The Hilberry Theatre will kick off its 52nd season on Sept. 19 with the popular farce Boeing Boeing. This season will feature comedies and dramas that have collectively earned 19 Tony and Drama Desk award nominations.
The most performed French play in history, Boeing Boeing has been adapted several times and was turned into a popular 1965 movie starring Jerry Lewis and Tony Curtis. The English-language translation by Beverley Cross and Francis Evans opened for the first time in London starring David Tomlinson (Mary Poppins).
The play centers on French bachelor Bernard, who lives a happy, structured life according to strict airline timetables — the American stewardess for breakfast, the Italian one for lunch and the German for dinner. With the invention of a faster Boeing jet, schedules begin to shift and Bernard finds himself host to three fiancés at the same time. With the help of a loyal butler and an intrigued friend, he manages to keep them apart as long as possible.
The Hilberry welcomes guest director Lenny Banovez, co-founder and artistic director of New York City’s TITAN Theatre Company, for the production. Banovez has worked as an actor and director in New York and at regional theatres throughout the country, including Cherry Lane Theatre, Theatre Row, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Texas Shakespeare Festival and Virginia Shakespeare Festival.
The 2014-15 season continues with William Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet (Oct. 24-Dec. 13); an evening of one-act comedies from renowned playwright David Ives with All in the Timing (Nov. 21-Jan. 31); The Way of the World, William Congreve’s mockery of the upper class (Jan.16-March 7); and Arthur Miller’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s classic drama, An Enemy of the People (Feb. 20-March 28), playing in repertory. The season will close with Patrick Barlow’s hilarious spoof of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (April 10-25).
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