The 2021-2022 Theater Season
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To download photos, click here. Please contact for b roll. PRESS RELEASE FOR RELEASE: Tuesday, April 13, 2021 The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announces The 2021-2022 Theater Season The Four Most Recent Tony Award®–winning Best Musicals Hadestown, Hamilton, The Band’s Visit, and Dear Evan Hansen The Washington D.C. Premieres of Acclaimed Plays Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and, Direct from London, A Monster Calls Broadway Blockbusters and More Ain’t Too Proud, Beautiful, Blue Man Group, Freestyle Love Supreme, Jersey Boys, Jesus Christ Superstar, Mean Girls, Oklahoma!, The Prom, and Riverdance Broadway Center Stage Series to Return in Spring 2022 Kennedy Center New Play Commissions Partnering with Center Theater Group, Lookingglass Theatre Company, and Manhattan Theater Club (WASHINGTON)—The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced its 2021–2022 Theater season featuring hit Broadway musicals, acclaimed plays, Kennedy Center productions, special programming for the Center’s 50th Anniversary, and more, beginning in October 2021. Theater subscriptions for the 2021–2022 season are now available here or by calling (202) 467-4600. “I am elated to announce what is perhaps one of our most important theater seasons ever at the Kennedy Center as we return with such a full, exciting program of musicals and plays. The anticipation of being able to see Broadway productions again—and be in the theater together—is palpable,” said Jeffrey Finn, Vice President and Executive Producer of Theater at the Kennedy Center. “This upcoming season is filled with incredible shows and works from brilliant artists, offering something for everyone.” As the Kennedy Center moves towards a full re-opening, it continues to prioritize the health and safety of artists, staff, and patrons. Current protocols can be found here and will continue to be updated as they evolve. Hit Productions from Broadway and London Featuring the Best Musical Tony Award® winners from 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, the new season officially begins with the most recent Tony Award® winner for Best Musical, Hadestown, followed by the return of Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations—which played a sold-out, pre-Broadway engagement at the Kennedy Center in 2018—and Beautiful: the Carole King Musical, celebrating the life and career of the 2015 Kennedy Center Honoree. 2022 kicks off with the exuberant new musical, The Prom, and continues with the new national touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar; the international smash, Riverdance – The 25th Anniversary Show; the hilarious hit Mean Girls, which returns to D.C. where it sold-out a pre-Broadway run; 2019 Tony Award® winner for Best Musical Revival, Oklahoma!; and Freestyle Love Supreme, the hip hop-comedy-musical phenomenon that played a pre- Broadway engagement at the Kennedy Center in 2019. Two highly anticipated plays, originally planned for the 2019–2020 season, have been rescheduled for May and June of 2022, respectively. Patrick Ness’s piercing Carnegie and Greenaway Medal–winning novel, A Monster Calls, is brought to the Kennedy Center from London’s Old Vic by visionary director Sally Cookson in an exclusive U.S. engagement. The national tour of Aaron Sorkin’s acclaimed Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, depicting Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize–winning story of racial injustice, will make its Washington, D.C. debut. Hamilton, which was awarded a special Kennedy Center Honors in 2018, will return to the Kennedy Center Opera House for a 12-week run beginning in July of 2022. Summer of 2022 features the Tony Award®–winning Best Musical Jersey Boys; a return engagement of The Band’s Visit—the 2017 Tony Award® winner for Best Musical—which played a sold-out run at the Center in 2019; the euphoric, spirit-lifting global phenomenon Blue Man Group makes their Kennedy Center premiere; and Tony®, Grammy®, and Olivier®–winning Best Musical Dear Evan Hansen comes back to the Center following a sold-out engagement in 2019. Broadway Center Stage to Return in 2022 Now entering its fourth season, Broadway Center Stage has produced numerous sold-out, critically lauded, new Kennedy Center productions including The Music Man, The Who’s Tommy, and, most recently, Next to Normal. The series will continue in spring 2022 with new, starry productions of beloved musicals to be announced at a later date. Celebrating the Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary As previously announced, for the Center’s 50th Anniversary, the Kennedy Center will produce 50 Years of Broadway at the Kennedy Center, a star-studded concert celebrating the numerous iconic musicals the Center has launched and presented, such as Pippin, Annie, and Les Misérables, plus thrilling revivals from its stages to Broadway. Featuring Broadway’s best talent and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, whose roots go back to the opening of the Center in 1971, this event will celebrate many of the great musical theater moments