News

Playhouse announces 2019 season

Scott Treadway, Lisa K. Bryant, Paige Posey and Mark Warwick announced the 2019 lineup of shows on Monday.

By Bill Moss, Published: October 23, 2018

FLAT ROCK — While they didn’t have to make a big production out of it, they decided to make a big production out of it.

Starring Lisa K. Bryant, Scott Treadway, Paige Posey and Mark Warwick — with Nat Zegree on piano — the Flat Rock Playhouse 2019 Season Reveal drew more than 120 people — not bad for a free show on a chilly Monday night.
Heavy on country, comedy, proven past box office performers and animals, the lineup brings Music on the Rock shows back to the Mainstage for the first time since 2011 and banks on booking seats with popular family friendly fare like “All Shook Up” and “Jungle Book.”
Bryant, the theater’s producing artistic director, Posey, the Playhouse president, Treadway and Warwick read short bits from many of the shows while Kate Barton Hope, currently performing in the sensational “Pickin’ and a’grinnin’” show, lit up the stage with a cover of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.”
Bryant touted the new comfortable seats that will be ready in time for the season’s first show. Zegree provided backup piano and comic relief.
Here are the shows:

• The Music of the Beatles and the Eagles, Feb. 14-17. A Valentine’s Day weekend opener features two of the most popular acts from the ‘60s through the ‘80s.
• The Jungle Book. March 15-30. Rudyard Kipling’s journey of adventure tests friendship and loyalty.
  Sylvia! April 5-20. Man vs. wife, with a dog in between.
• From Mozart to Pop Charts, April 25-28. An excuse to showcase the hyperkinetic, Zegree it’s gotta be good.
• Country Loyalty, May 2-12. As the current once again shows, the Playhouse can flat-out put on country. This one features Hank Williams and Patsy Cline, two big stars who flickered out too soon.
• Proposals, May 17-June 1. Healing and redemption in a Neil Simon dramedy.
• South Pacific, June 7-July 6. The Playhouse banks on the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic to fill those new seats in a four-week run.
• Separate Beds, July 11-20. Yes, it’s true. A playwright named M.J. Cruise sites his comedy on a cruise in a “heartwarming and hilarious voyage of rediscovery.”
• All Shook Up, July 26-Aug. 18. Last staged here 10 years ago, the high-energy Elvis tribute lights up a dreary town.
• Bee Gees Gold, Aug. 23-24. Another good box office bet, the tribute salutes the hit-making band.
• Rounding Third, Aug. 29-Sept. 8. A “bro-medy” has two coaches debating life and drawing laughs, for there’s no crying in baseball.
• Cinematastic, Sept. 13-28. “What we call Music on the Rock, only supersized,” the musical salutes the silver screen in a song and dance extravaganza.
• Smoke on the Mountain, Oct. 4-19. Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the fall musical with a bluegrass and gospel soundtrack honors faith and family.
• The Turn of the Screw, Oct. 24-Nov. 2. In time for Halloween, the psychological thriller features a governess, two children and two ghosts. Boo!
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Nov. 8-17. C.S. Lewis’s coming-of-age classic is a Studio 52 Family Playhouse show.
• A Flat Rock Playhouse Christmas, Nov. 29-Dec. 22. A surprise hit with (mostly) local audiences last year, the Playhouse Christmas show is back this year and will be again to close the 2019 season. All new each year but with lots of familiar favorites, the show is vying to become a family tradition.