Barksdale Theatre launches “Richmond Loves Broadway”

If you love show tunes, you're in luck. In addition to other fare around town in the next year, you'll have access to "Richmond Loves Broadway," a new subscription series from Barksdale Theatre.

Subscribers to the four-production "Richmond Loves Broadway" package will get tickets to "Wicked," the Broadway blockbuster that will visit the Landmark Theater in 2010 ("Wicked" is part of the new "Broadway in Richmond" series run by Chicago-based Jam Theatricals), and to two shows from Barksdale's 2009-10 Signature Season: the Tony Award-winning "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" and the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic "The Sound of Music."

For their fourth selection, subscribers will be able to choose either Barksdale's final 2008-09 offering -- "Thoroughly Modern Millie," opening tomorrow at the Empire Theatre -- or the melodic romantic comedy "They're Playing Our Song," which will pop up in 2010 at Barksdale's Hanover Tavern venue.

In addition to "Spelling Bee" and "Sound of Music," Barksdale will offer a diverse slate in the 2009-10 season. Several of the shows will be co-productions. "Partnership is the name of the game," said Barksdale artistic director Bruce Miller.

Kicking off proceedings in September will be José Rivera's play "Boleros for the Disenchanted," to be mounted in association with the Latin Ballet of Virginia.

For the 2010 Acts of Faith festival, Barksdale and the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Theatre will co-produce Frank Galati's dramatization of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath."

Lightening the mood, Barksdale will stage the comedy "Is He Dead?" adapted by playwright David Ives from a long-lost Mark Twain script. Theatre IV will co-produce "The Sound of Music."

Additionally, with the African American Repertory Theatre, Barksdale will co-produce Langston Hughes' "Black Nativity" and the church-hats musical "Crowns."

Theatre IV, which caters to young audiences, and which shares an administration with Barksdale, ups the ante in 2009-10.

In addition to "The Sound of Music," the offerings -- all musicals and all bound for the Empire Theatre will consist of "The Ugly Duckling," a riff on the Hans Christian Andersen tale; the evergreen "A Christmas Carol"; "The Song of Mulan," an adaptation of a Chinese folk poem; "Buffalo Soldier," based on a true story from the Spanish-American War; and the fairy-tale dramatization "Jack and the Beanstalk."

That makes six productions -- two more than Theatre IV has staged in any previous main-stage season. Miller says the increase will ensure that youngsters of all ages find something to enjoy.

Celia Wren is a former managing editor of American Theatre magazine. Contact her at .