Curtains Up: Clarence Brown Theatre director announces wildly diverse 2014-15 season

Clarence Brown Theatre Artistic Director Cal MacLean trying some candied bacon, a trademark of caterer Holly Hambright.

Over what he described as a “family breakfast,” Clarence Brown Theatre‘s artistic director, Cal MacLean, recently announced the eight plays that will make up the theater’s 2014-15 season. And what a diverse lineup it is for the theater’s 40th anniversary year.

The offerings range from classics, including plays by Shakespeare and Dickens, to more recent works about inter-generational relationships and racism.

The Clarence Brown is both a professional theater company serving the community and the university and a learning laboratory for students and graduate students in the University of Tennessee’s acclaimed Department of Theatre. MacLean serves both as artistic director of the Clarence Brown Theatre and as head of the Department of Theatre.

Guests at the breakfast, held in the theater’s lobby, included sponsors and top level season ticket holders. “It’s good to have breakfast with the family,” MacLean laughed.

So, here’s the lineup:

• Season opener is “Hank Williams: Lost Highway.” What MacLean described as “a jukebox musical,” this play is about “an artist who is falling apart,” he said. Country singer and songwriter Hank Williams spent the last night of his life in the Andrew Johnson Hotel in downtown Knoxville, making it even more interesting for those of us who call Knoxville home.
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  Georgiana Vines is chair of the Clarence Brown Theatre’s Advisory Board. David Byrd is managing director.

  In October, comes William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker,” about the life of Helen Keller. “This play is really about what it’s like to be human,” MacLean said.

• Next is a recent play called “4,000 Miles,” featuring Carol Mayo Jenkins. “It’s about inter-generational misunderstandings,” MacLean said.
• For the holidays, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” “We are going to mess around with the production a little bit,” MacLean teased.
• At the first of the year comes what MacLean described as “one of my favorite plays,” “Master Harold … and the Boys.” Set in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, it deals with the subject of “cultural racism,” he said.
• Then, Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” “It’s one of the most beautiful and poetic of Shakespeare’s plays,” MacLean said. “And also the funniest.”
• In the spring, “A Shayna Maidel.” Set in Brooklyn in 1946, it is about a Jewish family, the bonds of sisterhood and the gulf  created when one sister spends years in a Nazi concentration camp and the other is raised as an American. “There won’t be a dry eye in the house!” MacLean announced confidently.
• Season closer is Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera,” which he said is about “capitalism and the effect of money, both positively and negatively.” The story, he said, involves “a glamorous playboy criminal murderer and the four women who love him.” It is set in a contemporary nightclub, in this version of the play.

So, there you have it. Box office phone number is 865-974-5161. See you in the theater!

The Clarence Brown Theatre “family” likes mimosas at breakfast!

And Bloody Marys. That’s my husband, Alan Carmichael, getting mine for me! Thanks, honey.

Polly Anna Harris has been attending plays at the Clarence Brown Theatre for 50 years!

Holly Hambright, of Holly’s Eventful Dining, generously donated the breakfast.

Who doesn’t love a big wheel of brie?

Finger sandwiches

And sweets, of course.

Waiting for the announcement.

Sheena McCall, center, with Dawn and Richard Ford

Mimi Turner, left, and Maggie Erickson

Don and Jan Simpson

Dr. Lynn and Georgia Blake