from throughout the Center’s history. Previously announced for the 50th Anniversary are five new play commissions under the auspices of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Fifty years ago, Rogers Stevens asked his colleague Michael Kanin, the Academy Award®–winning screenwriter, to help launch a program for student playwrights in higher education. The Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards program, now with 17 annual awards for undergraduate and graduate playwrights, has become an essential component of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), the first education program of the institution. In this anniversary year, the Kennedy Center has co-commissioned plays by distinguished alumni of the Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards program: Ike Holter co-commissioned with Lookingglass Theatre Company (Chicago, IL); Molly Smith Metzler, co-commissioned with Manhattan Theater Club (New York, NY); Marco Ramirez, co-commissioned with Center Theater Group (Los Angeles, CA). Collaborators Hansol Jung and Brian Quijada, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Martyna Majok, will work with partner theatres to be announced at a later date. The Kennedy Center will host developmental workshops of each of these works during the spring and summer of 2022 at the REACH. The workshops will utilize D.C.-based acting companies with creative teams and affiliated artists assembled by the playwrights in collaboration with the co- commissioning partner theater companies from around the country. Student theater artists from the nationwide KCACTF network will staff each project as apprentices, continuing to look towards the future as the Center honors the past. A full listing of our generous sponsors can be found online. 2021–2022 Theater Season Schedule Performance Dates Theater Show October 13–31, 2021 Opera House Hadestown December 14, 2021– Opera House Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and January 16, 2022 Times of the Temptations December 14, 2021– Eisenhower Theater Beautiful: The Carole King January 2, 2022 Musical January 4–16, 2022 Eisenhower Theater The Prom February 22–March 13, 2022 Opera House Jesus Christ Superstar March 15–27, 2022 Opera House Riverdance – The 25th Anniversary Show April 5–24, 2022 Opera House Mean Girls April 5–10, 2022 Eisenhower Theater Oklahoma! TBD Throughout the Center Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival May 10–15, 2022 Eisenhower Theater Freestyle Love Supreme May 25–June 12, 2022 Eisenhower Theater A Monster Calls June 14–26, 2022 Eisenhower Theater Jersey Boys June 21–July 10, 2022 Opera House Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird July 5–July 17, 2022 Eisenhower Theater The Band’s Visit July 12–October 2, 2022 Opera House Hamilton July 19–31, 2022 Eisenhower Theater Blue Man Group August 31–September 25, 2022 Eisenhower Theater Dear Evan Hansen Ongoing, Theater Lab Shear Madness Returning October 5, 2021 Artists and performances are subject to change. Hadestown October 13–31, 2021 in the Opera House Winner of eight 2019 Tony Awards® including Best Musical and the 2020 Grammy® Award for Best Musical Theater Album, this acclaimed new show from celebrated singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and innovative director Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812) is a love story for today... and always. Intertwining two mythic tales—that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone—Hadestown is a haunting and hopeful theatrical experience that grabs you and never lets go. Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations December 14, 2021–January 16, 2022 in the Opera House Ain’t Too Proud is the electrifying new smash-hit Broadway musical that follows The Temptations’ extraordinary journey from the streets of Detroit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Nominated for 12 Tony Awards® and the winner of the 2019 Tony Award® for Best Choreography, it’s a thrilling story of brotherhood, family, loyalty, and betrayal during a decade of civil unrest in America. Set to the beat of the group’s treasured hits, including “My Girl,” “Just My Imagination,” “Get Ready,” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” Ain’t Too Proud tells the unforgettable story of the legendary quintet that Billboard Magazine named the greatest R&B group of all time. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical December 14, 2021–January 2, 2022 in the Eisenhower Theater Beautiful tells the inspiring true story of King’s remarkable rise to stardom, from being part of a hit songwriting team with her husband Gerry Goffin, to her relationship with fellow writers and best friends Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, to becoming one of the most successful solo acts in popular music history. Along the way, she made more than beautiful music, she wrote the soundtrack to a generation. Beautiful has a book by Tony Award® nominee and Academy Award®– nominated writer Douglas McGrath, direction by Marc Bruni, choreography by Josh Prince, and took home two 2014 Tony Awards® and the 2015 Grammy® for Best Musical Theater Album.