Majestic Repertory Theatre has been on an unassailable creative tear since the lifting of pandemic restrictions, presenting such popular hits as The Sandman, The Craft and Clown Bar 2 (now playing through June 12). Nevertheless, the Arts District-based theater company struck a cautious tone in an email announcing its 2022-2023 season: "Let's not call it a 'season,' shall we? It's a 'slate,'" the email reads. "The last time we announced a 'season,' you know what happened: we spent two years struggling for survival in uncertain times."
If Majestic's creative director Troy Heard is at all trepidatious about creating theater in this desperate, dispiriting cultural moment, you wouldn't know it from the company's bold upcoming slate. It begins on September 29 with Topher Payne's 2018 Angry F*gs, a dark political satire in which "a hate crime becomes the lynchpin in a left-wing terrorist movement." January 19, 2023 sees the return of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's glam rock masterpiece Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a heartbreaking and quietly triumphant story of gender identity, true love and cool wigs. It's followed on March 9 by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's deathless Inherit the Wind, an American courtroom drama that's every bit as relevant now as it was in 1955.
Several more productions are in work for 2023 but don't yet have firm dates. Night of the Living Dead (Abridged) squeezes George Romero's zombie epic down to a bite-sized cast of three. The Wild Party, based on Joseph Moncure March's 1926 narrative poem, is an interactive night of Jazz Age fun and debauchery. And Poisoning Pigeons in the Park is an old-fashioned revue built from the songs of mathematician and master musical satirist Tom Lehrer.
Tickets for Majestic's upcoming season go on sale soon, assuming we're not laid flat by another virus, armed insurrection or economic recessions. Whatever happens, Majestic will do its best to put a smile on it. "Come to [Majestic] and see a larger story: one of where we are as a country, where we've been and where we might possibly be," the email concludes. "I guess, if you WANT to call this a 'season,' it could be themed: 'The more things change...'"
