical adaptation by Alan Menken, Glenn Slater, Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner of the 1992 hit film about a singer who goes into hiding at a convent after witnessing a mob murder. Emma Wason will direct.
Pat Foltz, who directed the Ed Howard / Jaston Williams / Joe Sears comedies “Greater Tuna” and “A Tuna Christmas” in the Playhouse’s Moyer Room in 2017 and 2018, respectively, will take the holiday show to the mainstage starting Dec. 9. The show brings back characters from “Greater Tuna” as they deal with a Christmas phantom who is destroying yard displays and a Christmas production plagued by technical difficulties.
The mainstage season will conclude June 16, 2023, with Patrick Barlow’s “The 39 Steps,” a spoof of the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name. The Playhouse first staged the show in 2012, and three of the four actors will reprise their roles in a production in tribute to David Jendre, the show’s original director, who died in 2020.
Shows planned in the smaller Moyer Room performance space include:
• Nov. 11 — “The Day They Shot John Lennon,” a play about a group of strangers who gather at the site of Lennon’s murder. Frank Martin will direct.
• Feb. 23, 2023 — “Outside Mullingar,” a drama by John Patrick Shanley set on a farm in rural Ireland. Christopher Fidram will direct.
• April 14, 2023 — “Pass Over,” a play by Antoinette Nwandu about two African-American males whose conversation about their lives and their dreams is interrupted by a stranger. Thomas Fields will direct.
Each show will run for two weekends.
Youngstown Playhouse Youth Theatre has two offerings planned for the mainstage. “Excalibur High,” written and directed by Jim Canacci, follows three young scholars at a 15th century educational institution who work together to prevent dark forces from taking over the academy. It will be staged Oct. 27 to 30.
Savannah Teter will direct “Newsies Jr.,” a stage production based on the Disney live-action musical “Newsies.” It is scheduled May 19 to 21, 2023.
Instead of charging the same price for all seats for mainstage productions, prices now will vary depending upon seat location. Tier 1 (seats in the first seven rows) will be $27 per show and $78 for a flex pass (good for four tickets in any combination). Tier 2 (rear orchestra, rows 8 to 12) are $22 per show or $63 per flex pass. Rear orchestra seats (the last six rows) are $17 per show and $48 per flex pass.
All ADA-accessible seating is $17, and all seats for Moyer Room shows are $17.
Tier 1 flex passes are available for $68 and tier 2 passes are available for $58 if purchased by Aug. 7. Prices do not include a $3 fee per ticket or flex pass and a $2 fee per exchange. Individual tickets will go on sale six weeks before each production opens.
Flex passes are available online at youngstownplayhouse.org, by calling the Playhouse box office at 330-788-8739 between 10 a.m. 5 p.m. weekdays and in person at the DeYor Performing Arts Center box office.
