Sag Harbor's Bay Street Theater has announced the three shows of its 2022 summer season, all of which, according to Scott Schwartz, its artistic director, “are planned, currently at least, to be in the theater.” With the Omicron variant on the rise, he added, “As we all know, it’s hard to predict. We will do whatever is necessary as we get into the summer to make sure everybody’s safe.”
The three productions are “Windfall” (May 31-June 19), a new comedy by Scooter Pietsch to be directed by Jason Alexander; “Anna in the Tropics” (June 28-July 24), a Pulitzer Prize-winning play from 2003 by Nilo Cruz, directed by Marcos Santana, and “Ragtime” (Aug. 2-Aug. 28), the adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s award-winning novel, with music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and book by Terrence McNally. Will Pomerantz will direct.
“Windfall” is about five office workers in Ohio who have a maniacal supervisor and dreams of a better life. When their boss becomes too much to bear, they pool their money on a million-dollar lottery jackpot. The prospect of winning, however, brings out the worst in the friends.
Bay Street had planned to include “Windfall” in its 2020 summer program, before the pandemic hit. “I’m really glad we are finally able to present it,” said Mr. Schwartz. “It’s funny, it’s edgy, it’s silly, it’s a little dark, so I think it’s a playful wild ride for the audience.”
As for Mr. Alexander, “He has been a friend of the theater, and he performed at one of our galas, but this will be his first full project with us. We’re really excited to have him directing.”
“Anna in the Tropics” is set in a cigar factory in Tampa, Fla., in 1929, and focuses on the lives of the workers and the Cuban immigrant family that owns it. The play incorporates a tradition of the time: a lector who reads to the workers as they hand-roll each cigar. The lector is reading “Anna Karenina,” which inspires many of the workers to change their lives, “some for the better, some for perhaps not the better,” according to Mr. Schwartz.
In his New York Times review of the original production, Ben Brantley wrote, “In evoking the lost Cuban-American world of a Florida cigar factory in 1929, Mr. Cruz has created a work as wistful and affectingly ambitious as its characters.”
In “Ragtime,” the worlds of a wealthy white couple, a Jewish immigrant father and his daughter, and a Black ragtime musician, intertwine in early-20th-century America.
“I think ‘Ragtime’ is one of the best Broadway musicals in the last 50 years," said Mr. Pomerantz, Bay Street’s associate artistic director. "It also happens to deal with some things that are integral to our experience as Americans, issues of immigration, race, and how we treat each other.”
He believes that the original Broadway production was overproduced. “What excites me is that at Bay Street we have developed a house style with an intimate focus on the characters and story that we’ve rethought for our more intimate space. The phrase I like to use is, 'We’ve created 'intimate spectacle.' ” Mr. Pomerantz also directed the theater’s 2018 production of “Evita,” which was set in a basement tango bar.
Subscriptions for the summer 2022 season are now available on the theater’s website.
More Coming From Bay Street
Garrison Keillor, best known as the creator and host of “Prairie Home Companion,” will bring “Garrison Keillor Tonight,” an evening of stand-up, storytelling, music, and poetry, to the theater on April 23.
Paula Poundstone, a Bay Street favorite, will return during the Memorial Day weekend with her observational humor and spontaneous wit. Tickets are available now for both shows, which will likely sell out.
Applications are being accepted now through Jan. 17 for the 2022 summer internship program, via a portal on the theater’s website. Accepted students will help design, produce, and market the programs of the 2022 summer season. More information is available from Allen O’Reilly, the theater’s director of education, at [email protected].
The theater has also announced the founding of the Bay Street Theater Student Academy, a theater program for eastern Long Island children and teenagers. Auditions for the first production, “The Addams Family,” will begin on Jan. 24.
